jetstream

Excellent catch! M31 is a huge galaxy in the eyepiece and will show nice dust lanes and even a glob at the end. Naked eye, under the best of conditions here will show M31 as elliptical with a bright core- and really quite bright.

Its not cheating, its just another way to observe IMHO. These devices allow things to be seen in LP skies that would otherwise be invisible and from dark skies would offer super views.

I'm clutching my chest ☹️ and hope all goes well! I just cant believe how high mag the TSA120 takes and gives a great presentation at lower mags. Mine doesnt care about which diagonal or eyepieces either, everything seems to work in this scope for some reason.

Another vote for the Televue PCII and you have the perfect eyepieces for it. It is very easy to use in the dark, no need to look at the settings except for the initial one.

Its the interaction between scope and prism that causes things or no things. My TSA120 is not fussy, offering superb views with a mirror diag, prism diag and straight through. My "cheap" chinese optic SV90 also loves the prism, straight through or mirror diag and but Vic Maris did star test these scopes (hes vg at it) before sending them out. Whats also interesting is that these not "fussy" scopes go extremely high mag and maintain razor sharp views. To me the test of a refractor is the ability to take high mag regardless of the diag used.

Yup, its the best lol! Actually I test and compare my frac stuff to straight through views. My old Zeiss T* coated prism is superb- in triplet APOs...both which star test perfectly.

Totally agree, espc the effects of atmospheric dispersion- this made my TSA120 look like a cheap walmart scope one night on Jupiter. AD can be a huge factor when the planets are low IMHE.

Anybody else notice that if a prism "messes" with a scope it in red?

This indicate, to me, a poor sample of a prism... just a guess, probably wrong.

The f6 is most likely the culprit, but who knows. So its the red colour it doesnt get along with? what about barges, festoons white ovals etc? Your scope has good figure so it must be the speed? or an issue with the prism?

Yes your TV will provide a great widefield view- I love observing the Pleiades "Bubble" with such scopes, what a fine dazzling object. Dont forget about visual, try to get out and enjoy you imaging- your images are superb! Yes it gives bizarrely good views- I was setting up the Rigel a while back and used Jupiter- I was shocked at the low power 250x view... aperture really opens up detail. I was going after DSO and it did not disappoint in that area either. The moon is shockingly good in this scope...I leave it cooled sitting in a sea can.

98.4" or 2499mm- its a very good scope, really high contrast. The 15" goes well over 700x on the moon razor sharp and is my favorite scope- until I look through the 24" lol! The 24" provides a hugely better view of DSO- some DSO in particular than the 15" ie the Veil, Crescent etc and it makes the "Little Veil" very easy visually. Wicked on PN, galaxies etc. M81 spirals very easy etc.The list goes on.

The 24" is f4.1 with a mirror from Terry Ostahowski, same as the 15" (f4.8)in vg Astrosystems structures. These structures maximize contrast in many ways and I'm lucky to observe from 21.8 ish mag skies in NW Ontario. Hard to beat these USA made optics and structures.

Excellent! I must say that the sketcher was member Qualia, not me and is the best Ive seen. My 24" drowns out the star trails but the 10" is good, the 15" is superb.

The little star trails off the main body, like in this sketch.

Your image is superb Rodd 👍 I was talking about the "look" of M13 through the scope including the shape effect of "Herschels Hairs." Combine this with the "propeller" standing out in contrast with the mass of stars and you have a visual that, so far, Ive not seen represented in images. This comment is not a criticism of your image.

No matter how excellent an image is of this object - it does not compare to the visual view through a large dob, IMHO.

I'm thinking it will... eagerly waiting reports! These eyepieces are among the best values out there IMHO.

These are vg eyepieces, somewhat forgotten and under rated IMHO.

Glad I got mine when I did, from Ostahowski- I'm up in Canada, north of Mn. Prices arent going down either...picked up a 15" years ago and a 24" a few years ago, both vg.

It takes the best Televues to beat ES eyepieces IMHO- ES are very good, I own both.

Yes, me neither! My only excuse is lots of fishing instead of astronomy lol!

Excellent report Vlaiv! Congratulations on the move, you will enjoy your new place, it sounds great and with a nice elevation increase. Sorry I'm late to the thread, missed it somehow but I have questions During my SQM days I noticed that when observing around light domes transparency was a huge factor. Any little bit of dust in the air, light cloud etc will reflect the light and scatter it around - so its a double whammy- viewing reduce from the trans itself but also the scattering, reflecting effect on the surrounding light domes. so, how was the transparency this night? Congrats for this- M33 is super sensitive to things and can disappear pretty easily- it is a good test of skies. Another vg sign, many do not see lanes at all, and the second one eludes many many people! Hmm, you sound like a vg observer- maybe we'll get you switched over from imaging to plain old visual?

Thanks Stephan I always wondered what this feature was- I see them at least as good as the sketch but oddly enough they seem sensitive to aperture. The 10" and 15" do vg but the smaller scopes and the 24", no. The big scope drowns the features out, the smaller ones dont pull enough stars. When everything is right Herschels hairs are a truly great feature to see.

Years ago a member Qualia sketched M13 that showed some star trails- I see these trails and had discussed it with him way back. I was wondering if these "detached" star trails are "Herschels hairs"? Do you see M13 like this as well? These features really add beauty to the object.