paulastro

I agree with you. It's still often stated in books and on chat rooms that Newts will need to be frequently collimated. In my experience over many years this is not the case. I've taken Newts to Kelling and back from West Yorkshire many times for the star party. Though I check the collimation after every journey, I can't recall ever having to adjust it.

You're welcome Franklin. I'd suggest you look out for a used prism, but alas they don't come along very often, I think people tend to keep hold of them. The best of luck to you. Regards, Paul

Franklin, here is details of the prism, from Baaders info sheets. The field stop diameter of the 30mm is 30.4mm. That's correct, no vignetting with the Celestron 30mm Ultima Edge FF 2inch 70 degree eyepiece.

Sorry Mike. If I'd known you wanted one, I would have stepped aside, and let you buy it. 🤣

It's £86. Quite a lot, but nothing will ever come detached from it when you don't want it to 🙂.

I purchased this to be able to use my new Celestron Ultima Edge FF 2inch fit, 30mm 70 deg eyepiece with my Baader T2 90 deg BBHS Prism #2456095. As all Baader equipment I have ever used, it works perfectly. Firm grip, easy to use and no vignetting at the edge of the field. Even better, I think it looks cool too 😅. The scope in the pics is my Altair Starwave 80 ED-R fpl53 doublet, on a Scopetech Zero altaz

Scarry! 😱

Thanks for posting the pics Nick 🙂👍.

Many thanks, you're back on my Christmas card list. Nice book finds. I'm glad you mentioned the meteorite. When I first glanced at your pic, I thought it was someone's brain!

Mike, the Genesis I took up to The Astronomy Centre all those years ago and our friend Derek was so pleased to be able to observe with was a Genesis f5, not an sdf.

Actually you are right Robert. For all these years I've been misreading it - I thought it said 'Genius' 🙂.

And that was all you bought Mike, really? I wish I could have been there to help you spend more money 🙂.

Stu, I've never bashed a Tak owner in my life. I'd have to bash myself as I've owned several, including Sky 90s (more than one), FS76, FS102, FC100DL and TSA120. All very nice scopes 🙂. Here's a fine drawing by Mike (mikeDnight) when we were observing on April 2nd, 2017.

I'm not sure all of them are 😊 No, it doesn't bother me at all it's funny, some of my best astro mates are Takiphiles 🙂. I really don't take it that seriously 😅.

I hope no one sends this to the police unsolved crimes unit 🙂.

There are numerous examples of people having an illogical affinity to a particular scope. For instance, the current range of Takahashi 100mm Fluorite doublets. Owners use superlatives to convince people of their merit. Word such as, razor sharp, sharp enough to damage your retina, that they will knock the socks off far larger scopes, the superb colours etc etc. I've had a DL and it's a very sharp, well made 100mm fluorite doublet. However, I have to say, apart from in the very worst seeing, using my 8inch Dob I have far better views of every object I look at, and use it for deep sky on nights I wouldn't bother getting the DL out if I still had it. I've also owned a Genesis f5, and loved using it, for what it's best at. And yes, if I ever had some spare cash and one came up at a decent price, I might just be tempted to buy it! 😊

Likewise.

I don't think we should 'speak' to any members of SGL who attend the show and don't post at least one image! Come on you mean lot, where are they?

That's very kind of you Jeff, thank you. Brilliant, never seen it before. 👍

There will be reductions on some items from soms vendors.. Received this in an email this morning.

This is what it was like around 8am here looking out of the kitchen window - that's a foot of snow on top of the bird bath. It's started to melt, but this afternoon it starts to get colder again. When I have to set off around 5.30am tomorrow, it's forecast to be -7C. It depends on how much snow remains as to if I'll make it.

This Amber weather warning has just been issued, I'm in the Amber bit 😱. At over 850 feet altitude I think it might be optimistic to think it will all have cleared away by about 5.30 Sat morning when I need to set out.

I grabbed the opportunity to give the Ultima 30mm first light last night having had it over a week. Not ideal conditions, only about 9 hours after Full Moon, but heavy snow forecast for the next 2/3 days. I was using it with the 8inch Starsense Explorer Dob, session from 8.25 to 9.55pm, temp - 3 C and intermittent patches of thin cloud until it clouded up. Light weight enough to cause no balance problems with the Dob, and its 22 degree eye relief made it easy to comfortably see the hard edge of the whole 70 degree field with the eyecup folded down. It was a similiar immersive experience as when using my 17.5 Morpheus (76 degrees). First used it on the Pleiades, the ET Cluster, Orion Neb, Orions belt. Orions sword, Dble Cluster and M31 to get a feel for the field of view compared to the ES24/68. The 1.75 deg field of the Ultima clearly gave me the advantage I needed over the 1.36 field of the ES for more extended objects. Despite the moonlight and some whisps of cloud the view was very pleasing, stars being sharp to the edge of the field and contrast better than I hoped fir on the night of full moon. I then added a 2inch ED generic barlow to see how it would operate as a 15mm option. Objects observed were the Orion Neb, M44, M35, M47, M48, M67 and finally the Moon. The view was still emmersive, and the extra mag increased the contrast of course, giving fine views of all the open clusters - very impressive for full Moon night and the barlow maintained the quality of the star images as with the eyepiece alone. With the 8inch aperture and the help of Starsense App to swiftly find objects where having to use a finder in the bright moonlight would be very difficult, it means you can have a worthwhile deep sky experience despite the moonlight. Very happy with the 30mm Ultima's performance, and I recommend it - certainly no problem at f6. Before anyone asks, I realise there is the StellaLyra version (plus at least another six clones!) which are cheaper. I had my reasons for paying the extra for the Celestron. 😊

Where are you? I'm in West Yorkshire and the snow here is due to finish Friday afternoon, snow warnings every day from 7th to 10th none on 11th. Anyway, it will be what it will be. I expect one of the organisers will put a post on SGL if it's cancelled. If you travel on main roads it could be fine. Not so good for me though. The first eight miles is over high moorland along a narrow road where you can't easily see the edges of the road if there's any snow. Still hopeful of making it though 😊.

Morning Elrond. Not guilty on the cult front, thats the term I use for small Takahashi enthusiasts this side of the pond 🙂. I can understand your frustrations, it's also very difficult to know what's going on with it unless you can actually be with someone having problems and observe what they are doing. It could be something really straight forward. Just a couple of questions, is it in night vision mode when it fails to work on the night sky? Also have you tried to do the alignment procedure at night? It might be worth a try if not. If you do, it's easy to think that there are no stars visible when you first look at the screen, but they pop into view if you pinch the screen outwards to zoom in. (the star images are harder to see at low magnification.) Of course best to do it on a bright star or planet anyway.