RobertI

I think this is fab, you rarely seen full moon sketches. I was about to suggest you enter this into the sketching competition but I am pleased to see you already have. 🙂

Beautiful sketches Mike, will hopefully inspire lots of other entires. 🙂

On 02/02/2023 at 07:08, Marvin Jenkins said:

I have suggest to my friend to buy a star diagonal, two decent plossls and a red dot finder. I think with a easy going tutorial once or twice he will be a star gazer.

Good luck, I really hope your friend catches the bug. Sounds like that little scope is a good beginner’s scope. A friend was recently asking me for advice about what scope to get to see the comet and a how to take photographs. As is so often the case, he had found an obscure piece of rubbish on Amazon and asked me what I thought. I told him to forget it and forget photographs - instead I lent him my Heritage 130P which I know to be a super capable scope, if a little quirky  I really hope he gets on with it and catches the bug!

11 hours ago, DPF said:

Most of all my little scope has enabled me to get outside, enjoy the peaceful surroundings and improve my mental well-being. 

This is such an important part of the hobby for me too - glad you are enjoying your scope!

Really amazing Timelapse, that’s on a par with the black hole image, seeing something so long predicted actually come to pass. A real wow moment for me. 

6 hours ago, FLO said:

 

I just remembered, I should mention our new parallelogram binocular mount (shown on the right of photo 1).

Designed entirely in-house, with help from some beta-testers. 

 

I had a play with this at the IAS last year and it was a really superb piece of kit, very ably and enthusiastically demonstrated by one of the FLO gang (who I believe designed it?). I think it will sell well, very interested myself…..

1 minute ago, Littleguy80 said:

Interesting comment on the AZ4. I noticed it’s only rated to 5kg which is what led me to look up the specs on starwave mini

I would say, with the 1.75” steel tripod, 5kg is very conservative. It holds my bulky C8 without problems, though not really designed for such wide scopes. It appears to be designed for 4” F7 refractors! 😆

1 hour ago, Littleguy80 said:

The astronomy bug is biting again which of course means I’m thinking about buying new astro gear! My current setup is:

SkyWatcher 10” Dob - My most used and most loved scope. Despite it’s size, it’s nearly always this scope that I bring outside at night. 

SkyWatcher Equinox 80 - Purchased as a travel scope. Nice for wide field. This gets the most use for white light Solar.

DayStar Solar Scout 60mm - My first Ha scope. Have been very happy with it though I have no basis for comparison with other Ha scopes. 

I’ve been greatly entertained by reading a  number of threads on reflectors vs refractors. There’s no denying that @mikeDnight makes a very strong case for a 4” APO. As does @Stu for the white light solar views. All this has led me to formulating the following plan. 

New scope - Starfield 102mm F7. I believe this is the same as the Technosky scope which @Victor Boesen reviewed really nicely. It may not be a Tak but I think it’s close enough for the money. 

Mount - I originally planned to get an AZ4 but after some research I a found my Altair Starwave Mini AZ is rated up to 6kg with the counter weight so I think this will be fine for the Starfield. 

Quark Chromosphere - Out with the Solar Scout and in with the Quark. It should be work with both refractors. I believe I’ll need a UV/IR filter for it though. To get full disc views, I’ll probably need a focal reducer. 

I’m expecting the new scope to give me improved planetary views on most occasions. My initial impressions of my 80mm frac was that is show less detail than the dob. Recent comparisons, based on short sessions show the frac giving better views when the seeing is average and nicer colour rendition  

For solar viewing, I want to see more detailed granulation in white light. As for Ha, again, hoping to improve surface detail and be able to throw more magnification at it. The Quark option seems to give the most flexibility.

At this point, I’m just looking for thoughts on whether this makes sense. The dob will always be the DSO king but I’m sure the Starfield will be well used for shorter sessions or widefield on things like the Veil. 

The Altair Astro 102ED-R is another version of the same scope. I’ve been extremely happy with mine after two years. My initial assessment was that I was amazed by its solar system capabilities (especially with binoviewers) but slightly underwhelmed by the DSOs it showed, I guess 4” is 4”. But it is so versatile, going from razor sharp views of planets and the moon at 200x to super wide views of 4 degrees and more. So alongside your 10” it should be the perfect companion. 

I have mine on an AZ4 which I bought specially for it as my Skytee on a 2” tripod is heavy and overkill for a 4” scope on its own, and my Mini-giro on a heavy duty photo tripod is more ‘delicate’ to balance and doesn’t do the scope justice.  

You’re getting some nice views of the comet Michael. I still haven’t seen it yet, I’ll track it down with my 10x50s but will also try one of my scopes. What sort of magnification do you think would be best, say with my 102ED? 

