John

27 minutes ago, Jim L said:

You got me. I can claim at least one victim of my little jape; my wife. She’s visiting our grandson, Achilles, and I texted her:

It did not go super smoothly, indeed! I’ll wait to see how long it takes for her to catch on. Maybe throw in a few more disasters for good measure…

Did I catch anyone else out there, if only for a moment? I’m looking at you, John.

Guilty as charged - I took it at face value because it was posted well before the dawning of the 1st of April here in the UK 🙂

Jon Isaacs on CN certainly seems to be "fully engaged" with the topic ! 😁

Tegmine close pair: ~4 inch to get resolution, ~5 inch to split 🙂

Hi,

The only way to know for sure that they are meteoric is to get a sample from them analysed by a recognised meteorite laboratory such as the Natural History Museum in London:

 Meteorites | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)

In the USA, the USGS provides the following advice:

I think I found a meteorite. How can I tell for sure? | U.S. Geological Survey (usgs.gov)

1 hour ago, Stu said:

I wonder what the date is today? 🤣

That was called on CN but the OP is still playing it straight there 🙂

Can you actually see Antares from Scotland ?

That's a challenging double as well. I've done it a couple of times from down here in the SW UK, as it flits between local houses !

Interesting.

Drilling the tube of a Celestron is one thing but I'm not sure that I could bring myself to do the same on an AP Stowaway to gain that slight inwards movement of the DT bar.

Hope it works well for you though 🙂

1 hour ago, mikeDnight said:

The Seestar is obviously giving you a lot of enjoyment Paul, and it's nice to see the images it produces,  but it's not the same as seeing something for yourself through an eyepiece.  

 I first saw the spiral structure in M51 visually back in 2001 when using a 6" Helion F8 achromat. I was out of town and at a dark site and so was well dark adapted, but it struck me that if I could see the spiral and the bridge, why did it not get discovered sooner as it wasn't difficult, but neither was it immediately obvious.

 

My 1st experience of seeing, with my eye at an eyepiece, spiral galaxy structure was M51 with a Skywatcher 12 inch dob at my first SGL star party which must have been around 13 years ago now. Saw my 1st supernova with that scope as well. Magical memories 🙂

A couple of years later the same target with a 20 inch David Lukehust dob gave such an "in my face" view of the spiral structure that it's still engraved on my memory.

To echo part of what @Stu says above, I had a 12 inch F/5.3 dob based on an Orion Optics tube and a custom made base which broadly followed the OO small footprint design.

The overall weight of that scope + mount was similar to a 10 inch chinese made dob.

I'd previously had a 12 inch Meade Lightbridge and found it too heavy for me so moving to the OO based dob meant that I could keep the aperture, get slightly better optics and be able to set the scope up and tear it down quite quickly and without feeling that I was risking an injury of some sort !

I did consider getting a 14 inch OO dob a couple of times but doing the maths made me realise that I would be back where I was with the Lightbridge 12 in terms of overall weight. So I stuck with the 12 inch for over a decade.

Just a few favourite double stars tonight with the 100mm Tak. Short session just to say that "I've been out" 🙂

If I don't do a bit of observing now and then, questions start getting asked about the "need" to have 6 telescopes knocking around the dining room 😬

Showed my better half Porrima (Gamma Virgonis) earlier, when she enquired what I was looking at. Seemed to impress 😁

Maybe your current focuser could be adjusted to perform better ?

If you did upgrade to a 2 inch you would need to cut a larger hole in the tube for the focuser drawtube and likely drill new holes to bolt the new focuser onto the tube. 

I can see such a project ending up costing nearly as much as the scope is worth in all honesty.

You might be able to find an older 1.25 inch focuser that is made of metal such as the one that the Skywatcher 150PL uses but you will need to post a "wanted" advert on somewhere like the UK Astro Buy & Sell website because, as far as I know, such focusers are not available to purchase new. you might find someone who has upgraded the focuser on their 150PL ?

I've just ordered one of the Svbony 7-21mm's to use with my travel scope. Ernest in Russia was impressed by it - I hope I am 🙂

It won't be as good as the 3-8mm but hopefully will make a lightweight and versatile EP for the little travel setup.

One of the things that Orion Optics are good at, as far as we know, is mirror production. So my approach would be to capitalize on that and get the best grade that I could. For peace of mind as much as anything 🙄

If you go for 1/6th wave you might as well go for a Skywatcher or GSO - I'm sure most of them are at least that good optically.

2 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

I love Roger's Scopeviews reviews. I've sometimes wondered what Scope Views would be like if I did the reviews? The idea even makes me cringe! I suspect the site would need to have the warning "Not For Those Of A Sensitive Disposition"!

