Naughty Neal

One can only see a used price of an Apollo only increasing on that of the bought price as a true collectors ep,

13mm 82 degree Nirvana is £85 at FLO.

The bottom of the skytee is 60mm dia x 7mm rim depth.

This one arrived yesterday, quite appropriate for my location. I just can't get on with LTAO and it's format and size.

I buy items off ebay and if the seller uses RM , I'm lucky sometimes to see the item within a fortnight. Even a tracking number prooves to be futile, I live in a large sprawling town and the service is some what lacking .

Alt/Az here as well with my fracs on the skytee 2, I can sit and use the extended longer flexi controls whilst sitting at the eyepiece. For my longer flexi's , I bought a used 6mm strimmer drive cable off ebay for about £11 which has sq drive on two ends, cut the cable to length and dremel a sq end on the cut end. Cover the flexi cable with heat shrink for a nice finish and a couple of brass 6mm straight couplers.

I liked your post Ratlet but tbh this 3D malarky is beyond me, hence why I have asked you to make a small item for me.

With my f12.5 80mm achro and f11.2 102mm ed , I still rate my 32mm Meades 4k sp and gets used along with the 25mm Xcel L , both give much the same low power view .

SQM is typically 19.3 from my back garden viewing position, 10 mins drive I could be in SQM 20.25 places. Typically though I'm not a traveller so tend to stick to my back garden as my kit isn't G&G.

I would say with ep's try and stick with one format either 1.25" or 2" .

I upgraded both saddles on the skytee 2 with a ADM 150mm on offer from flo and a 150mm RVO model form RVO, the cheaper RVO only has one beefy central tightening knob but does have dual end springs . The RVO saddle takes and holds my Scopetech F12.5 frac with no issues.

Skytee top saddle is handy for a Starsense or even a finder depending on the final height of the unit. If using along frac/achro then one likely will have a lower height for said item to be useful.

No not a rebadged porta but a clone based on the porta design. The 45 degree mount arm was adjustable to allow possible zenith use.

I saw a porta 2 clone on Aliexpress the other day for £48.

Washing powder acts like a decassant pack or simply buy a bunch of reusable decassant packs.

None on AliExp at the mo nor the cheaper microscope store , on the official SVbony website they are currently offered for £110. The ep has only 10mm eye relief so specs wearers will likely not get on with it.

If one count's 0.5 mm steps , then this eps is 10 ep's in one. In between each 1mm click/step of mag one can see and notice the 0.5mm mag step.

Yes, a few of us bought it via AliExpress for approx. £75 inc p&p. Typically the offers are around Xmas or Black Friday/cyber Monday deals, occasionally deals come up on AliExp sporodically so a case of timing if one wants to buy at a bargain price. That said even at the £130 asking price it is a super ep to have in the case, if one had very few or no high power ep's then this little star of an ep could save spending 100's/1000's of £££'s on several seperate ep's if one is happy with approx. 60 degrees.

F5 one will chromatic abberation but if one went for f10 or more it should be non exsistent, my Japanese Scopetech 80mm f12.5 shows no CA.

Above all patience and time spent on the same object is needed , don't be concerned that to much time is spent on the same object. No use glimpsing an object for a few mins , in most cases one will likely spend at least 45 - 60 mins on an object unless of course one is just generally scouring the sky. A good tripod is also needed for high power steady seeing.

For a tripod one may be able to buy a used surveyors wooden tripod , Leica ones come up here in the UK sometimes on ebay for small money so one may find something similar in North America.

The moon by far is the best target for detail, planets when in the right ascension though small ( dependant on aperature size) are visible as are their features , again what you see will depend on the atmospheric conditions amongst other variables. Currently Jupiters ascension is very good given a cloudless night, the first bright star in the high ssw sky as soon as dusk falls.

If expecting to see nice expanses of colour in nebula then no, what one will see is hazy foggy nebula cloud to which one will be able to sketch. In my bortle 6 skies , I can vaguely make out M42 in orion and Plieades/M45 in Taurus with my eyesight. For true nebula results one needs astro photography, If I want to see nebula in detail I simply browse the interweb or view threads on here. Quality of the telescope and ep's will dicatate what you may see, as well as atomspheric conditions and light pollution (lp). My 80mm achromat is a very nice quality Japanese 80mm f12.5, I can see M42 and the trapezium's stars . You will be limited to that which your 76/700 can cypher.

It looks like the mount arm is joined halfway up and can be reversed via undoing likely an allen bolt , one could then mount a scope on the out side for easier zenith or viewing. As an aside what are users views on being able to mount a 102ed f11 , would an f11 be too long at a total lenght of some 1200mm ?

I can't resist the looks of a nice looking achromat, no other reason needed in my books.