paulastro

I'm afraid I've reached the age when buying something as a lifetime investment may not be good value for money 🙂. PS Life is still good though, I get my free bus pass and state pension this month! 😄

I know it's a bit early, but Im bringing this up now as some filters are in short supply if you need one. I ordered one myself for my 102mm refractor a few weeks ago and it took over two weeks to arrive. Just checked and there is only one in stock of the one I needed. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/solar-filters/astrozap-baader-solar-filter.html There are other types and suppliers of course. If you are willing to make one yourself, there doesn't seem to be a problem in buying single sheets of Baader Solar Film. Here's a brief resume of the eclipse taken from the 2021 Philips Stargazing Guide To The Night Sky.

Couldn't afford it Mike 🙂

Perish the thought 🙂.

It's often the case that folks who spend a lot of money on a scope (for example over £2500 for a 100mm doublet apo beginning with the letter 'T' ) feel the need to repeatedly post how great it is. Perhaps they feel the need to re-assure themselves they were right in not having bought a scope nearly as good for less than half the price. 🙂

I came across this telescope in a charity shop this morning, how disappointing 🤔.

Ihave used an A4 page a day diary for over 25 years. They contain notes, scribbles, drawings and sometimes photos I have taken. The notes can be one liners to a whole page, very occasionally they spill across two pages. I do put other things in also which help to make the observations come to life years after I have written them. These include, anecdotes, wildlife sights and sounds, mishaps, newspaper cuttings re particular events, cuttings from astro mags, telescope information and reviews I write fir myself, details of journeys if I am playing away from home, interactions with other observers I may be with - and their equipment, weather events etc etc. I have to say, only drawings and technical info don't do it for me. They only tell half the story.

Ah, that would be push and go, but not very far then 🙂.

I wish you lived next door to me. I'd let you maintain my car 🙂.

Not exactly grab and go is it!

Mike, doesn't the pic on the right remind you of our fondly remembered fiend Phil!? I'm sure Phil would share the joke with us if he was still around🙂.

I had a clearish window between 9am and just before 10am. The seeing was rather poor but even so, I could see nine proms, though all but one rather small. There was a nice larger one in the NE quadrant. Also a large plage area surrounding the sunspots groups. The largest filament was in the S and had five components. Using a PST I have on loan. I used the Tecnosky 102ED F7 for white light and managed a single frame with the Olympus. Pleased to get it as its the fourth day in a row for me.

Many thanks Stu. As you can probably guess, the pic I posted today was the best of quite a large number of rejects 😁.

** Just edited the post to add a fourth image I took this morning (28th). I've added it at the top of the crops to maintain the time line. The full disc is still yesterday's pic. Details of today's session are in a separate post, but Iadded it here so the changes over the four days can be compared. ** I had to cloud dodge today to try and get a view of the sun. Views I had were all through varying amount of cloud. I did eventually obtain a single frame with the Olympus and Tecnosky 102ED F7 at 2.10pm. Below is the full disk from today with a crop, followed by frames taken on 26th and 25th. Today's is rather cloud affected, but it does show the changes from the previous two days.

Many thank Stu. The scope is well suited with the Vixen Super Polaris. I've preffered altaz to eq for some time, I've always found altaz mounts to be far more intuitive and easier to use. It's a rare day indeed when I use the SP or the DX in eq mode 😁.

Ade, you got there before me! I was going to use the title Cassiopiae on The Sun for my post, just went to post it and there it was already !! Still, great minds think alike I suppose lol. Anyway, I was also observing with the Tecnosky 102ED F7 this morning, though the seeing was very poor visually. I took a single frame with my Olympus E-M5 Mk11 and also made a crop of it. It shows about what I could see in better moments. Ade's drawing is far superior. The second crop is from one I took at about the same time yesterday morning, around 11am.

Here's a pic of my Tecnosky 102ED F7 this morning. I had just taken some WL solar pics, hence the Olympus E-M5 Mk11 hanging off the end of it.

Thanks for the heads up Stu, I'll be out around 10pm. Looks like it will be clear here too 🙂.

Well, I'm astonished, I never thought I'd hear a signed up Takofile like yourself say such a thing Mike. The Tak thought police will be after you! 🙂.

That's a shame John. If you want to give me your 130mm triplet, I'd certainly make good use of the binocular functionality 😄.

Vlaiv, I have done this in the past, but I'm not a great fan. Also, you couldn't get anywhere near the same image scale using a 'standard' barlow - x2 or x3. So not 'dismissing' it, it just wouldn't do the job I want. Thanks anyway.

Yep, I agree, it's the binoviwer that makes the difference in any scope for lunar and planetary. I suspect if you had used the binowiewer ONLY in the 100ED, you may have preffered the view to using the 120ED in mono vision. I agree with Mike, for me, my binoviewer (also a Baader Maxbright) is an essential companion on all my Lunar and planetary excursions.

I was out from 9.00 to 10.20 pm. Observing with the Tecnosky 102ED F7. I wanted to take some pics to compare using a smartphone's camera through an eyepiece against my Olympus mirrorless macro 4/3 at prime focus for taking close-up pics. As I suspected it would, the phone camera provided better close - ups. The full disc pic is a single frame using the Olympus. The two close ups are single pics using the phone's camera (Samsung A40) with a Celestron phone holder into a 17.5 mm Morpheus and x2 Celestron barlow. It's evident that cropping the whole disc frame with the Olympus just cannot produce the same detail as shooting through the eyepiece into the smartphone. If you try enlarging the full disc pic to anything like that given by the the latter combination you'll be able to see this for yourself. I'll still use prime focus for whole disc and larger scale views, and try and home my skills with the camera phone to improve on the close ups.

Easy, I could see it in my 30mm finder Mike 😄.

Thanks John. My Olympus E-M5 Mk11 is a mirrorless camera with a macro 4/3 sensor. The telescope has a focal length of 714 mm. I took the pic as I always do at prime focus, with the camera attached directly to it. Just the same as using a lens. There is nothing else used, no power mate or barlow. Just the camera body. Because of the size of the sensor, it effectively doubles the focal length, so it becomes the equivalent of 1428 mm. This gives an equivalent magnification of 1428 divided by 50 which is x28.56. The pic of the complete moon has been cropped from the original frame, and the third pic of Ptolemaeus has then been substantially cropped again from the original crop. I think it says a lot for the quality of the comparatively small sensor, that it gives the quality it does when it has been cropped so much. Also considering as well that the pic is one single frame. Though of course it is low resolution when compared with what could be achieved with the astro video cameras which facilitate the combination of multiple frames selected and stacked together