Moonlit Night

I have never for the life of me never understood why the AZ 4 was never that popular. In my opinion, I don’t think people appreciated or even tried them because they weren’t reassuringly expensive enough. I don’t like the new white livery btw, it looks tacky.

Good point

Well if money is no object and I had an observatory to put it in would like a 8 inch TEC apo please!

I had a couple of TAL 100’s (R and RS). I loved mine at the time. I still have a soft spot for them now to be honest. Most of us still had achromatic scopes, ED scopes were for the super rich. The scene has changed massively, there seems to be much more money about these days and much less blokes in sheds. Don’t get me wrong, I am not about to go back to fl10-fl15 achromatic refractors, but I do think we have lost something along the way.

Or bananas that are over ripe.

No point buying that second refractor either.

Ummmm, hardly worth re-decorating the living room now, I must let the wife know.

Don’t worry, I did that earlier…

The slow mo is interesting, never bothered me at all. You never hear dob users complaining about a lack of it. Whatever happened to ScopeTech AZ mounts? Everyone raved about them for a few weeks and then came people who said the slow mo had seized or were very tight. I heard they stopped selling them, expensive too.

You absolutely don’t need a Skytee. I ran this scope on the rock sold steel legged AZ4. A Starfield mounted on one of those could last a lifetime. It’s as if they were designed to go together. One of the few very genuine Astro bargains.

I was surprised there wasn’t a single advocate of the 9mm, someone even mentioned the 18.5mm. I think the 4mm makes much more sense.

4mm Delite on order, should be here Monday with any luck.

Not my personal experience, but certainly an interesting perspective. I didn’t find them very comfortable to use to be honest. Very personal things aren’t they, eyepieces.

I won’t be deviating away from Delites. I absolutely trust them to be comfortable and just do what they are supposed to. I can just use them and forget about them, the entire line is predictable in its excellence.

Thanks for the input folks. I think that just about clears that up then, I will order the 4mm in the morning.

The 5mm gives me x176 which is lovely with Saturn but the seeing here rarely supports that magnification for Jupiter sadly. x224 is well within its capabilities (my scope that is) and could probably do a lot more.

50 degree field of view doesn’t really work with an un-driven mount.

I was coming to the same conclusion. Be a nice eyepiece for Mars wouldn’t it.

I had one before and never used it. x27 and x67 is a x40 difference. Not worth spending £265.00 on the 18mm (x50) it doesn’t add anything. Others may disagree of course.

A Tele Vue 102. 8.6fl.

After some unexpected eyepiece changes my current minimalist set of eyepieces now consists of 3 Delites, a 5mm (x176) a 7mm (x126) a 13mm (x67) and a 32mm TV Plossl (x27). I was going to buy a 5th eyepiece, do I buy a 4mm (x224) or a 9mm Delite (x97)?

Of all the UHC filters I have used my Tele Vue BandMate II Nebustar is by far the best. Baader also makes excellent filters and have had great success with their Oiii filters, although since I only use a small refractor I now only use the Tele Vue BandMate II Nebustar filter, in fact it is the only filter I use these days. I would personally avoid cheap filters, you get what you pay for ultimately.

I have to confess I don’t like the term. I always tell people I am amateur astronomer. I remember reading Patrick Moore hated the term. I was a small child at the time but quickly developed an aversion to the term ever since.

Unfortunately 102’s are not binoveiwer friendly. I have used them in the past and to be honest I just didn’t get on with them.

Oopppps