Naughty Neal

Height might depend on comfort, some like to stand ideal for straight thru viewing . Others will like to be seated esp if using mirrors/prisms and at the eyepiece for some time, there is no one answer.

When I get home form my night shift of an weekend evening Saturday am - Monday am at 03.40hrs , I neither bother now about setting up . Now the clocks have gone fwd it's isn't too long before the dawn brightness suddenly creeps in. Last night by eye alone the seeing here wasn't great , even Polaris wasn't discernable neither were any other of the major players in the two Ursa's.

Looks pretty much like a generic diagonal seen for sale in various places , the side panel fluting looks the same as a Skywatcher or Stellamira.

I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't a generic size used and the same as Syywatcher use on Skytee2 or EQ5.

That reminds me that I haven't posted a pic of my new solar wegd e yet from my little spending spree.

I haven't decided yet but have the f12.5 80mm Scopetech or the f11 102ed Ascent but suspect it will be for the latter. The 80mm will likely be confined for solar use with a wedge. The white OTA on the Balck SP will look very contrasty.

I have cheated here and copy & pasted the pic from the 'For sale' section. Postman today was Stu and we had pre arranged a location to meet up on his journey home for the weekend to hand over the SP Gem combo.. Fortunately I knew of an easy location that only diverted Stu a matter of a few hundred yards off the M25 so he could then simply rejoin to continue his Westward journey. The SP GEM and tripod now resides with me. I know the age of these are at least some 30 or more years old now but the quality remains as does butter smooth movement of the pivots/beairngs. The tripod isn't too bad but obviously has some wear marks and scratches for the many years it has been around . At some stage in the summer I will likely remove all the wood and give it a light wire wool and then a nice coat of clear Briwax.

Oh dear, even daylight is working against you . At least somewhat one can rule out any issue with the new SF and of course your EP's , which of course you know are fine.

Try this very simple. BBC Four - The Sky at Night, Make a solar filter

Use it on some far away landscape dayight targets to put your mind at rest regarding clarity and then one can simply put down last nights poor seeing down to atmospheric conditions , whether that be thinly veiled clouds or the jetstream.

My second SV215 arrived today for BV use, again paid under £80 all in for it direct off of the SvBony website. Also a gift T - shirt supplied in xxxl size, with a screen printed front of the planets and Svb insignia and the rear has the twelve zodiac constellations on the rear . Also ordered via ebay some ID 31.63mm x 2 mm O - Rings to use as par focal rings incase the 1.25" is too long for my prisms/mirrors.

I think they have a one size fits all , as mine is also XXXL . The hanger just happened to be about to hang the T-Shirt on.

A few bits arrived for me , I had a little splurge in China land. Out of focus pic, SV215 zoom and a freebie . Now have twins for bino viewing. And two more items. Sparta WD006 clone of the Vixen Porta ll a snip at under £70 along with Angel eyes 1.25" 22mm EP (same as Oberwerk ) but much cheaper.

Sounds like you and yours had a great experience their Jim, seeing other perspectives/views with the partial eclipse and the lighting /shadows formed.

Select an object farther away to focus on , the bush may not be with in the focal range of the telescope and simply to close. Remember these telescopes are designed to have a long distance focal range and not a near close focal range of bird or general use spotting scopes.

I quite liked this line and had a wry smile at it, no caffeine fix early in the day . It appealed to my sense of humour.

Not very envious sitting here.

Beautiful crafted achromat , plenty of polishing ahead.

What do you need to know ? Looks like a M4 or M5 allen type , the pitch will be a std pitch applied to wether it is M4 or M5. M4 is 0.7 pitch and M5 0.8 pitch.

Personally for a 130 dob the expense isn't worth it, my Z130 was much the same . Just needs some fettling.

You could try placing the lens in a sealed container with some decassent sac's to se eif they can draw out the moisture.

I do whole heartedly agree with all recommends to use offset , if the ota came with an aperature cap then likey it will have an offset cover already. My small z130 has the offset aperatue cap though for white light I use a achromat. I answered though as that is what Stephen enquired about.

3D perhaps ? What a crying shame though , the wooden legs are very nice and have the extensions which are concaved to match the uppers circumference/diameter. The upper mount is broken as well.

Baader AstroSolar A4 ND5.0 Safety Film Sheet - Rother Valley Optics Ltd The RVO link has the same 1m x 0.5m film as below. Baader AstroSolar 1.0M X 0.5M ND 5.0 - Widescreen Centre (widescreen-centre.co.uk)

Though an old thread for some the following may help, the Zhumell is mounted via rings and a heavy duty Vixen dovetail bar so is easily mounted to any dovetail mount and tripod. The focuser is a bit basic % plasticky but does the job.