Radman40

Nice one! Never seen them myself except from a aircraft flying back from the states.

What has been your best ‘wow’ moment in astronomy? I have so many it is hard to choose. The first time I saw the moons of Jupiter as a kid with a pair of 10 by 50 binos is one. Moving up from an 80mm newt to a 150 mm newt was another. Actually seeing things like the ring nebula actually resembled something like you see it in the books was fantastic. The first view of M42 in my 250mm newt also sticks in my mind. My best wow moments have come from meteor showers, especially the Perseids. A bright fireball that casts s shadow is always a jaw dropping moment. What have been your most memorable moments?

Hi Ford. That is interesting about the poor observing in the UAE. I have often wondered what the sky is like there.

Thanks Dave....a very interesting tale of your journey with all the different scopes. A 4 inch does seem like a good trade off between portability and aperture. It’s all about ease of use for me at the moment. Mike....your eyepiece box is a thing of beauty. Extremely pleasing on the eye.

Definition of serious, “Demanding or characterised by careful consideration or application” By this definition a serious scope is one that you have thought very carefully about what you want to use it for, what you want from it and then you actually use and enjoy!

Thanks for all the replies so far. Interesting replys which have firmed up my thinking. I would be using it mainly for visual and the odd bit of dabbling with imaging. I may do some more serious imaging when time allows and I am not wreck on the sofa after work or chasing around after the family. I am not even going to go down the doublet/triplet rabbit hole. Does anyone think there is just too much choice with everything these days these days? Buying Astro equipment is bad enough but buying buying a light bulb is like a punishment from the Greek gods.

Hello community. What do we thank about this one...... Is the extra weight, size and cost of a 102 mm APO refractor worth it when compared to an 80mm in terms their respective performance across a range of astronomical applications? I have never had opportunity to compare. 🤔🤔🤔

Hi everyone. Here is my offering. The Apollo missions really do being meaning to the word 'awesome'. What they managed to achieve with 1970s technology is just incredible. I love looking at the landing sites and finding them makes an interesting challenge; the moon phase, weather, seeing and not being knackered from work are all important factors that contribute to success. I have often wondered what we amateur astronomers could see from earth using our various telescopes that the astronauts were able to see with their own eyes whilst walking on the moon. I have done a bit of research using the various NASA websites and have been able to identify some features you can see with an amateur telescope, in my case a 10 inch Newtonian. The Apollo 15 landing site is great for this. It is surrounded by some big mountains such as the 14000 foot Mons Hadley and the Hadley Rille is an interesting feature. All these can be seen in the montage using the arrows. The thing I have learned from undertaking this project is that the 'seeing' is everything in lunar imaging. It the seeing is poor you haven't got a hope. It has been a really great project.....like walking on the moon in my back garden.

Very nice. I do wish the uk was a few degrees farther south.

Great pic. I love watching the ISS passing over. It is something real to look at that tells us we really have left this planet.