DirkSteele

It should! I once forget the tripod and ended up doing a 200 mile round trip back into central London but was rewarded with a couple of glorious nights around new moon.

Don’t forget to say thanks to the clouds gods lest they smite you next time for a lack of gratitude.

36 minutes ago, John said:

You can almost guarantee that if you did quit the hobby and sold all your gear, within a fairly short space of time there would be a period of the best seeing and clearest skies on record, a naked eye comet, the 1st supernova within our galaxy since 1604, the development of a 2nd jovian red spot, the return of the Saturnian white spot, and a new planet discovered that is visible in amateur scopes.

Amateur astronomy is fickle like that ....... 🙄

So please quit so the rest of us can enjoy all of that!!! 😉

17 minutes ago, Deadlake said:

When was the last time you bought a scope? 

Maybe all those scopes that would of been yours can be pooled into one last one..

2018. And you will get me in trouble with the CFO!

Would love to observe through one and if I thought I had somewhere to mount it permanently with skies that would allow it’s full potential to shine through….

3 hours ago, moggi1964 said:

Here's a picture of a customer 152 setup from back in 2009. And then a picture of one mounted as a 'guide scope' on the beast. If I recall, the beast sold to a chap in South Korea. I hope he had a good back 😀

I recalled there was a Beast (though looking a the pic, I would say smaller than your one so let’s call it Beast Jr) at AstroFest about 10 years ago. Though I think there was some smoke and mirrors (should that be smoke and lenses?) going on as I do not believe the actual objective was installed.

4 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Baseball caps are the least appropriate headgear to wear while using a telescope 🤔

Especially indoors.

Ha! Tell me about it.  Last night (yes at night), several baseball cap wearing individuals knocked their hat against the EP as they went for look through the scope on Primrose Hill.  No one from the BBC was wearing a hat though, just headphones to talk to HQ i guess.

Does this count? It was technically under ground in the basement but it was daytime at AstroFest. APM actually borrowed my LZOS 180/1260 for their display one year. Just stumbled across the photo while looking for something else.

oh and Al Nagler using one his scopes upstairs on the ground floor. Also daytime!

I can resist everything, except temptation…

And holy cow, that beast is the temptation!

How do you find it when pointing above 60-degrees?  I have tended to find that having the weight offset from the rotation axis tends to pull the scope backwards so it gets harder to point up at those altitudes without some drift.

Welcome to SGL.  As others have suggested, ask questions in the beginners forum.  Lots of knowledgeable people on here who can help out.

If you want some bedtime reading, consider the book "Turn Left at Orion."  Really good beginner book.

8 minutes ago, Deadlake said:

Gitzo tripod or something else?

Gitzo 5532S.  Which is the most stable of their entire line up (at least it was when I bought it about 10 years ago).

http://alpha-lyrae.co.uk/2014/05/15/gitzo-systematic-series-5-gt5532s-carbon-fibre-tripod-review/

Just now, Deadlake said:

How is you review going of the LZOS 130 mm / f9 going? 

As you mention mounts which one where you using?

I've finally got the AZ100 with motor kit working with a joypad. I mention here as would be great for outreach (tenuous link?) as the scope is controlled from a joy pad

Aka control this:



With this



Screen looks a bit like this:
 

Note the star 1+2 align buttons can be hidden.

That looks very cool!  I was using the Tele Optic Ercole, but I used a cabon Fibre tripod (also up to the job) but the pillar extension was a bit light weight and caused some shakes when it was breezy,  I had to keep it as light weight as possible as I was walking several hundred metres up the hill.

The review is almost finished (its a bit long but I go into the history of the scope which was quite fun to research and can be skipped).  Still need to do a couple of critical tests and the "studio" photography but hopefully I can get it published in the next few weeks.

The Baker Street Irregular Astronomers hosted a Perseid Meteor event last night on Primrose Hill in London.  BBC London Radio joined us and broacast live from 10pm till 1am.  Mentions on the radio and our general advertising saw around 300 people show up.  I decided to take the LZOS 130/1200 Apo for the event (easy in the taxi, regrets as I carried it up the hill!).  It ended up being the largest scope in attendance which drew the biggest queues (several times I had more than 50 lined up for a look).

Before it was completely dark, I started with the Double Cluster which was nicely framed in the 17mm Type 4 Nagler.

Some clouds briefly covered that part of the sky so spun west to take in a couple of globulars, M13 and M3.  Transparency was not great so these were struggling to shine but with a little help, everyone that looked was able to spot them.

Came back to the queen of the skies, and took in the E.T Cluster (NGC 457) which proved to be the most popular DSO of the night.  Some people struggled initially to make out the stick figure, but a quick Google Image Search to show them what to look for and most were rather impressed.

