Moonlit Knight

Me too, to be honest. I was considering posting it as a new topic to look for some kind of consensus, if that was possible. It would also be interesting to see how people manage other scopes other than refractors. I have owned a couple of dobs, but that over 10 years ago now and I honestly can’t remember what I used to do.

I think you will find you were right the first time…

The last Telrad I had I could not for the life of me align it consistently, who knows why, the other one was fine. I quite like optical finders, I just don’t find them as accurate or useful as a RDF. The WO I use is a wonderful thing, 75 quid I think it was. I aligned it 3 years ago and haven’t touched it since, perfect. Light too compared to optical finders. I also had a Baader RDF, the big one. Over a 100 quid I think but amazingly good quality. I never had any problems.

I would be very interested hear what others think…

Excellent, thank you.

I also throughly dry the outside of the scope with a clean towel (obviously no where near any glass)

I just cleaned mine, every couple of years is quite enough for me

I know nothing about them other than what they do, can you use them with any kind of scope?

I would expect it to be outstanding, it’s the same as the APM number

Personally I take the lens cap off and leave the tube open over night. I leave my eyepiece case open along with my mount case to until the morning. On very occasions objectives collect few and even ice at the zenith. Not sure how many of use would leave that capped and locked away inside a bag or case. I do understand the rationale, just not sure how one gets the temperature down slowly and steadily enough to prevent condensation forming with the cap on without turning the objective into a really expensive petri dish

Dew spots, worry not

I saw perhaps 8 or 9 around 11.30 to midnight, some good ones too

So I bought one of those from TS, I also ended up buying a longer 11 inch dovetail so I can fit it. There are just somethings that need sorting, this was one of them.

That’s probably the best option

I have mine mounted on a TeleVue Gibraltar HD4 with a ADM conversion which allows for both formats, but the Losmandy is at the top and so gives me a little more space mounting my scope. And anyway I have had enough close calls with vixen dovetails in the past to put me off. The other thing about the wide base of the Losmandy is that it sits nice and stable on top of my case while I am adding kit

Well I have to say I would quite like a handle myself. I have seen a number of threads about handles including variations on this scope. One of the difficulties I have found finding a handle is the length of my dovetail. I use a Losmandy which when fitted to the tube rings only gives me 100 mm for the centre holes of any handle. If anyone has any ideas as to either lengthen the dovetail spacing (only two bolts fit, one the slider) or a handle which might fit. I recently tried one from FLO but it didn’t fit.

Tis

Yeah I bought one too, wondering thing

I have had it happen and I know a couple of other guys who had the same issue over the years, a right hassle to get them free. Personally I wouldn’t touch them, I don’t think they are anything like the quality people seem to think they are

Hey and welcome

I just think the build quality is a little nicer. As I mentioned earlier I would of course recommend the BST in the first instance

Excellent starting outfit, good choice. If I was to up grade eye pieces and depending how much money I had I would buy either some Starguider/BST explorers in the first instance and if I could not afford those I would buy Celestron Omni

Have you thought about a SW Aero? Not expensive and rather good at the price I thought. You can get them in 30, 35 and 40 mm. TS service sell them under their own brand