RobertI

Thanks Mercea, interesting to hear your approach to observing faint fuzzies. 👍

What a great idea, I may do this! Was it easy to fit?

Thanks Keith. Your solution looks nice, and would probably also work well with my little EAA setup. As regards your question, weight and size - possibly not an issue, as I may leave it outside undercover. But the other two factors are, is 10” a big enough jump from my 8” SCT, and is 12” really going to yield significant benefits over a 10” from my semi-rural, but small housing estate location?

I’ve been idly contemplating larger apertures, in particular dobs, and have been impressed with the reviews of the Celestron Starsense dobs. But it comes at a cost. At £845 the 10” StarSense dob is nearly £300 more than than the Sky-Watcher equivalent without Starsense. For another £40 you could get a nice Stella Lyra 12” Dob with dual speed focuser. But the 10” Starsense is a really fantastic product, and I have to confess, I am tempted. 10” Starsense or 12” Stella Lyra? 🤔 PS: I also can’t help thinking that equivalent, and cheaper retrofit products like StarSense on mobile phone will start to appear from other providers in the not too distant future, but I guess that’s another story…… Edit: Celestron may well have sewn up the market by patenting their technology, I found a couple of patents that look very much like the Starsense technology and the use of Starsense for manual pointing, perhaps we won’t see anything to rival Starsense on mobile phone anytime soon…. https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=US76834954&_cid=P21-LHX94Q-79281-1 https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=US342394896&_cid=P21-LHX94Q-79281-1

Nice setup you have there Mike, must make for comfortable observing. Would be good to see some results from the Stellina some time. 🙂

Lovely report, glad you are enjoying your 102ED. You’ve highlighted a couple of interesting objects to look out for.

Last time out I enjoyed some fuzzy delights in Virgo with the 102ED and promised myself that I would investigate Markarian’s chain in the C8 next time out. Tonight looked pretty good so I gave it a go. After finding M84 and M86 making up the bottom of the chain, I moved up to the fainter ‘eyes’ of NGC4435 and 4438, then up to NGC4461 (its 12th magnitude companion NGC 4458 was too faint), then 4473 and finally 4477. I was really pleased to have got the whole chain. I found higher magnification helped. I started at around 40x with the 32mm Plossl, but could only see one of the eyes, but upping the magnification really improved things and I found around 100 - 120x to be the best. Looking back my previous report I was surprised to see that I had got both the eyes in the 102ED, so it’s obviously a good deep sky scope despite its small aperture. I’ll set them up side by side if a get a chance.

It was just the wedge, no filter, I did consider digging out the polarizer, but actually at that magnification it wasn’t bright at all.

Thanks, yes it was remarkable actually, I wish the photo could show the incredible detail visible at the eyepiece. Still, I can’t help wanting one of those lovely Lunt solar scopes.

102ED-R out this afternoon with BV at around 160x. Lovely detail visible on Sol before it disappeared behind the rooftops. Bino-bandit is a great addition for solar viewing.

Lovely report, interesting results with the filters, I’ll give it a go. What is ADC btw?

Very tired after a manic two weeks at work, but determined to get outside as I’ve missed many clear moonless nights. The first thing that came to hand was my 60mm RACI finder, and putting in a 17.5mm Morpheus gave a nice 12x magnification. In a bright sky I was pleased to very quickly track down galaxies M81 & M82, M51, globulars M13, M56 and M3 and the very large cluster Melotte 111, fitting into the FOV. That was good enough to get my fix and still get some sleep. Why doesn’t someone manufacture a nice pair of right angled 10x50s which can be hand held - surely they’d be winners with us astronomers?

If you enjoy self-flagellation, you will enjoy AP immensely.

Fascinating article. That 3” F16 Unitron must have been quite a scope - splitting both components of Epsilon Lyrae at x48 is no mean feat.

Lovely report Magnus, some nice finds there. I really like the finder - did you say you have a flattener fitted? Does that help with reaching focus?

Great report. You’ve really bought the Starsense experience to life, I’ve read several magazine reviews of the tech, but your report is the most convincing so far! I can see that galaxy hunting is where this tech can really stand out. Regarding your technique of moving the scope, I often do this for really faint stuff and I think it is an accepted technique, though not often talked about. I stumbled on the three brightest members of Markarians Chain with my 4” recently during a really transparent night, which was very pleasing, and plan to have a closer look with my C8 next time out to see if I can see more.

Lovely report and nice to hear about some of the southern constellations and objects. 👍

Super scope Stu, you’ve got an exciting summer of Milky Way fun to look forward to with that beastie.

Congratulations, you lucky thing! Keep us up to date with what happens. That will be a wonderful scope to own.

Wonderful drawing (the word “sketch” under-sells it!)

That’s a very impressive improvement! Presumably the resulting focal length on your C6 is around 950mm?

@Pixies is correct, it’s shown in Interstellarum as visible in a 4” but SkySafari lists magnitude as unknown. Haven’t tried it myself yet - one for the winter I think.

I’m always surprised how much you can see through a 6x30 and they are so light too. I have been meaning to get a 6x30 RACI for a while to sit on my 102ED as my 9x60 is rather bulky and causes balance issues.

A nice 32mm Plossl for my C8, as recommended by @bomberbaz (thank you) to help me with my nemesis, the Crescent nebula.

Two nice additions to the FLO stable. The wooden tripod looks the biz and decent price.