RobertI

Crikey that is a very impressive achievement Mike, nice to know there is a library of ‘reference’ ARP EAA images to refer to in the future. I wonder if there is a way to group all your ARP captures together in a single library?

Great article Curtis, interesting and informative, especially understanding the order in which the technology evolved. I wish this had been available when I was putting together my talk on EAA for my local club in October! I also prefer the term Camera Assisted Viewing/Observing to EAA, but then again anything is better than Video Astronomy, which has become downright misleading! As always there is Night Vision, which is kind of sits in its own category but is still about ‘live electronic viewing’ - it’s slowly growing in popularity (restricted by high costs) and produces amazing results so I included it in my talk, but presumably outside the scope of your article? I’m afraid my level of knowledge is not enough to comment on the accuracy of the article, but it is a very useful resource thanks!

Nice session with your bins, sounds like the conditions were brilliant though.

Thanks Chris, yes I have dew band permanently attached the scope but I just didn’t think to attach it to the power tank, as the weather didn’t look too ‘dewey! 😆 Don’t think I was thinking very clearly at 2 am! 😬

Some impressive results there, the horse head is amazing. 👍👍

Addendum: When I put the scope away, the lens had a light dew on it. I assumed this happened when I brought it into the warmer garage, but on reflection it had probably been like that for a while, and might explain the inability to split closer doubles. Funny how you sometimes lose the ability to think straight when you’re ‘out in the field’.

Well done on getting the F component, which I have just failed to get with my 100mm achro - I did get the E though! 🙂 Nice report. The AZPro looks like a nice mount.

Having recently improved the collimation on my Tal100RS (mainly by blind fumbling) I thought I’d make use of clear skies to test the scope on some doubles. Having waited for it to cool I popped in the 5mm BST giving 200x and slewed to a brightish star - the results looked promising, with some nice even diffraction rings which were were slightly broken by the average to good seeing conditions. Buoyed by this result, I slewed to the Trapezium. A beautiful sight as always, the E component was immediately visible but the F was hiding from me, despite looking for a good 20 minutes. Next was Rigel with its tiny companion, followed by the more challenging Alnitak with its companion 2.2” away from the glare, the latter being easy to see with a clear gap between the two. Inspired by the success so far, I thought I’d try some doubles with a split less than 2”. I was over ambitious starting with 32 Orionis, the mag 4.2 and 5.7 components are only separated by 1.4” and try as I might I could not separate them at 200x. Unfortunately I am currently unable to go beyond 200x and I feel I might have had more luck at higher mags. Propus A with mag 3 and 6 components separated by 1.6” also eluded me and my final attempt at a 1.9” double was also unsuccessful, mainly because the secondary was mag 11 (which I failed realise at the time). I think a Barlow or shorter FL eyepiece is needed for these. Finished with a couple of easy old favourites just to remember how nice the scope is for doubles, Castor looking as beautiful as always and Algieba an easy yellow binary. One thing this session did achieve is a decision on my next scope. I had been weighing up whether to get a 100ED or a 150P Newt. Having spent much of the session twisting, craning, crouching, crawling and fumbling around for the eyepiece, often with my head in the tripod legs, I remembered how easy Newts are to observe with, particularly at the zenith, and this clinched my decision to get a 150P next. Shame because a few hours earlier I was definitely veering towards the 100ED!! 🤷🏼‍♂️

I would say you have failed! Lovely detailed history and background first light reports. I love 'wheel' on the TEC160 - something usually seen on massive observatory refractors of old. Some legendary refractors in your collection, nice to see them all laid out together. I've enjoyed your NV reports on SGL, I seem to remember the C11 produces excellent results for NV (different story for visual I would imagine).

Nice capture, tricky one that, viewed it myself sometime ago and recall it took longer than usual exposures. Nice colour.

.....or eyepieces......or mounts!

Well clearly I haven't been trying hard enough! You could always make @John an offer, I hear he is really fed up with his. 😉 Out of interest @Stu, you don't mention why you purchased any of your scopes - do you go through phases (you seemed to have an OO phase), or is to support your observing interests at the time, or do you buy when something interestibg comes along or do you just love trying out different scopes? I suspect the answer is all of the above!

