DirkSteele

On 23/03/2024 at 21:34, Greymouser said:

This arrived, just a short while ago, via DPD. He still had several more deliveries, very long day he has had and I do not envy him. Nice fella though.

Counterweight for my Sightron Alt Az mount. Now how far dare I push the mount, now balance should be less of a problem?  

Edit: From FLO: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-star-adventurer/skywatcher-star-adventurer-counterweight-kit.html

Thanks guys for the usual quick delivery.

Are you finding you are having balance issues with the mount? I have not encountered such issues but have only used a few times over the last couple of months.

15 hours ago, Beulah said:

My rough calculation is an increase of 2 inches of aperture for 1 Bortle reduction

For example, a 12 inch telescope in a Bortle 4 sky is more like a 14 inch telescope in a Bortle 3 sky...

That is a good rule of thumb based on my experience.  My 105mm refractor vastly outperformed my 11" when I was in Oman in Bortle 1 compared the Bortle 5 location it was located at in the UK.  Using a 12" scope in Namibia in a Bortle 1 location was quite something else!  Same for my 76mm Takahashi in Mozambique under a Bortle1/2 sky.  Seeing details I would not see in an 8" scope at home.

I would also say not all Bortle classifications are created quite equal.  In Namibia you can just about see shadows from the combined light of the Milky Way and stars and you only know where the horizon is because the stars stop.  I have found these African and Middle East type of sites to outperform other similarly classified locations because it is that dark all the way to the horizon, rather than just at higher elevations.

I did this with my 11" years ago. I recall ticking off the stars one by one until I was sure I had it.  Should try with something smaller like the 130mm.   Better go somewhere darker than London zone 1 though!

I would add an 18-20” Dob if I had somewhere where the skies would allow me to take advantage of its capabilities.,,, or the power to cause regional blackouts! 

An interesting spin on a hot thread. Part of my issue is I do not sell much.

1. A 4.5” f/8 Newtonian Ona shaky GEM was my first scope and first to go.

2. An excellent 8” f/5 Newtonian on a small but smooth Alt Az.

3. Every scope I own (less one) if my wife had her way!!! 😉

1 hour ago, Nakedgun said:

~

Does this model have an on/off switch, or must the button be held down continually for stabilization? Some Canons did have the continuous pressure button, which seems a real encumbrance. My wife's 10x32s have the switch-type (two separate modes, actually).

 

 

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Gentle tap and it stays on. Hard press and you keep depressed to keep IS operating. So both.

Reading the replies already, I think it is going to become very clear why a 4” refractor is such a popular scope!

Wow, that is a tough question. Given my propensity to travel with a scope to far darker places, it would have to be one of the smaller scopes that would fit carry on luggage restrictions, which means my 3 Takahashi refractors or my APM LZOS 105mm. The latter is bit heavy and requires a more robust tripod and mount which has not always been possible (helicopter ride to an Indian Ocean island for example means 20kg of telescope equipment is not happening) so I would probably go with the Tak FC100 even though some disassembly is needed to make it carry on. At 2.8kg, it is still light enough that a smaller tripod and mount works.

But I would be very sad to see to the rest go!

8 hours ago, Stu said:

Amusingly enough, I was reading the side effects on a medication I am taking, and one of them is listed as ‘compulsive shopping’, so I have a medical excuse for my excessive scope collection! 🤪

Can I borrow some as I currently have no excuse for my compulsive Astro shopping! I am literally about to order more stuff and the binoculars only arrived yesterday!

I think the 125mm is a good shout. It will fit nicely between the scopes, be a big step up from the 80 in terms of performance but not too big in physical size such that your mount will handle it and you still get that special view that only refractors seem to deliver. Once you go above 5” in refractor land, things big and heavy and difficult to use quite quickly.

Other have mentioned the AZ GTI which might struggle a little once you have finder and EPs on the scope. But the slightly bigger brother with a 6kg capacity with a decent tripod may serve you well.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/alt-azimuth-astronomy-mounts/sky-watcher-az-gtix-dual-saddle-alt-azimuth-astronomy-mount.html?_gl=1*cgyx00*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTc5ODM2MTE2MS4xNzEwNDEyNTg2*_ga_F6VGWQ0MW9*MTcxMDQxMjU4NC4xLjAuMTcxMDQxMjU4NC4wLjAuMA..

Despite all the Canon camera equipment I own, I never considered purchasing direct from Canon.co.uk before. I decided to treat myself to a pair of Canon 15x50 IS binoculars as a birthday present and found that the Canon store was the cheapest price (matching the omnipresent online retailer named after a forest) when I did a search.

Placed an order at end of the business day on Monday, received dispatch notification and courier tracking (UPS) on Tuesday and they arrived Wednesday. Nice and easy and best price I could find. How you want a transaction to be.

Treated to myself to a birthday present and really looking forward to putting them through their paces. I had a quick 5 min go with a pair at a star party several years ago and found my mind drifting back to that experience so finally scratched the itch!

Forecast was not promising last night (other than the BBC and given I take an umbrella if the rain probability is 10% and always seem to need it!, so it would be foolish to plan based on that) I just took the baby Tak to the Baker Street Star party. Caught a glimpse of the moon through thin cloud and Jupiter and otherwise just played with a rather wide field of view. Balance was a bit of an issue!

So much for not contributing to this thread again in 2024! Have been thinking about a nice pair of binoculars for a while and pulled the trigger as a self gifted birthday present. Looking forward to putting them through their paces….

Already know I will be posting here again soon as I need to buy some adaptors so I can fit nebula filters to the objectives.