I started to do a comparison between my Tal 100RS and my 102ED-R a couple of years ago - you can see it below. I only compared Mars, and the ED scope served up much better views (I don’t think the diagonal in the Tal made a difference as I may have suspected in the test). I didn’t continue the test because I was so impressed with the performance of the 102ED-R I just wanted to use it and not waste any more time on comparisons! I haven’t used the Tal since, not because it’s bad, there’s just no reason to when I have the ED which gives better views. Prior to getting the ED I did sometimes use the Tal side by side with the C8 and it was a very good double splitter and served up decent views of the moon, Jupiter and Saturn. If the Tal was your only refractor I think you would be happy, but side by side with an ED of similar size, I think you’d always be looking through the ED. 

As for build quality, it’s very solid, the focuser is an ok single speed Crayford, it has a rotatable focuser tube and a removable dew shield. It doesn’t feel cheap but also doesn’t feel special or refined. One point is that with a 2” diagonal there is insufficient in focus, so I have to use a 1.25” diagonal and cannot accommodate 2” eyepieces as a result. 

Well done indeed, I’m sure they’ll be very popular. 👍

41 minutes ago, saac said:

This thing looks really strange; seen above the sky in Hawii at the Manu Kea observatory.  Suggestion that it may have been associated with a space x satellite release! Kind of pretty. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-64458511

Jim 

It’s a message …… from Elon Musk. It’s rather pretty actually. 

On 29/01/2023 at 14:51, SuburbanMak said:

Mine has been a very busy postman, bringing me an AZGTiX mount to realise my long held ambition to run the widefield ST80 alongside my Mak 127, a Berlebach Charon observing chair and (incredibly excitingly!) a pair of Canon 10x42 IS Binoculars. 
All of which pretty much guaranteed a cloudy weekend, sorry about that guys. Fingers crossed for a window tomorrow night however…

Your dob looks like it’s sulking in the corner. 

Very enjoyable video, a nice examination  of the comet, great setup you have there. 

1 hour ago, Beardy30 said:

I love how my question has evolved in to such debate 😂

You mentioned the word “refractor”!

Another vote for the 102ED. I'm a fairly recent convert to the joys of a 4" refractor for visual after many years with my highly capable Newts and an 8" SCT. Very pleased with the 4" all round and I tend to use it more than my other scopes for visual as most of my sessions are spur of the moment and fairly brief, so quick cooling, easy setup and minimal paraphernalia are important. The main limitations for me are globular clusters, where I think you need 6-8" and above to resolve enough stars to get that wow factor, and possibly galaxies. 

Good catches Reggie. 👍

7 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Buy the M63 clicklock for 2.5” focusers. It screws straight on.

Is it this one? https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/baader-clicklock-m63a-x-1-for-feather-touch-25-focusers.html

Sounds like a horrible situation to be in, and a real dilemma for you. I don't know your situation, but could you look to focus on enjoying your imaging again, and take the pressure off, by using a cheaper/simpler/smaller scope for a while, and the triplet dilemma might become clearer over time with help of the good people on SGL?

9 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Yes I’d love to get it out to a really dark sky and see how it performs on the faint fuzzies, but to be honest I’ve never been a  fuzzyophile. I might see if I can find used UHC and O3 filters though as never tried them.

Binoviewers sound great and I’d love to use them but I only have sight in one eye so I have to make do with regular pirate viewing.

 

Personally I think an OIII is worth it for the Veil Nebula alone. Even through the 4", with an OIII it's stunning on a transparent night and so much to see, and sketch if you're that way inclined. UHC is more versatile. Both really can make the invisible visible. I also bought a 38 Panaview eyepiece for my 102ED giving a 4 degree FOV and can fit the entire Veil in! 

What a session Dave! Must have been superb transparency that night. Beautiful scope ... "Flourite Apochromat" ... is that some kind of plastic? 😉

42 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Lastly fitted two nylon/acrylic straps with handles to enable easier lifting of the tube.

Excellent mods sir! I also have a strap on my C8 instead of a handle, it's very effective and better than a handle in that you can position it anywhere around the OTA to suit. 👍  

Just FYI, I have attached the baseplate to my scope using two cable ties around the circumference of the scope, one on each side of the base plate. It doesn't look pretty, but actually works brilliantly, and no stickiness required. It also mean you can mount the quickfinder at the lens end of the scope (in the case of a refractor) which makes it easier to look through. 

Great to hear Stu, at least great that the scope is not duff! 👍

13 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

TSA-120, 12” obsession dob, and an 80mm Lunt. It looks like it will be a TSA-102, 8” starsense dob, 60mm Lunt 😂

LOL, yes the 12” might be your Obsession but the 8” makes more (star) sense. 🤭