kirkster501

Very tricky to sell as one lot Mark. It's more trouble but you'll find it easier to sell the bits separately.

Great pictures. The point to remember is what *does* M31 look like? It is a ghostly black and white smudge in the sky and there is no single colour standard. The galaxy would never actually look like these pictures if you were 100000 light years above it. Anymore than our own Milky Way does and we are inside it. Artistic licence is what applies and if the picture is good to your eyes then you have hit the bullseye and that's all that matters.

Sad to see you're selling up man. Are you 100% sure, you could regret it..... ?

Apologies, I was on my iphone and missed that.

Where did you get these from Gina please? And what are they actually called?

Good luck with the sale Mrs Gnomus. I have one of these and it is superb. Would you mind me asking where you got the screws from please since I also share that concern of fouling the end of the retention screws (which are actually bolts)? PM me if you do not want to go off-topic on your for sale thread. Many thanks.

Really nice. A very small object.

Those clusters are fabulous. They are great in a scope. Look for the red star in the middle next time.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/baader-planetarium/baader-hyperion-68-degree-eyepiece.html Not cheap but 95% of what the very much more expensive Televue EP's deliver at a quarter the cost. Also look for used ones on ABS. They are normally always very well looked after and half the price.

M101 is the same, very faint and diffuse. A very, very faint and ghostly smudge. You need dark skies to have any hope of seeing any of these face-on spirals - even M33 is tricky.

Yes @ollypenrice I have heard good things about the Espirit 150 as well. Nik Szymanek did a good write up: http://www.opticalvision.co.uk/documents/107.pdf

TEC 140. But then I would say that wouldn't I ?

I've sold mine to Mark (Astroscot2). I lost £180 in a year on it, but hey, you win some, you lose some..... Thanks Mark, I hope it serves you well.

I urge you to consider the HEQ5.....

It would almost certainly be because the focuser was not aligned with the primary Olly. Without the additional focuser collimation ring - not included with the budget RC scopes - there is no way to adjust the focuser's alignment with respect to the mirrors and this is crucial in the RC hyperbolic design. This is a glaring oversight in my opinion. All too complex and too much bother? Yes (to me at any rate). Plus other issues that I do not like about reflectors in the context of imaging. That's why I flogged it and moved to my TEC refractor. Each to their own. Others love the RC design.