5 minute interview with the host.  Sadly she came over just as another cloud bank hid NGC 457 so I had nothing to show her but talked about my passion started for astronomy and my trips to dark far away lands.

Quick looks at M27 and M57 (used UHC which helped), before moving onto the Gas Giants.

Saturn naturally was a real croud pleaser and the sky was pretty stable so ran the scope at 200x.  It would have taken more, but I using a manual Alt Az and was having to nudge the scope every 20 seconds to keep it centred for the crowds.

Towards the end of the session, Jupiter cleared the trees and showed some decent detail though atmospheric dispersion was visible.  Europa was just kissing the planetary disc when first viewed and slowly drfited away over the rest of the session with the other three moons all in a line further out.

Packed down around 1am when the show stopped broadcasting, but not before showing the BBC crew a very impressive Saturn at 200x.

I was so busy showing the sky, I did not look up so saw a grand total of zero perseids!  Though we had a radio detector on site and I "heard" a couple.

14 minutes ago, PeterW said:

The Nikon homebrew hold their own, the Orion’s are clones with focus and many others have a narrower field…  I like lying down and using mine hands free.

where in the UK are these dark skies to be found… didn’t think too much of the transparency from London yesterday.

 

Peter

Agree.  Transparency was poor in the capital last night but at times the planets were great.

Oh and I couldn't resist making a blinking view.

This was quite a bit of effort as astrometry.net completely failed to idenfity what it was looking at so I had to this manually (using MS paint no less!).  There is a lot more than 5 galaxies in this image.  Make sure to zoom in.

I took this on my last trip to Mozambique which was sadly a few years ago now.  This was a 12 pane stich using ICE, and processed in Lightroom.  Taken on the beach in front of our villa when all the other guests were tucked up in bed.  Canon 70D (unmodified) with 14mm L lens at f/2.8 with 20 second expsoures and ISO 3200.

Can you spot the five galaxies (and plenty of other DSOs)?  Some are obvious, others a little trickier. 

Answers below.....

Spent several hours last night with BBC London Radio on Primrose Hill. Decided to bring one of the bigger guns so took the LZOS 130/1200 across the capital. The taxi was easy, walking up the hill carrying everything, not quite so much! Good interview and at the end of the session, shared a few views with all of the crew and radio host.

Worth it though. Saturn in particular was pretty special last night and was holding up well at 200x plus. With the biggest scope there, I was constantly nudging it to keep it view for everyone that showed up. Without exaggeration, at times my queue was 50 people deep. 

Just been broadcasting with BBC London radio from Primrose Hill. Dragged the LZOS 130/1200 across London. Glad I did. Saturn was a bit special this evening.

2 hours ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:Does anyone else forgot something every time? I forgot my pillow... 

Yes. Once I forgot the tripod. That was a 200 mile round trip but the forecast and skies were too good not to spend the time and petrol.

On 07/08/2023 at 00:41, Vroobel said:

Hi,

Nearly 6 weeks after the purchase finally got the first light: my new Askar FMA230. A lot of clouds tonight, but at least a focus point is found and some tests like framing bigger objects are performed.

 

 

 

On top of my CGX it looks like...

 

As I recall, that little thing packed a heck of a punch.

Takahashi FS-60 f/5.9

APM LZOS 105/650 f/6.2

APM LZOS 115/805 f/7

APM LZOS 180/1260 f/7

Takahashi FC-76 f/7.5

APM LZOS 130/1200 f/9.2

Takahashi FS-60Q f/10

Celestron C11 f/10

Takahashi FC-76Q f/12.6

Picking a favourite is hard but in refactor land, the longer focal lengths tend to perform better but the trade off is they get long and harder to mount. Something in and around the middle would shake out as my favourite.

Cricket can certainly be hazardous to the health of a scope. The Baker Street astronomers meet in Regents Park. In the summer we are surrounded by cricket pitches and I have seen more than one ball make it all the way to us (one even landed on the roof of the hub before rolling back down). I tend to play out-out fielder until light stops play to protect my scope since then!

Annual Astronomy party Stellafane (it’s centennial this year) is coming up in the US and Phil Harrington has set a binocular observing challenge of 20 objects, though this also looks like a great list for 60-70mm scopes as well. I am particularly interested in the Davis Dinosaur!

https://stellafane.org/convention/2023/pdf/2023_OO_List_Binoculars.pdf

2 hours ago, John said:

My only 1st hand LZOS experience is with my 130mm F/9.2. It is quite probably the best scope, in terms of outright optical performance for it's aperture, that I have ever looked through 🙂

 

That one is extra special among special scopes of the LZOS range. Have started writing a review of it after almost 5 years of ownership.

1 hour ago, Deadlake said:

What’s wrong with a Yellow Submarine from TEC, same price range as the LZOS and Yuri’s order book is open..

Not familiar with that model. I shall look it up now.