RobertI

Wonderful picture of Patrick with his classic instrument - he looks curious, thoughtful and determined all at the same time! 

I tried a 10” Skywatcher Newt on my Skytee, albeit with a not very good tripod, and it was not useable. I think even with a very solid tripod a 10” wouldn’t be very stable. But with my 6” F8  and a 2” tripod it’s very stable and a good match in my experience.  

It’s been a LONG time since my last proper session, probably two or three months, I’ve just not felt like observing. But tonight the weather cleared and my mojo returned so I went out for a session with the 102ED. It was nice and transparent, but as is normal around here nowadays, the skies were quite bright. However I felt like a stroll around Virgo, so with the 17.5mm Morpheus in place giving 40x, I scanned around the top of the ‘bowl’. I immediately found a large bright galaxy which I worked out was M87. This before I was was even dark adapted, so I was pretty pleased already. Further slow scanning to the west revealed M58, M59 and M60. Scanning to the north showed M89 and M90. And back to the east I found M85 and M86 which make up the bottom of Markarians’s chain. Looking on SkySafari indicated that I should be able to see “The Eyes” galaxies, NGC4435 and NGC4438, in the same field of view. At mag 10 and 10.5 these were more challenging in the murky skies with the small aperture, but when upping the mag to 70x they just became visible. Pretty pleased and if I make it to the dark skies of Kelling next week, I will definitely revisit these and try and get the whole of Markarian’s Chain. 

Screenshots below from SkySafari, the FOV indicator is 1.9 degrees using the Morpheus 17.5mm giving 40x. 

1 hour ago, Philip R said:

Unfortunately I cannot remember the guys name. Sorry about that.

I think it’s these guys:

https://www.darkframeoptics.com
 

8 hours ago, Graeme said:

Anyone fancy a Lego Moon map?

https://www.universetoday.com/160872/an-amazing-new-map-of-the-moon-in-lego/

That’s a beautiful design, very clever indeed. My son probably has enough Lego pieces to do something similar, I’ll see if I can inspire him!

4 hours ago, Franklin said:

You can take a look at it through one of these😁.

 

That’s nice! The best I could manage was this: 

Sorry to hear about that. I hope it’s salvageable but sounds like it’s given good service. Perhaps it can have a second life as a non-goto mount driven in RA only - someone would love it - perfect for visual, probably ok for solar system imaging. 🙂

A nice demonstration of the different capabilities of the two scopes. 👍

3 minutes ago, Franklin said:

Tasco used offer good scopes, back in the days when Vixen made them for them!😁

Yeah, but Vixen are rubbish. 😆

This thread has generated some really interesting discussion. There were a couple of comments that nearly made me start separate a thread on the subject of “Can people choose to believe something?” (eg: can someone choose to believe that Tasco make the best telescopes) and another thread on “The psychology of why people buy premium gear”……… but I thought it was best not to poke this hornet’s nest any further! 🙂

A very thorough and unbiased review Michael, thanks for taking the time to do this. 👍

Pleased to see the Federation of Astronomical Societies is also promoting this - just received an email via my local astro club. 

Signed. In theory we should easily be able to reach the target with just people on the forum - not sure how to get that level of engagement/ promotion though. 

On 21/03/2023 at 11:42, Mr Spock said:

Excellent build quality. No false colour; inside and outside of focus is even. Mine is a joy to use - I'm only selling due to buying a Tak  otherwise it would be a for life scope.

☝️What he said (except the bit about the new Tak!). 

My dual setup is an 8” SCT and a 4” refractor. They give different perspectives on the same object which can be both enjoyable and educational, giving more information about the object, the relative capabilities of the scopes and the conditions. It’s a bit like zooming the aperture instead of zooming the magnification! If I’ve got an observing plan for the night though, I tend to stick to one scope, as I want to concentrate on the objects and not get distracted by equipment. The scopes line up at lowish power, but I could probably get it closer with some shimming here and there. As an aside the dual scope setup actually makes my Skytee mount work better, better balanced in azimuth and less susceptible to balance problems in altitude. 

This seems to be a pretty good guide to collimating an SCT:  

https://www.highpointscientific.com/astronomy-hub/post/how-tos/collimating-your-sct-for-best-performance

19 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Already got  See the change in my sig 

Ah, got it (I can’t see signatures in mobile view on my phone), super scope, I plan to go the same route at some point.  Sorry OP for diverting thread. 👍

39 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

As a result I'm changing scope with an (almost) unlimited budget and the much loved Starfield 102 f7 will be up for sale soon - probably after I get back from holiday. It will be missed but onwards and upwards as they say 

I may have missed a whole discussion on this, but what are you planning to get Michael?

On 09/03/2023 at 14:05, Moonlit Knight said:

I am sure a few of you have clocked a recently advertised TeleVue Genesis. I am interested I have to say.

You just want a telescope with the name “Genesis” in the title. 😉

2 hours ago, Jiggy 67 said:

Totally agree. I also made a Telrad template for Interstellarium.........

 

Great idea!

As you say, all these things cost money! I don’t know how big the scope is ‘person’ but I wonder if a “sentry box” style run off shed might be a cheap option - it would have a small footprint and you would either roll the shed away or roll the scope out. Anyway a Telegizmo cover sounds like a really good start. I have a similar problem with lack of space in the garden, but fortunately my modest visual setup takes ten minutes to set up, so an obsy not really needed . I have enjoyed EAA in the past so a more permanent setup would really help that, but I don’t think I have time for both EAA and visual at the moment, so visual it is for now. 

Great report and interesting to hear that you have found that planetaries and star brightness give you the real wow factor. Sounds like a great scope. Any chance you could leave outside in an enclosure, run off shed or similar so it’s ready for use (with dew heaters ready and waiting 😁 )?

1 hour ago, stafford_stargazer said:

Thanks Rob appreciate your input, yes the focuser it quite stiff like you say soni can imagine what a pain it will be.. I'm on the lookout for something 👍

I did manage to make the focuser a bit less stiff with a bit of fiddling but really needs a new two speed focuser or motorized focuser. Let me know how you get on. 

Ive used my 150PL very successfully on my CG5 and Skytee 2, both on the hefty 2” tripod, and they were rock solid, even in light breezes. I’ve also tried it on my AZ4 on a 1.75” tripod, which I would say is closer to your Porta II setup, but the results were not so good, with wobble at medium to higher powers. Another problem is focusing can induce huge wobble, as it’s a fairly stiff single speed focuser at the end of a long tube, again a solid mount helps reduce this. Focus induced wobble can be infuriating when trying to fine focus on planets and doubles at very high power. I have thought about a cheap skywatcher remote focuser, but so far have not been able to remove either of the focuser knobs to do this. 

I only have Interstellarum, but I have found it to be a brilliant resource, very thoughtfully put together, and good for planning sessions. A couple of the features I like are the way it indicates what is the minimum scope size for each object (4”, 8” or 12”) and also shows you what filters are best on each nebula.

Thanks for the heads up. It would be wonderful to own one of these legendary scopes, but that’s a huge amount of money for a 110mm scope, especially if you are a visual only observer. I imagine you could instantly sell the AP scope for more than you paid though. For most buyers it’s more of a collectors item I would guess.