A McEwan

Skytee 2 mount is a great bit of kit. I'm on my second (and last, hopefully) now!

Ant   

My new Lacerta 1.25" Herschel Wedge arrived. Only ordered it (from 365 Astronomy) yesterday afternoon! Nicely built, but does anyone know if I could get a T2 female to 1.25" female adapter so that I can permanently attach my Solar Continuum filter on the eyepuece holder along with the built-in ND3.0 filter?

Shown here on my Swift 839.

32 minutes ago, Vilius said:

Upgraded from my beginner scope Now waiting for it to get dark again

Congratulations - great scope!  

Another of these Baader 36.4mm (Vixen thread) eyepiece adapters. Both of my Swifts now have these fitted to bring them into The New Age!  😁

Congratulations on another proper long pointy telescope, Dave! I look forward to reading your Forst Light report!   

Ant

58 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

Interesting take, what would be your reasoning? It would be purely for wide visual use to compliment my 10" dob.

I think Robindonne is refering to the sitting on it side of things....

33 minutes ago, John said:

I guess you want longer slow motion cables to suit your long refractors ?. My Skytee II still has the original knobs on it but they can be quite a stretch to reach 

Exactly! I had one of these mounts before and regretted selling it. This one is just as good as the first one was. Long slow-mo's definitely make it easier to use though.

1 hour ago, LukeSkywatcher said:

Looks like a strong cup of tea to me. The type you can stand a spoon up in.

Strong coffee actually! I think the phone enhanced the colour slightly.    

I haven't really bought any eyepieces newer than T6 Nagler or Explore Scientific 68-degree designs, so I'm not up to date with what's available now, but...

I can advise re what I use and what I have in my cases!  For planetary I stick to Orthoscopics. In my case, Baader Genuine Ortho's, but there are other makes that are probably just as good, if not better. Fewer elements = more detail and narrower field of view = fewer distractions to take your eye away from those details. Same goes for lunar or double stars, in my book anyway.

For "general viewing" my used eyeieces are usually the ES 24mm 68-degree, Nagler 13mm T6, Meade 6.7mm UWA, and ES 4.7mm UWA, with sometimes a Siebert Starsplitter 3.9mm modified Ortho thrown in too.

Other times I'll stick to my mixture of older and newer TeleVue Plossls.

The Tak is so good that it will certainly pull the best that it can from any eyepiece you put into it, but a viewing session can only ever be as good as the weakest link in the optical chain!

Ant   

A new-to-me but obviously used Skytee-2 mount which incuded the ADM upgraded saddles and the heavy duty tripod! It was all a bit..."lived in"...but an hour or two with WD40, Cif degreaser and some microfiber clothes worked wonders. I need to get some longer slo-mo controls (see wanted ad) but otherwise it's really, really good!

Ant

2 hours ago, F15Rules said:

This was partly paid for with a Waterstones gift card for my birthday.

I'm looking forward to dipping in and out of this😊.

Shown next to my pocket Sky Atlas and Cambridge Double Star Atlas for scale. The new book is quite chunky as it contains 470 pages🏋️‍♂️!

Dave

Cambridge Double Star Atlas is one of my faves!

It would be quite a mental effort to remember all mine. I THINK I'm technically into the 40s now, but since acquiring the Tak it has slowed down A LOT!

I can remember the ones I should have kept though:

GSO 680 8" f6 Dob (modified and pimped)

TS 90mm f6.6 Triplet Apo

Equinox ED120

Helios 6" f8 achro (pimped and resprayed etc)

Celestron/Vixen 90mm f14.4 achro

Apart from those there were lots of scopes of various types, probably mostly refractors but a few Maks and Cats along the way too! 

Ant

On 06/08/2020 at 07:31, Macavity said:

A Certain Comet caused me to "un-mothball" my *modded* AZ3! 🥳
A useful ultra-portable mount... Fits into a (posh) Gitzo Tripod Bag too.



