Nakedgun

I'm not an imager, but have always loved my C-nine-two-five. Good choice.

Nice gear. That streetlight would make me bristle, I'd have to erect some sort of temporary block for it! Many of us have some type of impediment like this to deal with.

Not being an imager, this explanation certainly eluded me.

Perhaps the focal length for this line is an approximation, perhaps they have different primaries, otherwise I don't know.

Congrats on a fine selection! (I have one, too). I'm sure I'll have a look at Mars this weekend, but will concentrate on the gas giants, and I'm going to see if I can bag Pluto, as well. Haven't tried with this aperture, yet.

A dream machine!

With a 20x wide angle ep on the spotter, I was just able to fit both planets into the same field, this evening.

Viewed Mercury/Venus Sunday night with 10x50s and 82mm spotter, Mercury ~10° below Venus, Mercury becoming visible naked-eye near 2000hrs. Monday night clouded out. Tuesday night Mercury was ~5° below Venus. Will go out a half-hour from now to look. Skies are clear now (Wednesday) and should be (Thursday) for the conjunction, as well.

Nice upgrade, to be sure! The tripod is not the HAL-130, but its model number does not come to mind, just now.

Over here, I've heard bird-watching is on the ascendant, so binocular sales are up.

Don't remember seeing a blue one, before. I'm not crazy about the current black metal-flake, which I have.

Hmm, I'll take your word for it.

I'll have to post up my 120 soon. When was that color scheme available?

Looks like something in the jungle to be avoided!

Nice having that roll-off!

Keeping it simple/inexpensive is certainly the goal, here. For me the 8-24mm zoom and barlow combo does nicely. This Celestron zoom even comes with a screw-top protective case: I have a Celestron bino-viewer, and considering employing it for outreach, too. Figuring ep sets that meet the above criteria is the challenge just now.

With the demise of the BT Technologies owner and their color-matched bases, ADM provides us Tak users with the only option in town. The BT model seen here on my FC76:

The blue finders were offered by the Tak importer here in the U.S. and with the blue accents on the OTA I just wanted something not usual. I transfer the finder between the FC-100, FC-76 & FOA-60.

A few years back I decided to lighten up, after having aperture fever push me to get ever-larger-and-heavier scopes, including triplet designed refractors, as it became just too much to deal with in spite of the color-free and/or deeper sky views offered by them. As a result, my triplets had to go, one of which was the Tak TSA102. So, when Tak released their FC-100DC I bought one in October 2013 to compare with the TSA. I'm not an imager and found the Tak doublet fit the bill visually, and mounting became much less complicated, as a bonus. The TSA went to a new owner. Parallax rings: Tak 6x30 finder: Tak 1.6x Extender Q:

Nice pair of mounts.

Clear Clear skies? Was clear here, this week, now the weekend is a humbug.

I dug through some old photos and found this 20-year-old snap of my C-14, along with my wife, who accompanied me on an observing trip to the Kofa Wildlife Refuge in western Arizona. Sold this beast sometime after the 2003 Mars apparition. Bought my C-9.25 soon after, and had a C-5 also, which I held onto till around 2007, I think, and then sold to a colleague whom I introduced to astronomy . Never took any pictures of the C-5. I always wondered whether a C-11 would give enough boost over the 9.25 to make it worth having so I bought one to compare. It did not make me want to unload the 9.25 and was heavy enough to push it into the "for sale" category. I did not own it long, and this was another scope I never took any photo of. Sold it to a guy in Australia. So, the 9.25 was my only SCT until I thought I should have a smaller, more agile unit of the same type for use on a smaller mount and began to look at the C-8. They went on discount in April '13 and that was all the encouragement I needed. This unit was made in China (I think my first SCT to come from there, can't remember where the C-11 was made), and I have no complaints about the views produced by it. Added an 8x40 finder as the 6x30 factory finder was not adequate for my visual needs, along with a Rigel. Pretty sure I won't be buying any more SCTs, but I sort of wish I'd kept the whole Celestron lineup - that's the collector in me talking, now.

Reminds me of a Coulter Odyssey I once owned, very basic, almost primitive, hardware on them.

I have the 30, 18, 12.5, & 7.5mm in pairs, with the 5mm a single. I should have bought the others when available.

I've wanted a 90mm refractor for many years, but had no luck with them, having received a new discontinued LOMO triplet with some sort of astigmatism issue, returned; a new discontinued Astro-Tech triplet with loads of dust between the lenses, sold in-person to a willing buyer; and then there was the Tak Sky 90, which had its own lens cell troubles, never bought one. Ted Ishikawa is the Borg U.S. importer and he sold me my first scope from this mfr, a 76ED f/6.6 pictured elsewhere in this topic, in June 2001. Oasis Studio, the Borg makers, have a 90 f/5.6 Fluorite doublet which, I am told, is not the same as the Sky 90 though both are/were sourced from Canon Optron. I decided to take another chance on this aperture and bought one from Ted 18 years, to the month, after my first purchase from him. This time I struck gold. Compact and lightweight (a Borg trademark) it is also an optical plum, a pleasure to sit at the eyepiece with. Closed up it is short, added a Chinese 6x30 finder as I haven't located an adapter allowing the use of a Tak finder stalk on this base: 90mm rings from AliExpress: Dew shield and focuser extended. I weighed it last summer and seem to remember it was at ~ 7lbs, as pictured with rings, dovetail plate, diagonal & ep: