RobertI

I think it’s a sensible plan to use the 8” SCT you already have - it should provide good lunar and planetary views. Personally I don’t go above 200x with mine, mainly due to seeing, so I wouldn’t say its longer focal length would be an advantage over a 4” ED refractor, but it should show slightly more detail on those really good nights and also more colour on the planets. I do like the sharp and contrasty views of my refractor, but you have your 80mm for that. 🙂

I think the bino advice is good for kids that are really interested in “doing” astronomy, but in my experience, many children just want a telescope, and in particular something that “looks like a real telescope” - ie: a refractor of some sort on a tripod. In that case I think a cheap scope and lots of encouragement from a knowledgeable person can work wonders. It’s the second bit that’s usually lacking though!

Well done, Almach is one of the most beautiful doubles in the sky, did you notice the colour difference between the two stars? Albireo in Cygnus is another double of the same quality. I think many people with astigmatism observe with their glasses on, and choose eyepieces with good “eye relief” to help with this. I’m sure some experienced observers with astigmatism will offer some advice on this if you are interested.

I’ve not tried the Evostar 120 but I’m guessing an F5 achro will show a fair amount of chromatic aberration, which may or may not bother you. An alternative scope which springs to mind is the Altair Astro 102ED Starwave Ascent, which has an ED element (FPL51?), so should have less chromatic aberration, and is within your price range, but you will need to get a finder and diagonal. The FPL53 version is highly regarded so the build and image quality should be excellent. I’d agree with the AZ4 as a mount for that sized refractor, very happy with mine.

From memory, I don’t believe I needed the GPC in my C8, due to to the large range of focus, so I’m guessing the C6 would be the same, but I can double check. I did try it with a 0.63 reducer and no GPC to try and get a low magnification for DSOs, but could not reach focus, so the lowest magnification I could get was around 100x (no GPC or reducer). The field stop of the BVs is only 20mm, so limits the field of view if using longer focal length eyepieces to get lower mags. More expensive BVs improve this problem. Probably more info than you wanted!

The standard arrangement with the William Optic BVs (20mm eyepieces plus 1.6x glass path corrector) will give 120x in your C6 I think. You can also play with barlows to give different multipliers, rather than eyepieces - I have a Baader Classic 2.25x Barlow, and when I screw the lens from that on the end of the BVs (instead of the GPC) I get an effective multiplier of around 4.5x, which gives a perfect 160x in my refractor so that would give 337x in your SCT, which is probably too high, but if you have barlows worth experimenting. It’s worth noting that you could also use BVs with your ZS66. Being a bit controversial, but I would suggest getting BVs before shelling out on a bigger scopes - for me they have been a complete revelation for solar system. They don’t work for everyone though.

Oh dear! 😆 At least the WO binoviewers come with eyepieces, but I take your point.

You may have already considered this, but for visual only have you ever tried a binoviewer? I have found mine to be amazing on lunar and planets, objects look 50% bigger with two eyes, and viewing is more relaxing and just far more engaging. Your C6 would work well with one I think.

Yes it is disappointing, although the fixes seemed to work for @Bloodline. I’ll do more testing and fiddling with settings to see what I can find out. There are a lot more settings in SkySafari (eg: you can adjust date and time which you can’t do Starsense app, and I know this can affect star detection).

Conditions weren’t great tonight, low bright moon and very wispy high cloud, but I tried the above mentioned potential fixes for SkySafari (switching to flight mode and turning off the scope display FOV circles). Unfortunately I got the same problems, the zooming in feature worked initially but then stopped, and there were areas of sky where it could not detect enough stars. The latter issue was not surprising given the conditions, but what was surprising was that when I switched to the Starsense app, it detected the stars perfectly! I compared on three specific objects in different areas of the sky where SkySafari could not detect stars, and the Starsense app consistently found enough stars to platesolve. So bad news that the SkySafari problem not solved, but good news that the Starsense app seems to work well even under challenging conditions. It’s no great hardship to stick with the Starsense app, it’s pretty amazing in its own right!

Feel free to start a thread documenting your EAA journey. 🙂 Interested to see how you get on.

That sounds very promising, could solve both problems, thanks so much for investigating. I will try and let you know. 👍

What sort of total exposure time are you using on these recent images @powerlord?

Too tired to drag the scope(s) out last night, I had a quick session with the 10x50s. Although apparently cloudless and transparent, there was a distinct lack of stars and the Milky Way wasn’t fabulous. Despite that M33 was quite clear, and many of the open clusters in Auriga and Perseus looked wonderful. The binoculars were great at bringing out stellar colours. I discovered a large beanbag makes a perfect binocular chair and can be adjusted for any angle - highly recommended!

