Chris

Those views sound excellent for an 80mm Achromat which is great to hear. Yes tripods definitely rule for those low alt targets. Glad you're still having fun with it

Ah this brings back memories, my first ED scope was also a WO ZS66SD, although my first one was white, The second one was blue though so I wonder? Anyway congrats and enjoy!

Now this will be interesting! Can Olly be converted!? Stay tuned and find out in the next episode of the twilight zone! 😅

Lots of useful FREE tools all in one place, and good to tinker around with on those cloudy nights

This does sound odd. I have the Pentax SP 50 WP's as well, and can vouch that they work using the usual left eye first approach and sharp focus is achieved with both eyes. I'm glad you've found a work around at least, but it does sound like the dioptre is incorrectly set so worth having a word with the retailer to highlight the problem.

Thanks! and sorry I've only just found this reply. I think it was 2mm craft foam from Hobby Craft : ) You could get away with 3mm, but any thicker and it might not be compliant enough.

+1 for the Star Adventurer or iOptron SkyGuider pro It was amazing when they released the Star Adventurer mount! it broke new ground for affordability when it comes to astrophotography mounts that work well! Honestly with such an expensive hobby as Astrophotography we're lucky to have mounts like the Star Adventurer and iOptron Skyguider pro, and in my opinion these are perfect for anyone starting out in DSO imaging. Just add a DLSR and a lens or very small ED refractor and away you go! There were star trackers before these of course but I think things really took off when the SA was released from my perspective.

A setup to be proud of, really nice!

Hi Louis, yes I covered the need for long eye relief binoculars >15mm if you need glasses. Wouldn't it be good if Televue teamed up with one of the Bino manufacturers to make that happen However, Pentax to the rescue! The Pentax SP WP's I'm demoing here have 20mm ER and the field stop is easily seen whilst wearing glasses! Maybe worth looking into Louis

I remember buying my first astro binoculars very well indeed because it was a complete disaster! I might have been better off just cutting out the middle man and putting £29 straight in the Bin! In fact I think that's where the binos ended up! I've made a quick video just to highlight some of the good things to look out for in a binocular for hand held astronomy. It's not a perfect video by any means as I can only allocate a bit of time to making videos at the moment, but I think there's some solid advice in there. I kind of wish I'd talked a bit about exit pupil in terms of contrast, and touched on IPD (interpupillary distance) but I think that's all I missed? About 20 pairs of binoculars have passed through my hands since that first fateful pair, so hopefully I've learnt enough to share

Congrats Vilius, it's the tried and tested combo that you can't go wrong with

I'm not sure I can look at the second picture in the 'eye' after reading that 😄

These are fantastic! The detail!

Wow! If you told me that was ED glass I wouldn't question it! lovely shots of the Sun and local wild life : )

Rob brings up a good point! I do remember the axis being very 'free' now he mentions this. I think it was ok getting the right tension but as Rob says you need to watch this when you undo the clutch so the scope doesn't spin! Obviously good balance helps with this and I think it's something you quickly get used to.

Hi Victor. Although I've only used the Castor mount with lighter scopes (such as my old Lunt35 solar scope) and it was some time ago now, I still wouldn't doubt that the setup I had would comfortably carry a 4" Apo. However, I did use mine with a counterweight shaft and a solid pier extension which helped with payload, I can't recall using mine stripped down to the bare bones for the ultimate portability, but it was very well engineered to the point that it's bare bones 8kg payload isn't too surprising. On paper it's capacity is around double that of the AZT6, so defo an upgrade on paper. Dual scopes are no problem as you can purchase a puck for the counterweight shaft side, from what I remember. It's very good for it's tiny proportions

Well worth a watch if you're into lucky imaging and telescope tinkering : )

Sorry this is a sub standard post, you need to try harder Seriously though what an incredible set of images! Lovin the purple Sun, calcium K right? and the proms were great, really makes you think when you see the Earth for scale!

12 hours of events must have taken a lot of planning! I'll be tuning in and I'm sure my boy will be interested too! Thanks to all those involved in advance Shared on FB

I DIY'd some Baader solar film onto my Canon XA11 camcorder and added some nice relaxing ambient music for our blood pressure

Lovely detail Stu! Once the clouds lifted! after their ever loyal role of eclipse blocking 🤨

You were on it! well done

Congratulations John, fantastic! Mirror coating good for a while longer then

Sounds good. With regards to the iOptron, they do a CEM70, then it jumps to the CEM120, so I bet it was the latter you were considering. iOptron just seem like a company that strives to keep on improving and their build quality now days looks good. I reviewed their Skyguider Pro and it was like a posh Star Adventurer. I was really impressed with it's low periodic error and build quality. The EQ8 you have must be very nice too I should imagine.

I tested out an 8RC in the obsy and it looked quite comical with all the spacers off the back to reach the required back focus. It was begging for an OAG, filter wheel etc just to fill in the space, so I really should have known this! Especially as I've owned a number of SCT's in the past lol The RC was a nice scope with a really flat field, but just a bit too much focal length for someone who often doesn't bother with goto net alone guiding. This will probably all change when I get an ASI Air pro as everything will be really convenient on one device. It just seems like too much of a faff getting the ASI Air to work with the EXOS2 PMC8 compared to other mounts from what I've read. I've got my eye on an ioptron mount.