Saganite

All you need really, Paul.

All good stuff Dave which will work perfectly well.

Congratulations, and have a great day. Love the cake; hope it tastes as good as it looks.

Hi Stu, I did say I have made a complete hash of things, My response was not to you, but to Chris's post, " Ex as in the D&G " Reminds me now of the Two Ronnies sketch.

Sorry, made a mess of things, but my previous post was in response to John's, and I am referring to scopes.

Word round the camp fire is that the new lady in Dave's life and his ex, may meet up to compare notes

I must echo what John said, and heartfelt congratulations.

The first case is pretty much complete. The 17mm Nagler is a lovely eyepiece but not sure it has a future here as the Ethos 13mm has nearly the same FOV with more magnification, however in the 5" frac it does give 112X, against 146X, so can't decide. A new foam insert might be next. The second contains my 6 pairs for Binoviewing plus Ortho's and plossls.

Beautiful capture, but not bad enough

Fabulous idea Stu, I might be tempted .

Lovely set up Dave and keeping fingers crossed for a good first light tonight. No good here.

Not really helping are we

Very nice Tim, I will give it some thought.

Thanks Tim, I just need to crack on and finish the groundwork, as in some positions I have to perch on the soil ledge at the back, and I have slipped off a couple of times in the darkness. The other problem that I discovered at 2am this morning is lifting down the tube when it is absolutely saturated, not easy, but all problems have a solution. The joy of using it far outweighs any short term difficulties.

But you know you want to

Thanks Roy, I appreciate your comment. That also was Dave's ( F15 RULES) response when I sent him the first pictures. I am really looking forward to a good winter for observing.

Hi Dave, Thank you for your kind comment , but like so many good things, " all done with a little help from my friends". I am happy that you approve , and I promise that she is in very safe hands. That evening when I stepped out of your house and saw Andromeda ( for Andromeda she was named and Andromeda she will remain )for the first time, all set up, still amuses me when I recall your reaction to my response. I had not seen such a big tube before and I was genuinely speechless. I am sure you expected me to say " er thanks but no thanks", but no, I was instantly smitten.

Thank you for your kind words John. I recall that some months ago when I asked your opinion about this ,you suggested that if I could achieve 2 seconds that that would be good for a scope of this size. Well I can confirm that it is good very good and I am more than happy.

Thanks Chris, I knew you would like it ! It certainly was worth the effort, as I can now get the best out of it. Apart from the groundwork , I need to connect it permanently to the power supply transformer.

Many of you will have seen this telescope , a 5" F15 D&G Optical, on this forum , very early in the thread. I have owned it for just over one year, and it is a long held wish, come true. My EQ6 and tripod has been fine, but I knew from the start that I would have to mount it on a pier, to reduce the damping time from 4 seconds plus. A tap on the OTA would cause the " tail to wag the dog " so to speak. I tried loading the tripod with weight,and anti vibration pads, all to no avail.At high magnification the movement of the image, even using the fine focus was just a complete irritation. The pier is constructed with 6" dia steel tube with .25" wall, 15mm thick steel baseplate, and 12mm thick webs. On the top is the "owls nest" thatI purchased some months ago on AB&S, which again is very thick steel construction. Bolted to a concrete block with 16mm resin anchored bolts, it has exceeded all my hopes and expectations. It is so heavy and solid that, as the picture shows, it handled the OTA just fine, before I bolted it down. My "grab N go" Tal RS gives some idea of scale. I have had a single 4 hour session since reaching this stage, and the damping time is under 2 seconds ! A nudge on the tube produces no discernable vibration in the pier, and the " icing on the cake" is that I can now focus without any movement of the image. It has been properly polar aligned, so tracking is accurate for the first time ever, which is another bonus.The eyepiece is one metre from the ground when it is pointed to the zenith, so I can sit comfortably on my chair instead of crawling on the floor. The downside of course is that it is pretty high when observing at 30 deg above the horizon, but fortunately I do very little of that. The groundwork around the site is yet to be finished, and I will probably devize a two level system to help with this. I did not get an observatory through planning, but my winter clothing set up for observing is very good and I am quite happy with this minimal arrangement, besides I prefer to know that the OTA is locked in the garage when not in use, and set up time is now just minutes. Note the hedge in first picture has been removed by my neighbour, in the week or so between shots, which rather blew my attempts at disguise right out of the water. A thinly veiled acceptance of this " thing" in the garden, will have to do, but if anyone knows the secret of the Klingon Cloaking Device, please drop me a line, else I may be too busy trying to hide it, to observe with it. Hope you like it.............I LOVE IT

Congratulation! I too have followed this thread and I very much look forward to your reports on its performance

No, it was me.

That is a beautiful telescope John and I am delighted for you.

I saw things through a 20" Dob, at kelling last September, which blew me away

The EVO 120 is an Achromatic, and though good for Lunar, the one I had showed me Jupiter as a purple blob, so was soon sold. The ED120 is a totally different animal, quite superb in fact, and it was my intention to own one, but the ED100 came up first.