paulastro

I put the alarm on at 4 am to catch the Moon at last quarter in the morning sky. Outside, laying snow and a severe frost awaited me. I observed with the Tecnosky 102ED F7 FPL53 on the Vixen DX mount. Excellent views in between cloud, but with long clear patches. I was outside from 4.30 am to 5.55 am when cloud thinkened - followed by some snow when I was indoors. Fabulous detail along the terminator, particularly favourable for Deslandres and Maginus. To show the terminator, I took a single frame at 5.05 am at prime focus with my Olympus E-M5 Mk11, 1 /250 sec at 400 asa. It is shown below with a couple of crops of the same frame.

YES, YES, YES !!!!!!!!

When are you going to buy youself a set Mike? In fact, I'll bring my 17.5 along to a session with you - if you can buy the rest of them so that I can try them out. ☺.

Totally agree Dave. My elderly Vixen SP is the business in this respect.

Welcome to SGL. Me thinks you may know Peter Drew who is a member of SGL?! 🙂 I'm still using the SP, I also have a GP on loan from Peter and a DX which is on my profile pic with a 102mm refractor. Thanks for posting, it was a great read.

That's plain greedy 😁 🤢

A very warm welcome to you Gary. Its always good to welcome other members from the frozen north. I just wished you lived a bit closer, I could become your closest friend- and this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact you own a 3D printer 🤣.

A couple of phone snaps from last night while observing Mars and the Moon with my Tecnosky 102ED f7 FPL53. The mount is a vintage Vixen GP DX. I only took delivery the week before Christmas and I'm VERY impressed with this scope. When I've had more sky time with it I'll post a review. The snap of the Moon is Janssen of course, taken with my phone held to one of the eyepieces on my binoviewer. The visual image was much better of course, and without the colour artifacts 🙂.

Here's some pics of my SW 72ED set up for solar photography. It's mounted on an AZ5 along with a Baader Solar Filter and an Olympus E-M5 Mk11. The solar finder was made by Peter Drew.

I recently took delivery of a Tecnosky 102mm ED FPL 53 doublet. It arrived on December 15th from Italy via Astrograph. It was checked by Rupert at Astrograph before being forwarded to me. Apart from a daylight test on arrival, it wasnt under the night sky until 24th December. First impressions were excellent with seeing on the poor side. The Moon showed good detail with impressive sharpness for the conditions, better with my binoviewer using Orthos. I tried, but couldn't generate any false colour on the limb or on the terminator, very pleasing. Mars, at just over 11" was a surprise. At powers up to x120 the limb was clean as a whistle, very sharp and no unwanted colour. The gibbous phase very obvious, even at low powers. Some albedo features were easy to see with very good contrast. The south polar cap (which looked very small) was easy to see. Overall Mars was much better than I expected in the prevailing conditions. Stars showed perfect disks out of focus, and at low powers very impressively tight images. I'll evaluate the scope when I've had more star time and post the findings.

Many thanks to all of you who have come up with such helpful suggestions. I'm now fixed up with a bag, thanks again

Many thanks Nicolas but I wanted a bag rather than a case. Now ordered a bag as you may have seen. Thanks again for your suggestion.

Many thanks Ade, just ordered one - it was good to have a second opinion, thank you. I've used camping mats and similar things to pad bags and case in the past, and already have a piece of camping mat that will do the trick. Thanks again.

Many thanks Fozzie, that will do me, just ordered one! 🙂. Amazon only had two left in stock. Just the sort of thing I was after. Thanks again.

I'll look forward to that. Has anyone ever lived to be 126 years old?

Many, thanks - but I wouldnt be willing to post the scope or travel anywhere near Tring. I'm in West Yorksire. Thanks anyway. It sounds ds very expensive too.

Googled manfrotto padded tripod bag and it came up with loads of links, I'll trawl through them, many thanks.

Just looked but the link no longer works. Thanks anyway.

Will do, thank you!

Many thanks. Could you tell me the internal dimensions and the product number please? If you have one of the f7 versions it may be what I'm after? Thanks again.

Many thanks Mark. I've thought about this, but its finding one that is nicely padded and the right size. Any chance you could let me have the internal dimensions, and also the model or product name/number if it has one? It may suit .

Many thanks. I've used similar things in the past, but I prefer a soft case for the refractor. I think they are better suited to small Maks, and I've used one for that purpose.

Many thanks Mark. I actually have a Geoptik bag which is actually 36 inches long ,11 inches tall and about 8 wide. It came with a scope I traded years ago. It's very well made as you say, but no padding in it at all. I used it for a while with another refractor with a large piece of foam inside it. It was ok but not really rigid enough if the bag was bashed. Actually, I could use it as a stop-gap with the dew shield extended a bit for a while whilst looking for a padded shorter case so thanks for that 🙂.

Much of the year sounds good to me Olly 🙂.

I have an Oklop case for a longer refractor which is fine but I havent come across one in a smaller size. I'm after something similar but it doesn't have to be a 'telescope case', anything that will work would be good. If you know of anything suitable I'd be grateful if you can let me know. At the moment, whatever it is, it has to be available in the UK due to problems importing goods from abroad. Many thanks.