It looks like you have had a few ‘milestones’ along your learning curve, and the odd millstone too (haven’t we all!)!

Interesting, I can see how it wouldn’t get used give your other scopes, it’s neither portable nor a light bucket! Astronomy Nirvana John. Doesn’t get much better than this. 🙂

They do seem to fade somewhat, fortunately mine has been mostly in its case with only a bit of fading from previous ownership. I think they did ‘Meade’ blue, ‘Celestron’ orange, ‘laboratory’ white and ‘bling’ black!

Looks like you’ve tried pretty much everything and have finally found you’re happy place. I think a TEC140 would be my happy place too!

What colour is yours? Very nice scope. That man @Lockie again!

Couldn't have put it better myself!

I’ve been reading a few interesting threads which have made me think about how I ended up with the scopes have over the years, so I have summarised my scope history in chronological order, and the reasons for buying them in brief below. Hope it’s of interest.... 1) Celestron C8 - bought in 1999, the dream scope of my youth that I could finally afford. Not much reasearch done, I just wanted one! 2) WO Zenithstar 66SD - bought as a ‘super finder’ for the C8 (I was seduced by its anodised orange lustre). This scope started me out in imaging with my Canon EOS and made me realise how easy it can be to get good results with a small frac. 3) WO Megrez 72 - I discovered that @Lockie was selling the more imaging friendly 72SD with 2” focuser and was only 10 miles away, so thought I’d give it a go. Turned our be a good g&g visual scope too. 4) RC6 - I ended up with this scope as I needed a goto mount to help with my growing interest in EAA, and this scope was being sold locally, bundled with a CG5 GT mount, for a very good price. The RC6 turned out to be a much better EAA scope than the C8, with the promise of ’proper’ imaging in the future. 5) Tal 100RS - really purchased out of curiosity (from my friend @Lockie again!) - I wanted to get a feel for what could been seen visually with a 100mm longish FL frac, possibly as a prelude to an 100mm ED. 6) Heritage 130P - I wanted more aperture in a grab and go format that could sit on my Giro-WR mount - having read so many good reviews of this scope, it seemed the natural choice. What a good scope it’s been! Interestingly, having reviewed my reasons for buying the different scopes, I think all of them except the C8 were opportunistic purchases, in that if they had not been on ABS and/or local, I may well have ended up with something different or nothing at all. So how and why did you end up with your various scopes? @Lockie , given the number of scopes you’ve had, you are limited to 10,000 words! 😆

Thanks Chris, it's getting more tempting. Just out of interest, can you reach the primary collimation screws while looking through the eyepiece?

Well done Chris, I did almost 'nudge' you to go out in the clear weather and give the scope a go, but thought that was unfair! Now you're making me feel that I should have been out there! Anyway well done and sounds like that's a great setup, and getting the E component just like that shows how good the scope (and your eye) is. Do you think my Skytee (on 2" legs) would handle a 6" F8 ok?

Thanks @vlaiv, I’ve never considered one of these, certainly more straight forward than any of the reducers I have, and solves any potential in focus issues, thanks for the heads up!

Well done on getting to 100th session, I’ll see if I can attempt the same feat myself in 2020. I find it odd to still be able to see the ‘summer’ triangle at this time of year, it hangs around for ages.

Thanks @vlaiv very useful to know this. I use a Lodestar mono, I was thinking that the F6 might not have enough inward focus for imaging with a reducer (as it’s not optimised for AP) but looks like it would be ok? I currently use an RC6 with good results, but it seems overly complex for EAA and I can’t help thinking a newt would be easier and I can use it for visual too.

Thanks both. I think I am confusing things in my own head with too many variables, my original thought was a 130PDS which I could use on my Sky Prodigy and also use for EAA. Then I thought I have been doing in a lot of quick ‘manual’ observing of late, particularly doubles, so perhaps a 150PDS or 150P might be better, then I thought well perhaps F6 would be better for visual and more apo like, but then not really useable for EAA anymore. Yes, I really need to decide what I want! Chris, now you are making me want an F8! 😂 Right now I’m enjoying my new McLaren 675LT! 👍