DirkSteele

Looks like a nice scope, not withstanding the friction issues which can no doubt be solved. Who is the manufacturer?

I suspect it is also luck of the postcode lottery (no not the actual lottery) as well. I still receive multiple deliveries a week in central London. My parents in Hampshire are lucky if they get two a week. Frustrating as it can be, patience for a few days at least is a virtue. Sadly, it’s not the era of Postman Pat anymore and daily deliveries. Heck back in the 80s as a kid I remember we had a second delivery in the afternoon!

Nothing puts me off as I live in central London so short of perhaps Tokyo or Beijing I live in the worst place in the world to pursue astronomy. Buy I do it anyway. What the Bortle scale does for me is provide a quick check on what I can expect when I travel and as such whether it is worth packing a scope. Though saying that, I almost always a take a scope anyway. Certainly, when I finally leave the big smog for a more rural location, the Bortle scale will help me eliminate a few places as if I make the move I want some significant incremental gain on sky darkness.

Superb drawing! Looks like seeing was pretty good that night, as was your ability to capture it on paper.

They often follow thrilling stargazing sessions and just continue the theme of reality several hours earlier. The most recent was after a 5 hour session out of London a few weeks ago.

Never tire of a good rainbow. I recall one insomina plagued night when I was studying physics at university and I stumbled across an open university program on the physics of rainbows and it got pretty complex on the maths. I love that complex physics can give rise to beautiful phenomena. It is one of the reasons I stargaze. edit: looked back through my photos and found one from March 2022 which was pretty intense but still did not do justice to the visual spectacle.

There is a reason why I have 9 telescopes! And lots of eyepieces, tripods and mounts. But I know deep down I do not need anything else (though I am thinking about a nice pair of complementary binoculars) so other than the 31mm Nagler and 13mm Ethos I purchased at AstroFest I do not see myself participating in the “what did the postman bring?” thread again this year. Doesn’t stop me reading all the great reviews of equipment on here and elsewhere and daydreaming though… 😉

In my old form with the sliding drawtube and 2" Feathertouch is was about 6.4kg I think which was about the same as my 2" FT 105. I now have a 3" on the back and the weight is a little higher. But call it 7kg, Ercole is 3kg (needs a counterweight at this weight to be super smooth so add 5kg plus bar), Gitzo Series 5 is 2.8kg and then finder and diagonal etc and mid teens kg. Hence good to know what one considers grab and go (I think this).

Its quite tricky. One you move to 5" inches as an optical designer you start to have to make choices. Keep chromatic aberration controlled means with a doublet a longer focal length and hence longer scope which is heavier because there is more of it (plus a greater moment arm meaning more robust mounting solution) or move to triplet which adds more heavy glass and bigger lens cell which increases weight but allows the focal length to remain shorter so less tube weight and perhaps a lower moment of inertia. I guess there is also the question of what you consider grab and go.? I also have the LZOS 115 and have taken that all over the place but including mount (plus perhaps counterweights), tripod, finder and eyepieces etc, I am still getting up into the mid-teens or more in kg which many might not consider truly grab and go. Conversely, my Tak FC-100DC on a Gitzo Carbon Fibre tripod and Sightron Alt Az mount is staying under 6kg and I can carry around with one hand. As it is, I cannot think of much else available that has not already been mentioned.

The general limit is a battery with 100 Watt Hours capacity but airlines can decide to permit spares up to 101-160 Watt Hours. Your 12v 7Ah is 84 Watt Hour so should be fine to take. Should have added, needs to be carry on packed, not checked luggage.

One of the main reasons I am not a member over there. Incredible depth of knowledge, but far too much emotion in many threads.

The general sense of community. I have always enjoyed talking about Astronomy and sharing the night sky with as many people as possible is something I am very passionate about which is why I do plenty of outreach including in the past sponsoring a travelling astrodome from my old university when it lost some of its funding several years ago whose mandate was to visit all the local schools (money well spent as far as I was concerned). Here you can leverage off the knowledge base and just share in the love for the hobby that we all have.

It’s a whopper! 17bn solar masses, 500 trillion times the sun luminosity and accretion disc is 7 light years in diameter. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68346725

I am the treasurer of a society whose mission statement includes being free (we work on donations and fundraising activity only) and for everyone so anybody who has an interest can show up. Perhaps they had a bad experience in the past and have become more selective. As others have said, it is a two way process so you could still check them out and see if they fit you too. Would be a shame to miss out completely if they are the only local society available.

Starlight. 😉 Though if I do have a drink a thermos, it is most often Rooibos tea. I acquired a taste for it while stargazing in Namibia back in 2011 and it is now my hot drink of choice.

I believe it is this company. https://www.goto.co.jp/english/about/ and https://www.goto.co.jp/english/about/history/ The logo is certainly the same. I recognised it immediately as I know them for their products in planetarium space. Did not know they were (are) in the business of making scopes as well. Does not tell us too much more unfortunately.

Sumerian Optics in The Netherlands makes 12” and 16” Dobs for exactly this purpose.

First time using it. Rather enjoyed it. Balance proved to be the difficult bit. Switching from a 31mm Nagler to small focal length EP would cause the scope to move in altitude even with the axis locked. But only with such extreme changes in weight. Trying only with 1.25” eyepieces was no issue at all.

I may have used a 1.25” mirror diagonal inside a 2”-to-1.25” adaptor and forgot to take the cover off and then wondered why I only saw black. Thought it didn’t take me 10 minutes to realise my mistake! 😉

To live somewhere where seeing would make that worthwhile…. That and the additional 500k+ to build a climate controlled observatory so the lens is ambient and a mount the size of a small car to hold it. Guess I can dream. 😉

No real experience with prism diagonals but the best mirror diagonal I have used is the Baader BBHS. Colours have a greater vibrancy than dielectric mirrors and slightly less scattered light around bright objects. Not a night and day improvement but definitely obvious. The biggest surprise was the increase in intensity of the GRS using 4” class scopes.

When I want to keep the weight down and only use 1.25" I use the Tele Vue Everbright. It is excellent. To be honest, there is little to differentiate between all the high quality mirror diagonals. Apart from one. And that is the Baader BBHS mirror diagonal. Its not dielectric and I have done side by side comparisons against numerous other high quality mirror diagonals and found colours a touch more vibrant and arguably with slightly less scatter around bright objects. But it is not a night and day difference (though the the GRS on Jupiter difference in a 4" scope did surprise me).

Honestly I would say a 6" or better yet an 8" Dobsonian. Still manageable pieces, fits the budget and desire for Alt Az and will be a big step up on the moon and deep sky. Only thing I would say is that you need to be ok crouching or sitting when using these scopes at most if not all elevations as the eyepiece will be lower than scope mounted on tripod / mount system. The link below is the 8" model from Skywatcher and has a very helpful diagram which shows the relative sizes compared to an average human. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dobsonians/skywatcher-skyliner-200p-dobsonian.html

One point of clarification would be your definition of “grab and go” as one astronomer’s view on this can be quite different from another. Do you mean pick up in one go for example, or a couple of pieces handled individually (such as an 8” dobsonian base and OTA) still being ok?