rl

My last house was a terraced house; I used a 14" F/6 dob there for years. The base stayed in the shed and the OTA in an outside toilet so it stayed dry and at temperature. I would wheel it out on a sack truck; the whole lot could be assembled in a couple of minutes but it was a heavy thing to lift on to the base. RL

We have an agreement that what goes in the garage is my affair! She gets to control the rest of the house! The operational issue that did strike me that first night was how susceptible it is to wind. The 12" is short and stocky and very well mounted; it just doesn't care about a breeze. The big one definitely does./ RL

Picked it up last Wednesday. Snuck it into the garage without "er indoors" noticing...To be fair she passed no comment. Even when she did spot it...very impressed but ominous. Probably politics at play here; we're going to a couple of weddings in the near future; she might be saving up the brownie points for new outfits? I quickly made up a new base on shepherd castors so it can be wheeled off down the drive for testing. I also cleaned the mirror which looked like the original coating (12 yrs old) which was really filthy. To my surprise it came up just fine under the tap ..it was all superficial dirt. Getting the mirror out was scary..it weighs nearly 20 kg. The original owner was left-handed; I had to rotate the top 180 deg which is why the finder is so low compared to the focuser. It collimated really easily. I've had one chance so far under very average seeing. First target Venus (as the twilight was still strong) ..looks as bright as the gibbous moon looks to the naked eye. Jupiter; seeing still awful so no spectacular detail seen but the moons are starting to show proper disks to the point you could fool yourself detail would be visible if only the atmosphere would calm down. Saturn; the first impression is "count the moons", faint pinpricks of light all around. Dan Bruton's website helped to identify.... . I left it a couple of hours to cool down and tried some basic deep sky stuff. M13 looked more resolved to the core than what I've ever seen in spite of the non-dark sky. Virgo cluster was a bit disappointing but I've no doubt will be spectacular in march-april next year. Star test...looks good as far as conditions will allow. No astigmatism on the mirror and the mush looks the same either side of focus but I can't imagine ever getting a night where I could usefully analyse the Airy disc and rings...i might invest in a Ronchi eyepiece if there's any doubt but it should be ok; it came with a test certificate. Optically I think it will be just fine based on first impressions. Towards the end of the night the seeing got a bit better so I tried a couple of double stars with splits 2 arcsec and down; lots of clear black between the doubles. Not as nice as a 6" refractor but good enough for a bid dob. It could do with a change in focuser and a proper finder but I've got to be careful with the balance. The Rigel quickfinder might be the way forward on this one. A 20mm nagler2 is too much weight but the 13 ethos is fine; it's hard to think of this ep as the planetry option but it is! It's a BIG S.O.B....the F/6 means I don't need a paracorr or flash eyepieces but the tradeoff is I'll probably end up selling my televue collection to buy a cherry picker... I've got a secure shed on an allotment outside town where the seeing is much better and the sky darker. It really deserves the best site I can find. At first pass it all looks promising. RL

Bit of a followup to my previous post last week...the 12" has gained a bigger brother....18" F/6. No chance of good weather now...!

Yes, it's a 90mm *15 finder which is magic on the fuzzies (counterweight inside the bottom of the OTA helps). And tinnies or ethoses fit equally well into the compartments to suit your level of enthusiasm for the evening...Scope's not bad either. RL

A poor thing but mine own... 12" F/4 "grab and go"

A poor thing but mine own.... 12" F/4

I sold my 21 ethos for financial reasons a few years ago. I then went through a succession of eyepieces later on trying to find a cheap replacement, including the 20mm ES 100, 25mm ES 100, 20mm mk2 Nagler (secondhand £130). I ended up keeping the Nagler..its contrast seemed a bit better which for me offset the loss of field. Not quite as good as the 21E was, but not far behind. A true classic. I also use my MK1 Naglers a lot...the much maligned 4.8mm is still very good in fast scopes over the whole field and my 11mm smoothside is still excellent 28 years after I bought it. RL