Space Hopper

Good work @djpaul I'm sure it will be a good purchase for you. I was certainly impressed with it. Maybe it would be good to test it against a DM-6 and compare the two together...??

My weather app shows total cloud cover and rain. (Really, i'd never have believed that ! 😃) But these apps have a habit of forecasting what we've just had weatherwise and things can change between now and then. Its too early to tell. Fingers x'ed ; you never know. If it looks promising i'll be out to see it. I'll forever regret it if its a spectacular showing.

I'm a little biased here as i've been a binocular and bino-viewing enthusiast for a good few years now. I've always believed theres no better way to observe. I always think "why would anyone want to observe with one eye when you have two ?" What do you do with your other eye while monoviewing with the other ? Keep it closed ? Keep it open ? Cover it over. This just leads to squinting through your observing eye. When you listen to music through a pair of headphones they generally sound better and feel more comfortable in stereo don't they ?? They do to me. I apply the same principles to visual observing. I've never yet seen a mono view through any telescope compare with a two eyed view, on any object, and i've looked through a whole host of different scopes and eyepieces in the last 20 years or so. Even with something like a 21mm Ethos, one of the worlds finest widefields, while the views have been spectacular in some cases, i still prefer a two eyed view through my personal favourite 24mm Panoptics. I can quite happily observe something like Saturn or Jupiter for 10-20 mins continuously, in complete comfort, waiting for that extra steady bit of seeing to come along. I can't do that mono-viewing. It would get far too uncomfortable. But thats just my own £0.02p on the subject, and i appreciate that others don't necessarily agree with me. If i had to recommend a system, i would go with Baader Planetarium. The Mk 2 Maxbrite (or a used Mk1) is reasonably priced and best of all, they supply a whole host of excellent prisms and diagonals, all with a T2 format so excellent compatibility and as short a lightpath as you can get. The William Optics are nice as well, but don't have the T2 compatibility. Another more expensive option is the Denkmeiers where you have a 'Powerswitch' to give you 3 different magnifications with just the one set of eyepieces. Theres alot to be said for Powerswitches. Less fiddling around, and more time observing for one.....

With it being numbered #048 it looks to be one of the earlier lenses LZOS produced and a good few years old. So with a lens of this pedigree, if it was me, i'd be thinking about having it professionally cleaned, polished and recollimated. The only way i'd do that is to send it back to Lytkarino in Russia. To do that i'd enquire with the UK distributers of LZOS (Astrograph UK) or maybe even enquire with someone like Markus Ludes who run APM scopes in Germany. I think (correct me if i'm wrong) that APM are the only importers of these very rare and special lenses, and they will have the contacts in Russia that will help you along with getting your optic serviced. It is a complex lens design, and i'd want LZOS, no one else, to do it.

Make no mistake, its certainly well built ! 😀

I bought a dew band from Barbara, some imaging adapters for the TEC, and picked up a new smaller refractor to go with the TEC I also added to my meteorite collection.....a nice specimen i think. Its a NWA stone type.

It looked very impressive Paul, and if i didn't already have the DM-6 i'd certainly be in the market for one. Like the DM-6 it works very nicely with the Nexus DSC I also heard talk about sometime in the future they'd be adding motors / goto functionality.

One more......

Sure did matey......!! 😀

I was only there for 4 hours, but really enjoyed the show. The morning run down was fine, M1, M69 were both good, but obviously much busier mid Friday afternoon on the return leg.

I'm travelling down from Derby. 54.5 miles : 1hr 9m drive so Google Maps tells me. I'm worried about flooding en route, and i've a feeling that 1hr 9m may be a little optimistic.....🤨

I've owned a 12" Newtonian and where i live i can't even see M1 (as an example) because the light pollution is so poor. At our dark site i've seen M1 in 15x50 binoculars. But only a few weeks ago from home i could see Saturns shadow cast upon its rings in the same light polluted back yard with my refractor. Swings and roundabouts.

I use Blazewear heated insoles which really help with winter cold feet.

Sorry, i was way off the mark. Imaging specific reflectors = big secondarys to fully illuminate the various sized sensors out there. I hadn't factored that in. 😳

Not absolutely sure, but i have a similar OO 12"F4 The secondary on that is 75mm On the smaller 10" that comes with a 63mm secondary. The SW Quattros may not be EXACTLY the same, but the above will give you a ballpark idea. HTH

Fair point, but still an over the top markup. £1000 at the current exchange rate + 25% = £1250 to me not £1500 ! Thats WCs profit margin i guess and if they can shift them at that price then good luck to them.

So $1245 in the US and £1400 - £1500 over here........?? Somebody's taking the michael.

With a big 2" Everbrite, i'd say not. My advice is to use a Baader prism with the Mk V and keep the Everbrite for cyclops viewing with 2" glass.

Well chaps : turns out my 'guesstimate' price of £899 wasn't too far wide of the mark. I'm hearing (From the CN site) it will ship in December, and will cost..... .........wait for it..........drumroll.......... $1245 USD 😲 Thats around £970 at the current exchange rate. Good lord above. We must be bonkers. I won't be buying one : it will be interesting how many make it over the pond to the UK but i bet they all get snapped up pretty sharpish !

The joys of equatorial mounts..... A distant memory thank goodness.

I can think of one place where i wish a comet would hit............

When the seeing plays ball, there is no finer object in the night sky. I've only seen it in decent seeing the once with my new refractor ; that was mid September time, and in moments of good to better seeing it looked pretty similar to your image, the main difference being i saw the planets shadow on the rings much more distinctively with it being further past opposition. Great image DK 🙂

I (and others i'm sure) had the email at the start of July saying it had gone into production with the first units due to ship mid August with the initial orders to be delivered by the end of September. Its all gone a bit quiet ; they have obviously either hit a delay or who knows what ? Anyone else heard anything ?

Remember we in the UK will only see the first three quarters of this event as the sun will set while the transit is still in progress. Just checked and i'm working 08:00-17:00 Thats no good. I'll have to have a day off.

Hi Tim, Welcome. Great advice on here, everyones really friendly and helpful. I'm Derby based, work in Notts, and i know a fair few observers from all over those parts. I'm not sure if i'm allowed to link it, but theres another more localised forum as well you can check out. https://www.eastmidlandsstargazers.org.uk/?_fromLogout=1