Saganite

A stunning image ! The last time down under we stayed in Daylesford for a week. Some superb binocular sessions whilst there....

Excellent decision and congratulations ! My NEQ6 was packed away last Autumn, never to be used again. The AZ100 is, for me, a lifetime mount, even more so when the drive motors become available.

I hope so too and I am sure it will.....It is a lovely looking telescope !

Good choice, I hope you find one soon. Probably worth an advert for one in the interim....

Well I have never tried the 24mm APM UFF, but they get good reviews, so it is down to you. I have used the 24mm Explore Scientific and it is excellent...

Hi, I use a pair of 24mm Panoptics in my binoviewer, they are superb, but so too are the 24mm Explore scientific and I would have chosen them had they been slightly smaller diameter. I could not accommodate with my IPD, however, as a single eyepiece they give nothing to the Pan in my opinion. Save yourself some money and go with the Explore 24mm, you will not regret it.

Didn't realize that these are still in production. I had one a few years ago, absolutely superb eyepiece, congrats.....

Hi Paul, welcome to SGL.....

Just looked out before retiring, it has cleared and it is Incredibly good here still, but I think I will leave it for another night.

Thanks Mark, I consider myself very fortunate to possess such a fine telescope particularly when I remember that the height of my ambition used to be a scope as fine as Sir Patrick's 3" refractor. Glad you have had some fine observing, it is good for the soul.. Steve

Yes, I think I may pack in now as I can barely see Orion's belt and I cannot see M42 at all....

The extra 1" of aperture has paid off as I knew it would and I got a nice split of Tegmine about 40 minutes ago. High cloud is now encroaching.

What looks like another cracking sky means my 4th outing in 5 nights which can't be bad ! Tonight the third of my three scopes gets a go, the 5" f15, on the AZ100 and pier.

A lovely image of a pair of favourites !

Hi Paz, My choice would be 24mm Panoptics. I have used a pair for binoviewing for several years and I would never part with them. They have eye relief of 15mm and 68 AFOV and are a perfect size to fit a bino. They also fit the sequence of 1.4x steps from 17.3mm and you could then dispense with the 30mm NLV's if you wished. Field stop is 27mm.

Sky is still very clear but I think that is enough for tonight. Not a lot to show for 5 hours, I don't know where the time went but apart from getting the E&F stars , splits of Alnitak, Mintaka, Rigel, Sigma Orionis, Castor, the star clusters of Auriga and The double Cluster, I seem to have spent most of my time flying low over the Lunar surface. The highest I pushed the 12" was 254x which showed me a crisp Hadley Rille but I could get only 4 Plato craterlets. After reading your post I thought I would have a go at that sort of power and to my amazement it was still sharp. I am pretty certain though that my optical train is lacking somehow because my star tests all night, even with the fan running were not good at all, hairy would be an understatement.

Pretty good here also Michael, 209X on Lunar and steady enough. Also just got the E & F stars in the Trap, bold and beautiful.

The scope is again out and cooling and the sky, just like last night, is superb..so far.

I have enjoyed Lunar observing for a long time and there is always something new to see, making it very rewarding...

That report John , and recommendation was what finally made me decide. In the past I have owned the 20mm, 10mm, and 7mm in this line, all wondferful, but alas my diversion to mainly binoviewing meant that they had to go. I remember the great comfort that they afforded during long observations and I am sure that my 26 Nagler will be departing eventually, all other things being equal, the comfort will decide.

I cannot wait for the opportunity !

Super Geoff. A favourite star cluster of mine, and probably most observers. I particularly like the carbon stars.

The Cambridge Double star Atlas is the main one that I use.

Me too, but it still took a while to figure out where the edit option was.

We all knew you would John......