DirkSteele

Just been looking at some snaps of the lenses of my scopes on my phone but none of them really do the wonderful coatings justice so I will have to take some more

Refractors can see space vampires. With a reflector you never see them coming! 😉 I could add to the debate seriously but both have positives and negatives which have already been covered. But I will leave you with this... Mirrors are for shaving! (yes I am a refractor guy)

That looks great. May I ask where you purchased the pillar extension? I agree with John, a retailer in the UK needs to become a distributor for the DiscMounts.

Thanks Jeremy. The two relevant reviews are linked below: The FS-60Q: http://alpha-lyrae.co.uk/2018/03/31/takahashi-fs-60q-review/ The FC-76Q: http://alpha-lyrae.co.uk/2018/12/07/takahashi-fc-76q-review/ There are also reviews for the non-Q versions of both scopes in the reviews section.

Actually weighs more now as I added a magnetic counterweight set to help with balance when switching EPs and added a pier extension and an 80mm finder.

In my best Lord of the Rings voiceover, one mount to rule them all. The APM Az Maxload. Here it is holding my 180mm triplet Apo. Those counterweights are 8kg each. That total set up weighed about 70kg and started to sink over the course of a weekend! Each come with a nice engraved plate. I have already seen a few Tele Optic Ercole mounts in this thread so I wasn’t going to bother posting it, but for context (and the Ercole is pretty heavy duty itself)... Also own the Tele Optic Giro 2 and Giro Mini, as well As iOptron Az Pro and Skywatcher Az Gti, A Gitzo bird watching head, and I suppose my fork mounted C11 is also Alt Az. Clearly I am an Alt Az astronomer. Equatorials are icky! 😉

Good point! The public demand photos!

And I thought using my FC-76 as a finder on one of my larger scopes was an extravagance and large! Time to change the goal posts I think.

Assuming the optical specification (mating element, intrinsic optical design - radius of curvature of the lens elements etc, quality of the respective ED glass - i.e inclusions, bubble sizes etc, and the actual execution of the scope lens - polish quality etc) is the same, then the R model will perform slightly better, with a touch better colour correction, better control of sphero-chromatism, which will lead to slightly better contrast, but certainly not 2x better to reflect the doubling of the price. Unfortunately, in the astronomy equipment world, the cost performance curve is not a straight line. Not that is particularly relevant for this discussion, but I have written a few reviews for astronomy mags, and I have always been paid per word, not for the word written, so I have always been honest in my apprasial, and never experienced any push back on my submitted copy. So hopefully you can take some comfort from the magazine reviews as well.

Shorts and t-shirt observing is the best!

Great job. To be honest, Sky Watcher so offer that as an accessory, or even better pack in as standard equipment.

That is superb.

Sounds like a great sesssion.

Oh and spot M44 near the base of the zodiacal light.

While on holiday last year on Benguerra Island in Mozambique I did plenty of stargazing with my Tak FC-76 but I also could not resist some wide field shots of the night sky. Early during our two week stay I was capturing some shots of the evening Zodiacal Light (annoyingly bright BTW when observing in that part of the sky) and a lady walked past me on the beach wearing a cocktail dress. Slightly unusual on a island in the Indian Ocean. She walked about another 30 metres and then used the torch on her phone to signal a large boat moored slightly out to sea. A few seconds later they flashed back and then set off in a small speedboat to pick her up. It was all captured during the 25 second exposure I had running. 14mm lens at f/2.8 and ISO 3,200 on unmodified Canon 70D.

That is what I was think as well.

Stephen James O'Meara is known to hyperventialte to enhance his low light senstivity. I have contemplated wearing a eyepatch like a pirate (they are in this year!😉) over my observing eye when using either a torch and charts or apps on a phone to preserve my night vision. Guess we all need to up our game.

How is it, despite all the times I have viewed M33 I have never bothered to consider what that bright condensation is? Guess what I am doing next time M33 is in the eyepiece! set to the same magnitude +16 limit, less than M31 but still a few for the dedicated to hunt down.

Its on my iPhone so definitely useable in the field. You can even set the phone to have permanent red screen now so you do not harm night vision when first switching on the phone. I don't really use a paper star atlas in the field anymore since you could do that.

Not sure about a book but Sky Safari Pro has a lot of them in its database. The screen grab is set to magnitude +16. I do love chasing down DSOs in other galaxies though I have only done with the SMC and LMC which are a fair bit closer! Hope this helps.

Thanks. Just used a static tripod. On the full image which is more than 12,000 x 4,500 pixels a small amount of trailing can be seen but the stitching seems to have minimised it.

That will serve you well. Happy hunting under dark skies.

On our final night on Benguerra Island last July the ISS had a low pass under the Southern Cross, Coal Sack Nebula and the Carina region of the Milky Way. Considering this was probably only 25-30 mins after sunset and with a first quarter moon in the sky, and very few stars were visible, quite surprised how many were revealed when I stacked the 8 images here, which catch the ISS passing behind a palm tree. Shot with an unmodified Canon 70D and 14mm lens.

Would definitely like to have a play with one of these. Looks great.

I love the look of this scope. An elegant charm of a bygone era of astronomy. That the optics are good only adds to the allure.