Putting reviews out there can be a fraught business. Ed Ting is getting some flack for his latest on the SeeStar 50 I see 🙄

One thing I found about the Ranger is that the objective lens is really well polished and figured. It performed as well as a 70mm aperture refractor can be expected to perform IMHO. The colour correction of mine was about the same as a good F/10 - F/12 achromat.

1 hour ago, mikeDnight said:

 I almost forgot that I also had a nice little TV Ranger for a while around 2004/5. Mine was the more beautiful green version. I seem to remember selling it for around £70. 

I sold mine to Roger Vine - it's the one that he reviews and pictures here:

TeleVue Ranger Review (scopeviews.co.uk)

43 minutes ago, Whistlin Bob said:

I don't have a 4 inch frac, but I was inspired by this thread,and after a dreadful March we finally got a clear night.

I was observing with a 14" dob, and thought I'd see what it could do on Tegmine,which I've not observed before. The third component was a nice easy split, but the 2 close stars were suffering a bit from the 'hairyness' that you often get with dobs. Problem solved with the aperture mask- which gives 160mm of unobstructed F10 aperture. Even with this the split wasn't easy- but with a little patience the little black line gradually emerged into view 😃

Occasionally I used an aperture mask with my 12 inch dob which gave a 4.5 inch F/14 unobstructed aperture. The views were very much like a 4.5 inch apochromat refractor. Theoretically the larger scope should split the close pair easily but the less "tidy" star images ("hairyness" is a good description !) makes things challenging.

Glad you got it with the mask 🙂

1 hour ago, IB20 said:

Head scratcher this one, Sirius A and something below but it’s not the correct location for the pup as it’s the wrong side. I don’t think it’s a field star so it’s most likely some artefact from my phone camera.

195x with the 125mm SM and a still frame from afocal iPhone video. 

What is the NSEW orientation of the image ?

The chart that @Mr Spock has posted above shows where it is - NE of Sirius A.

More often than not the Pup is shining through the halo of light surrounding Sirius A.

I came across this wonderful image of Alvan Clark and Carl Lundin with the Yerkes refractor 40 inch objective lens. Nobody trying to lick it I notice 😄

Very nice - just like the one that I used to own 🙂

There are several mounts that I have owned in the past, let go, and now wish that I still had. The Vixen GP is one of those 😬

I had a black one, as made for Celestron by Vixen. I'm not a huge fan of EQ mounts but the GP just does it "right" for a 4 inch frac:

When I've occasionally experienced truly excellent seeing conditions, while the scope that I happened to be using at that time (different designs over the years) showed superb planetary views, I got the feeling that practically any scope would also be excelling under such conditions. 

It always concerns me a little when someone is looking for some sort of "guarantee" of what they will be able to see or image. There are so many factors involved and only a few of them relate to the telescope used. Suiters "wobbly stack" concept illustrates this I think, even if we debate the relative impact of the various components within it.

Make a decision, acquire the chosen equipment, familiarise yourself with it's operation then devote everything you have to using it as often as possible on a wide variety of targets / uses and under a variety of conditions. Practice, practice, practice, there is no substitute for it 🙂

14 minutes ago, dweller25 said:

Just a data point here….

I have a 100mm F/8 refractor that sits happily on a Vixen GP (similar to a SW EQ5) mounted  on a Berlebach UNI28.

I tried my 120mm F/7.5 refractor on the Vixen GP/Berlebach combo and it was too unstable for high power planetary.

On an alt-azimuth tack, I use my ED120 on a Skytee 2 or Giro Ercole on a Uni 28 and it's very steady even at 300x. 

On sharp vs mushy, I use my ED120 for outreach at my astro society regularly and the experienced members (mostly newt or SCT owners) often comment how sharp the planets look through the ED120.

If I didn't have the ED120 or the 130mm triplet I would be looking very hard at either a Stellalyra 125 ED doublet or a TSA 120 if I could stretch to one. 4.7-5 inches is a very nice aperture for a quality refractor in terms both of performance potential and relative ease of use🙂

3 minutes ago, russ said:

Also remember, what ever you decide to go with, it will be the wrong choice. It's a given. A couple of months or year down the road, you're start getting niggling doubts that you should have taken a different route. Then it starts all over again. It happens to us all.  

Yep - that's certainly how I've found things, several times 🙂

I wish I could get on with binoviewers. I've tried them a few times, borrowed and even bought a set once, but I just haven't felt relaxed and comfortable when using them 🤔

2 minutes ago, Stu said:

Very mysterious John, when is the grand reveal?

In due course Stu. I'm taking it carefully 🙂