Saganite

A lovely Berlebach Planet to replace my UNI 18. This will complement my pier in handling my larger refractors, and give me options .

I found the same when I had WO binoviewers , anything under 7 mm focal length I found to be tricky.

Glad you got some sky time Dave. I did not stay out very long,the seeing was not great, but as you said , it was just good to have a scope out.

First Lunar observing with this scope tonight, and I probably will not get to anything else. All set up with bino and 24mm Pans, sufficiently cooled now ready to go.

I think it will, and having seen the tracking motors working at the Kettering Astro show, they will be worth the wait whenever it happens. When it does happen and I have them on my AZ100, then I am going to make history as the first Amateur astronomer to say , I have my dream scopes, I have my dream mount with motors, I have my dream bino with my dream eyepiece pairs.....I am done !!...

That full Sun image is just glorious !!

Here is a better image to give some idea of the comparative sizes Roy. Also a piece of vital evidence of its pedigree which I forgot. The Strehl value at 0.98 is exceptionally high on this doublet, I am very happy to say..👍 I have also fitted a carry handle today.

Hi Dave, The targets were; Vega and Arcturus.... The star tests revealed near perfect diffraction patterns inside and outside of focus, with no discernible colour , particularly Vega when tightly focused. Polaris, Mizar, Izar, Albireo, Zeta Herculis, Epsilon Lyrae.. All clean splits with perfect diffraction patterns. The Double Double split cleanly at 80x and at 171 each star showed a perfect diffraction pattern with a sharp black line between them. The Ring Nebula M57 .. very bold and bright 'polo ', and as pleasing as I have seen through the Dob I once had. The Whirlpool M51....two bright nuclei and eventually some evidence of the nebulous swirl of each galaxy. M81 and M82.. two great favourites, clearly visible and pleasing to the eye. Globular Clusters..M13, M92, M3, and M53..... beautifully presented particularly M13 ( the only object for which I felt I would miss my Dob ) , clearly a ball of stars, not a mass of light. I spent a lot of time just observing star masses in the Milky way, and revelling in the sharpness of the whole FOV, just myriads of pinpoints. I finished with all the open star clusters in Cassiopeia, but sadly did not get the one I wanted the most, The Double Cluster in Perseus because with my garden being South facing, my house severely hampers my view of the Northern sky, and of course I cannot move my pier.

Cheers Al, much appreciated...

I won't ....

I have had the good fortune to grab a 4 hour observing session under very good seeing conditions within the last week , just a few days after this APM 6" arrived. What I have seen so far has left me with no doubt that it, along with my Vixen, is a lifetime scope. I have been ' blown away' with its performance on all types of objects, but the real show is yet to come, Lunar, Jupiter, and Saturn, and I can hardly wait. The 3" Feathertouch rack and pinion is sublime and handles the weight of the bino and eyepieces with such ease, no slip ,no notchiness, just buttery smooth and solid excellence. Although it is a big scope, the AZ100 handles it with ease. On the tripod It is excellent but is absolutely rock solid on my pier....

I also think that you have made very good choices already. I used an 8" Dob, 8mm, 12mm, 18mm Starguiders , and an inexpensive 2x barlow for a good couple of years, and that kept me enthralled. I think you should just use and enjoy what you have already, with perhaps the addition of a barlow, for which your suggested budget is fine. Have a great time ..

Indeedy, 'twas I...🙂 Hope you enjoy it.

A fine job Dave...👍

And talking of sheer class and beauty, my most used Telescope.............Vixen ED103Swt

Sheer class and beauty !!

Sheer class and beauty !!

You mixed your words Al, should it not read " just received this one from a fine fellow SGL member ".........

Excellent result Luke ! It rained pretty much all night here, very soggy this morning.

A beautiful image, superb !

My feelings exactly Paz. With a very dark sky and perfect seeing I would revel in seeing all my familiar targets , but better. They would reveal more, and with a nice widefield eyepiece you could not fail to scoop up targets not seen before.

Well done Malcolm.👍 I have bagged Sirius B twice since January of this year, the first through my 5" F15, but the second on 18/1/2022 was through my Vixen ED103Swt. The seeing that night was superb, and Sirius focused down very tight. I posted my result on the forum that night.

Great result Russ, really lovely, and I am so pleased that that beautiful scope is now being used as it should. Look forward to seeing lots more....👍

Saw the motorized AZ100 up close at PAS on Saturday last, utterly quiet and absolutely superb !

I have the Lunar Atlas Mark, excellent images and very good for confirming that you really can see what you think you can see...