I have also been experiencing the same problems. The issue of sometimes not being able to platesolve seems to happen on both SS and the Starsense App for me (ie: switching from SS to the Starsense App did not seem to solve the problem). It also happened at a dark site recently and also in an area of sky with lots of stars, so it is puzzling. The not zooming in issue seemed to be just restricted to SS. I am using an iPhone 12. I’ll do some more testing, but it’s disappointing as my first few times out were flawless. 😕 I did have a major problem a while back where it would not platesolve at all, but then I realised I still had Sky Safari set to Turkey time (my holiday destination), and changing it to BST solved the issue. So I am wondering if the problem might be due to a system setting somewhere……

Ah, the dark skies! Yes, that is another conundrum - I would need to travel for dark skies, but I don’t think I would have room for a 12” dob, even a collapsible one, plus all my camping gear in my current car. I have been thinking about hiring a 12” dob for a month to see how I get on with it from my back garden - assuming I get some clear nights…… I didn’t see any colour that I can recall - I’m not sure many of the objects would have shown colour though, and most of the nebulae were through filter. I should have asked to see M42 - don’t why I didn’t!

Wow, the transparency must have been amazing, you can even see the constellation names!

Interestingly, the owner of the big 20” dob, was spending his time trying to track down some of the very faintest Abell planetary nebulae. So it doesn’t matter what sized scope you have, visual astronomers seems determined to spend their time squinting at faint fuzzy things. 🙂

Thanks John, as you say the views are so memorable, I’ll not forget the Crescent, which was the first object I saw through a big dob. I think it’s much more of an experience when you are already familiar with an object through lesser scopes, and then see it ‘revealed’ in a large aperture. Yes, I have to say I did think briefly about what it would be like to own a big dob, but given the trouble I had pitching my tent, I think erecting a huge dob is probably a step too far! What it has done though, is made me question the value of a getting a 12” dob, which was my original plan - it just doesn’t seem that big any more! I guess I will need to look through one next time out and see what 12” can do. I still got huge enjoyment from looking through my 4” refractor though - the rich star fields and open clusters of Cygnus, Perseus, Cassiopeia and Auriga were just stunning under dark skies. Things might be a bit different in spring galaxy season though.

Just the one? Count yourself lucky! 😆

It’s not been good this summer I agree. I’ve just returned from Kelling and I think I did more observing in one night than the whole of the rest of the year.

Just returned from Kelling Heath and lucky enough to have had some clear skies and looked through some big dobs. The Crescent Nebula through a 20” was the highlight for me, having never been more than a hazy smudge in my scopes. Full report here…

I’ve now posted my report from Kelling for anyone that’s interested.

After many years of observing mainly on my own, I was finally able to spend four nights camping at the Kelling Heath Star Camp. I was lucky enough to find myself in a nice quiet corner of red field with some lovely guys, Mick, Ian and Alan, with big dobs (16” - 20”) who were more than happy to share and chat. After torrential rain and wind on the first night I was treated to a wonderful clear sky on the second and fourth nights, and had some amazing views through those dobs. Here are some highlights: The Crescent Nebula has been nothing more than a smudge in my various scopes so I was keen to see what it was like in a large dob. I was not disappointed. In Ian’s 20” with an Ethos eyepiece, the nebula was huge and almost like a photograph, arching across the field of view and giving up plenty of detail. Stunning. M2 and M3 were, again, like photos, showing good resolution to the core extremely bright. I’ve never seen the Horsehead Nebula but Mick managed to track it down with an Hb filter in his 16”. I’ve heard it described as a ‘notch’ - well through this scope it was more like a huge gouge! I could clearly see a large semi-circular hole in some very faint nebulosity, no horsehead shape was visible (in really dark skies Mick has seen the shape). A wonderful first sight of this elusive object. I’ve also never clearly seen spiral arms in galaxies, so M33 was a treat in the 16”. The spiral arms were clearly visible giving an S shape, and hints of dark lanes were visible. There was also two very noticeable star forming regions on opposite sides, each one brighter than M33 itself looks in my scopes! M27 was large and detailed with the magnitude 14 central star easily seen. The Cocoon was probably the most challenging being just a faint smudge, although conditions were not so go at that point. Caroline’s Rose looked rich and beautiful through Alan’s 17.5”. I also had some fantastic views through my 102ED and C8, the 102ED in particular impressing my new astronomy pals. Highlights included: Jupiter, GRS and Io shadow transit Veil complex and North America - both fully visible in the 4 degree view of the refractor. M27 was incredibly bright and responded well to an OIII filter M81 (looked amazing through the C8) and M82 Crescent neb was the usual smudge NGC2403 - lovely galaxy with a star each end NGC891 - faintish edge on galaxy but no black band was visible NGC7331 - small galaxy, I felt I could almost see some spiral structure in the good conditions The binoculars were a revelation as always - the Pleiades were stunning and Andromeda was just massive stretching across much of the binocular’s 7 degree field of view. All in all, I felt very lucky with the conditions and my neighbours and I throughly enjoyed my four day stay in the tent. I was privileged to look through their scopes and I hope I returned the favour with some nice wide field views through my 102ED. I’ll definitely be returning next year.

I also witnessed this, pretty unbelievable, just clueless.