A frustrating mount (for many?)! But the tendency to fall backwards
was foiled by addition of springs. (Counterwights didn't work for me).

Took a while time to find extension springs of right length/tension...
Wanna buy a (budget)  "job lot" several hundred etension springs? 😛

The springs give a satisfying "springy" sound! Make sure the springs
are firmly attached... "You'll have someone's eye out with that" etc. 🤣

That is ingenious! I went the counterweight route and it's worked perfectly for me, but your spring setup takes less space and will be less heavy! I tested mine yesterday with my 77mm f1000 achro and it feels and looks promising too!
 

That looks reassuringly similar, JeremyS! The FLO box was correct - it did also contain clouds.

Ant

So, here's what was in the box - an Extender Q 1.6x for the FC100. My f7.4 just grew into an f11.8!

It all looked a bit complicated to put together, with conflicting diagrams online, so hopefully someone can tell me if this looks right? Drawtube connector - Extender Q 1.6x - VAri-tube (L) - Visual adapter - 1.25" eyepiece holder - diagonal.  I have a vari-tube (L) and vari-tube (s) left over.

Ant    

A nice Japanese box. More details later....    

I think my Tak FC100Df is "probably" my lifer. That doesn't mean I won't get another scope that will also be a lifer, though! I'd like a bigger Tak or maybe a Tec-140 or even a biggish Dob at some point, but there are other things to consider, like location, portability and ease of use, so there's no point in me splashing out on a scope like that unless I know that I'll be able to use it!

For now, the FC100 is just perfect for me in that regard.

20 minutes ago, jock1958 said:

Go on press that button you won't regret it, once you've bought the FS-60CB you can invest in a CQ 1.7x Extender then you have an FS-60Q......only trying to help 😉

I'm actually tempted by a FOA-60Q at the moment. It's in my brain now...

🥴

Congratulations on your first Takahashi!     They really are something rather special!

Just a diagonal for me. Well, a Baader Zeiss prism (BBHS) T-2 diagonal body which I'll be using in all my refractors from now on. It arrived with mist as well as clouds!

Ant

26 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

I figured you lost your scope in the dark yard at night, bright tennis balls are easy to spot. 😂

Is that  GP DX mount? I have a GP and always wondered if i could comfortably mount a scope in the 120 range on it, if i ever run into a TSA-120 do you feel that my Vixen GP would handle it well?. Can the "DX" version 

handle more load than the GP? interesting because I see folks load their GP mounts beyond what I would feel comfortable doing, maybe I am underestimating the GP. 

I've had an Equinox ED120 on mine and that was plenty sturdy enough. Nothing larger/heavier than that though. I mean it didn't even notice a 6" f8 Newtonian, but refractors are heavier so...  I hear tell that FS128s might be more of a challenge though.... (hope to find out one day!)  

Ant

54 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

I don’t know that mount , but I avoid that design as balancing is really tricky. You get it adjusted it one elevation and then move to another elevation and it’s front or back heavy. It’s more like a video head design than an astronomical altaz 

Indeed. AZ-3 mounts are ike that, so I added a counterweight system to mine which made it much better (completely removed the problem). I wondered if the new Tak model might have some kind of variable friction clutch arrangement, but haven't found anything out yet.

Correction to earlier text - I've edited this to reflect that I actually found this picture on a Japanese seller's site through Zenmarket, and it has an FC76-DCU mounted on it. This mount is included and ... it looks nice! Does anybody here know anything about it, like will the mount be coming to the UK at all, or technical details?

Ant

You can get a decent adapter on Amazon just now.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08F9HQZ8N/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Ant

Thanks to your advice, I decided I'd prefer a tele-extender over a Barlow this time round, but with the Meade and ES ones being hard to find, I have ordered an "Altair Astro 2x 1.25" Flat Field Extender Barlow" (phew - that's a mouthful!) It looks pretty similar to the ES extender (which in turn seems to be identical to the Meade, so we'll see how it turns out)

Cheers!