Sometimes you want a really wide field of view. Sadly, the clouds only occasionally thinned out last night and the wind was pretty biting. Balance was a bit of an issue as well….

Still it was nice to take the baby out. Not seen starlight in quite a long time.

Forecast was not promising last night for the monthly Baker Street Irregular Astronomers star party in Regent’s Park so I decided to just take the baby. And then loaded him up with an eyepiece that weighs almost as much as he does….

My wife would say too many!

1) APM LZOS 180mm f/7 triplet apo

2) APM LZOS 130mm f/9.2 triplet apo

3) APM LZOS 115mm f/7 triplet apo

4) APM LZOS 105mm f/6.2 triplet apo

5) Takahashi FC-100DC doublet apo

6) Takahashi FC-76DCU doublet apo

7) Takahashi FS-60 doublet apo

8.  Celestron Nexstar C11

8.5) Takahashi FS-60Q f/10 quadruplet apo

9) Takahashi FC-76Q f/12.6 quadruplet apo

The last two are halves as they use the base scopes above and introduce the CQ module to change the scope into something else.

1 hour ago, mikeDnight said:

I may very well have posted this before. If so I apologise!

Very early morning at Huddersfield astro society where my wife and I set up my FS128 in readiness for the much anticipated 2004 Transit of Venus. My younger son Daniel spent the day with us rather than wasting his time in school, and after eating his apple, followed along with his StarTravel 102. Both scopes had home grown Mylar filters.  Despite early cloud hindering the view as first contact was seen, it soon cleared and the day ended up being a great success.  There were many visitors, some thrilled at the spectacle, while others wondered what all the fuss was about. One woman looking through my telescope commented "Is that it"? I was most disgruntled, as a little over a year earlier I'd spent almost £4000 on this telescope plus a new mount, the best mount I've ever owned, a Celestron German equatorial made by Losmandy. Wish I'd never parted with it!!! Obviously some people have little appreciation for fine optics and how well defined a transiting black dot can be to a nutter like me! There's nowt as queer as folk!!

My FS128 observing the transit of Venus, June 8 2004, along with dad & lad.

What did we see? 

 

5 minutes ago, John said:

That was a memorable event. My only scope at that time was my little 60mm Tasco from the 1960's. I projected the sun's image onto a piece of card and managed to snap a few (rather crude) photos with my Pentax K1000 35mm SLR. As my children and their friends went to school (which was just across the road from where we live) I was able to show them and their parents some views of the transit.

A lot of fun though 🙂

This was the "mighty beast" that I used that day:

 

Sadly I do not think I have the photos of this any more, though I did have a camera phone in 2004 so I might be able to find an old phone in a drawer somewhere, though I wonder after 20 years if it would work.  Was such a great day.  Cloudless skies for the whole thing.  I used my C11 and a Thousand Oaks full aperture glass solar filter.  At that time, the scope lived at parents in Hampshire.  I went to set up in the south facing back garden but the sun was so far round to the north I could not get far enough away from the house to see first contact.  Quick change of plans, I carried the fork mounted scope (easier at age 25!) into the front garden and watched the whole thing from there.  My parents live very close to a primary school so many parents after completing the school run came to see what I was doing and I shared the view with dozens of people.  Impromtu out reach event!

Nicely done!  I have often been a little loose and easy with my language over the years with splits / resolved etc.  I have tried in more recent years to use the convention you shared and be consistent in my reports.

Will have to try this with my 100mm and 105mm scopes.

I nabbed this one last year at AstroCamp as it was part of the Spring Challenge list.  Takes 3 billion years to orbit the galaxy and is twice as distant as the LMC but still part of the Milky Way.  Definitely more interesting in mind than it is visually (certainly in the 105mm scope I used).

Sounds like a good price for one of the finest 4” scopes ever to be made available to the amateur astronomy community. You can almost certainly sell it on for no financial loss (and possibly at a profit) if it does not deliver all you hope it will.

With geopolitics what they are, new ones are not available anymore and possibly never will be again so I would not pass on the opportunity and that is coming from someone who owns 4 LZOS made triplets.

If you decide to run with it, reach out to and become affiliated with the Federation of Astronomical Societies (FAS). One of the benefits is getting public liability insurance coverage as part of the annual membership (though they are running into some hurdles renewing their policy this year) which pretty much pays for itself.

Nice report. Just adding fuel to the fire of me wanting to add some good bins to my observing kit.
 

Were you able to glimpse NGC 604 in M33 with or without the filters? Always love spotting DSOs in other DSOs.

1 hour ago, mikeDnight said:

The longer you study them the more subtle the detail. Mallas was more of an inspiration to me in a way, because I saw things that I considered to be easily discernable, but that he didn't record. Mind you, his Unitron eyepieces were far removed from what we use today. Steve O'Meara on the other hand, although also using a 4" refractor, makes too much of a big deal about observing from the slopes of a Hawaiian volcano. This has definitely led some to imagine their own more mainland suburban situation is hopeless for Messier hunting, which is simply untrue!

Here are just a few from the suburbs of a misty, often cloud plagued, north of England mill town.

M1 (5" refractor)

M45 and the Merope nebula (4" refractor)

M57 the Ring Nebula (4" refractor)

M27 the Dumbbell Nebula (4" refractor)

M97 the Owl Nebula (4" refractor)

M33 spiral galaxy (4" refractor)

M78 nebula in Orion (4" refractor)

M82 edge on galaxy  (4" refractor)

Mrs the Great Orion Nebula (4" refractor)

M81 face on spiral (4" refractor)

 

 

Beautiful work!  And really captures the views through 4" class scopes which shows a lot can be seen at this aperture with some patient study (which sketching forces).