DirkSteele

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.

On 25/06/2020 at 18:18, John said:

It does get dark here but not for very long. 2-3 hours of observing and the light starts to infuse the eastern sky.

Over the last few nights I've been able to see the milky way faintly running through Cygnus somewhere between midnight and 1:00 am. Had some decent views of the Veil Nebula with 100mm - 130mm scopes, with the help of the O-III filter of course.

Still, its only going to get better now we are past the solstice and observing the deep sky in shorts is quite nice

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.

2 hours ago, Stu said:

Looks fab! I can see one of these coming my way as a holiday scope, great stuff. 👍👍

That is what I was think as well.

27 minutes ago, John said:

Worth bearing in mind that when looking for the really faint and elusive stuff, ANY light near your eyes (red or otherwise) will impair your ability to detect it. When I was looking for the Horsehead Nebula I needed to be dark adapted to a higher level than I have done before. I isolated myself from every form of light that I could for about an hour before try for the Horsehead and also observed faint objects to "limber up" as my eye got adapted. I turned my finder reticules off and just used the optical finder as well.

Extreme challenges need extreme methods !

 

 

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.

34 minutes ago, John said:

With regard to DSO's in other galaxies, the huge star forming region of nebulosity, NGC 604, in Messier 33 is reasonably straightforward to observe even with moderate aperture scopes.

 

 

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.

15 minutes ago, callisto said:

Cheers, thanks for that

Was thinking something you could use "in the field"

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.

6 hours ago, Captain Magenta said:

Really beautiful. There appears to be no streaking: were you using a tracker? I identify with your philosophy: 99% visual, but I occasionally get tempted to stick a wide angle lens onto my astrotrac.

M

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.

18 minutes ago, Simon Pepper said:

Beautiful image. I am just starting out and have a 800d with Samyang 14mm lens. I hope I can take a shot like this. Is that Andromeda you have caught on the far right too? Was this 10 images stacked or a pano with 10 stitched? How do you do the stitching? 

Good spot. Andromeda just creeps in on the far right.

This is a stitch of 10 images. Used Photoshop to combine and then processed in Lightroom.

And yes it has taken me almost a year to get round to stitching and processing!

Being a hardcore visual observer I think this might be the first time I have started a topic in the imaging section of SGL. But I do sometimes point a camera for wide field shots of the sky. However this is my first attempt at a panorama.

Taken on holiday last year on Benguerra Island in Mozambique in mid July around 3:30am, this is a stitch of 10 photos from the beach in front of our villa.
 

Shot using an unmodified Canon 70D and 14mm lens at f/2.8, ISO 3,200, 25 sec exposures.

Website looks good and there is some great content. 

This one is definitely up my street.

Can vary from session to session. Sometimes it maybe as short as an hour (not always due to weather) just for a quick look, and there have been a fair number of dusk till dawn observing runs. One memorable night in Namibia ran from about 7pm till 6am the next morning. That was a fun night.

Start times also vary. Often it will be during nautical dark in the evening and perhaps earlier if planetary is the goal, not needing a fully dark sky. But if I have a specific target or region of sky I want to explore it can be any time of the night which best places those objects of interest. If you are getting up at 2am however, it does require a slightly understanding partner who won’t be grumpy at an alarm in the wee hours.

That is an elegant looking scope.

Turn Left at Orion is also a beginners book that many, including myself, think is a great intro to the hobby of stargazing.