RobertI

Interesting sounding upgrade. Would be interesting to see some pictures?

A fascinating catalogue of observations, beautifully described. Some noted for my next trip out. 🙂

Great report and lovely sketches. The Veil is my favourite DSO and I have had some amazing views with an OIII filter. Probably my best view was with my 6” Newt last year - almost photographic - still etched in my mind. Yes I found it really tough too, I eventually got there but there were not many field stars to help.

Lovely read, sounds like you had an amazing time. Yes, I’ve found that really dark skies can make it confusing to find your way around, even when you know the constellations well. Keep posting. 👍

A setup to die for Stu! I’m sure the scope will produce some mouth watering views over the coming weeks, months and years.

Glad your enjoying the binoviewing, I’m been having a lot of fun with mine over the last year. It was a bit of a faff to start with, but now that I have selected a dedicated eyepiece/barlow combination for planetary, it’s always ready to go and no more difficult to attach than an eyepiece (a large one!). 🙂

Great report and we’ll done for achieving some great observations with a relatively modest scope - sounds like a real gem. 👍

Also, is it a straight through finder or a RACI? RACI’s have more internal parts which could potentially move.

Things are so much easier on an Alt-Az mount, no flopping, flipping, flapping and the finders and eyepieces are always perfectly placed. But you probably already know this! Good luck with your endeavours. 🙂

100% yes! The main reasons they work are that it is so much easier to see small details with both eyes and it is much more comfortable to view for long periods with both eyes. It also reduces the effects of floaters at high magnifications. The actual image is probably slightly less sharp with BVs but the above more than compensates. I know some folk don’t get on with them, but for me and many others, it’s a game changer!

Had a nice long session in Jupiter last night. Seeing was good after midnight and after using both the 102ED-R and the C8 for a while, it turned out that the C8 was the preferable scope tonight. With BVs attached giving a magnification of around 190x the views were superb with plenty of detail in still moments. Unfortunately by the time I got around to doing a sketch Jupiter was over the rooftops so the poor sketch below doesn't show it at its best. The small satellite is Io and was definitely a tiny disc. Annoyingly if I’d stayed out for another 30 minutes I would have got a shadow transit, but at 1am I was just too tired! I also managed to find the ghostly blue Neptune, took some tracking down actually, mainly due to tiredness In think!

My twin canons set up for a visual session on Jupiter last night. 102ED-R and C8 atop the Skytee 2. 🙂

John’s suggestion above should solve the problem I think. I guess it’s also possible that you are also experiencing some “mirror flop” which will require some realignment of the finder after a meridian flip? For your info I use both a red dot finder and a normal finder. The Rigel quickfinder is great when I am observing DSOs at low power and just need to get to the general area, but when I am trying to find fainter objects at higher power I also need the 10x60 RACI finder (so I have both attached to my scope). I use the Altair Astro RACI which is really lightweight.

16” SCTs with 6” ED finders? 12” mirror bino scopes? You live in an astronomy wonderland Peter! I really must visit the Astronomy Centre soon. 😊

I am a long time observer but a fairly recent convert to medium sized apo’s. See my recent post detailing my experiences with a new 4” apo over the last year:

That puts things into perspective very nicely John, and your conclusion seems very valid. Thanks for taking time to explain. 👍

Yes it’s a great value mount and really solid. I would love a Rowan AZ100 - once your scopes start creeping up the quality ladder, the mounts start to follow, then eyepieces! But have no real reason to change the Skytee.

I use mine on the Skytee 2, sometimes alongside the C8. It’s really rock solid on this mount. I’ve retained the ‘sticky grease’ of the Skytee as I like the reassurance of knowing that if I loosen the clutch the scope will not swing down and crash into the tripod legs!!

One thing I have never got to the bottom of is the “Lanthanum glass” - much advertised with the TS and Tecnosky versions but not mentioned on the AA version - what is it (a coating, a type of glass, a process) and is it a “premium” feature or not? There seem to be a LOT of discussion on CN about this, some people even claiming it’s actually a way of reducing cost of making glass, so does not necessarily equate to high quality glass. Perhaps this is not the place for a long discussion on this, but would be interested if anyone has a definitive answer? I posed the question to AA and got a resounding silence.....

Very nice scope. AA have a confusing naming convention - I assumed that the “R” indicated FPL53 glass (as the 102ED has FPL51) but clearly not! Edit: just read the article you linked to and it says: “...the ‘R’ indicating an upgraded rack and pinion focuser with additional features for an improved experience.” I now understand .... kind of!

I suspect in most situations there is very little to choose between the two! Enjoy your scope. 🙂

Very much so! 😂 It would be good to get a squint through a 120/130 with similar glass to compare at some point.

Thanks Chris! 🙂

Interesting looking mount, Bill seems very impressed and said it’s the first mount of this type he used where he felt he didn’t need slo mo controls. Not sure it would appeal to me though - I think for that price I would want slo mo, but it does seem to fill a bit of a price gap in the market (assuming $650 = £650).

It’s the anniversary of receiving my Altair Astro Starwave 102ED-R so I thought it would be a fitting time to share my opinion after a year of using this little beauty (bit of a giveaway there!). Just for context, my reason for buying this scope was to experience what a medium sized doublet refractor with premium glass (FPL53) could do visually. I’d been impressed with the double splitting abilities and clean images provided by my Tal achromat, and amazed by the stories of what can be seen with modest 100-120ED refractors. It took a few sessions to really appreciate what the scope could do. It’s a very different beast to a 150 Newt or a C8. It’s deep sky abilities are pretty much what you would expect from 100mm and it’s double splitting abilities are good with beautiful clean and crisp star images without CA. But the real revelation was for solar system observing - the detail on Mars, Jupiter the moon and the sun is amazing. Unless the seeing is very good, it is on a par with the C8 in terms of detail, but the image is cleaner and more pleasing to the eye with wonderful contrast and sharp edges. With a binoviewer the observing experience becomes even better and this combination has been my most used setup over the last year. Another asset is the beautifully made, heavy duty two-speed R&P focuser. Focussing is a tactile joy and induces very little vibration with the modest 714mm focal length. The Tal on the other hand was a distinct problem to focus at high powers with its 1000mm focal length and single speed focuser. Add to all of this the fast cool down, reluctance to dew up and portability and you have the perfect scope for everything except deep sky, and even then it’s probably better than any other type of mirrored or achro 4” scope. I recently viewed the entire Veil complex with a 2” 38mm eyepiece giving 3.8 degree FOV and a UHC filter - quite beautiful. At £900 it isn’t cheap and is hard to compare value for money with a 4” achro or 6” newt costing a quarter as much, but for me it’s been money very well spent and I would probably only ever sell it to experience the joys of a premium Tak! 👍