Piero

Right now I only have two including a powermate. If the Lunt solar wedge had a "shorter nose", I would probably sell the PM too.

very nice Paul!

Gentlemen, we are talking about a telescope for our hobby. No need to get upset about it. A bit like in love, sometimes we are infatuated from the very beginning, other times an interest takes some time to mature in something more important. I believe that people also require some time to get acquainted and close to their telescope. Again, this requires quite a lot of commitment and effort from our side. Sometimes we go out hoping for a wonderful night but the weather is just too bad and we eventually need to go back home. And the other half (the telescope) looks at us as if she were saying 'shame, I wanted to look at the stars tonight!'. Eventually, what matters is that we spend a lovely night out independently of what we have. Analysis and reporting details are interesting parts of course, but certainly don't substitute the joy of standing under the stars, planets, and moon.

We can perceive things very differently, which is quite intriguing. Personally, I am fine with the left-right reversed view due to diagonal mirrors, I'm definitely happy with the straight through finder view on my dob, I see differences on axis in eyepieces (TV etc), and the edge is not very important to me... Apart from the first point, the remaining three are orthogonal to the feelings of most. I believe one should follow his/her own way eventually. As you my second (and serious) introduction into this hobby has been predominantly supported by TV equipment. Funnily I'm having less and less TV components as time passes. Tastes are so personal!

Congratulations for the new telescope! It looks just great, definitely a keeper! Wish you many many hours of super observations with it!

Never tried it, but for an F5 telescope, I'd prefer a smaller exit pupil unless I observe from a dark location. Under average skies, something around 25mm would work better as low power eyepiece I feel. Just my opinion. Piero

My next purchase will be the case itself, after recent changes. Then, I hope to post in the `show me your dob` thread sometime soon..

Nice boxes John! Can I ask you which Maplin (?) case models do you use, please? Just to have an idea about sizes.

Wow, this thread has rest for 16 days! Here I'm still having a diet.. No longer a Nagler T6 owner. The three little kiddos now live in new houses. Their two TV big brothers are looking for a new place too. Same for my first telextender (Bresser SA 2x).

Amazing thread! Just read this from Post No. 1! Great work, dedication and patience which paid back with an excellent result! I look forward to reading about your observations. Thanks for sharing this story and all the fantastic pictures about how your dobson was built in all its stages. Very inspiring work! Piero

This is actually interesting as it is not monotonic compared to the currently implemented ranking. I must admit that I find a bit confusing that after less than 100 (or something like that) likes, a user contribution becomes automatically excellent in a profile. So eventually we all have an excellent reputation which is nice of course, but seems a bit useless in the end as it does not distinguish anybody as a measure (assuming that we want this measure of course). Something similar could be said about the new member (0-25 posts?), member (<100 posts?), advanced members. Eventually we all end up very quickly in the advanced category while we often are still very beginners. To me, it would make more sense if one is a new member until the 500th post, and a member until 2000th post, or something like that. Anyway, to me Acey's scale would make more sense than the "community reputation" text (which reports excellent for almost everybody who regularly attends this forum). I also like the selection of names (dark matter, neutrino, higgs, etc). On the other hand.. how many rankings / scores do we already have??

What a super gem John! Hopefully you have clear skies soon so that you can try it on the three planets out there! Looking forward to reading your first light report!

The transit was nice from here too, although I only observed it once back from work. Nice event!

Apparently rain here too tomorrow. Swimming goggles are also recommended for the event..!

The two priorities behind my decision to replace my naglers were: 1) comfort (=eye relief), 2) a bit better views. I've never regretted this decision so far. Not that the Nagler T6 are very uncomfortable, but they exclude the option to use spectacles, and in my case I am not a mega fov addicted. Jules, passing from an orthoscopic to a large eye relief eyepiece is something which certainly won't passed unnoticed!

That's my thought too! few eyepieces -> less swapping -> longer observing time It's down to preference though. A few people prefer to have the option to get the best magnification / frame depending on the circumstances. If so, a larger selection of eyepieces is needed.

Two funny things about this thread are that the OP gave up and that he only received 1 'like' for creating the most popular thread on SGL!

Really nice Stu! How do you compare the Tak FC-100D and the Burgess Optical 91mm triplet generally? Do they work best on different targets? Or one is more for rich field or portable?

eheh! Not mine though!

Stunning!

Actually, I have to say that for birding it works darn well! I am not into that hobby, but last year in March during civil twilight a small storm of birds flew in the direction I was pointing. With the 24 Pan, the view of 4.3 deg of fov was really beautiful! I followed them until they were visible.

Plus 1 for the lunt! I'll back it up! (Little brother of course!)

Apart from when I occasionally use the blower for removing some impurities I know are on the lens, I very rarely look at them. The same for the tv60 or tripod. I know, neglecting (eyepiece) babies is not good.. I am just trying to educate them not to be egocentric!

Never heard either! Very interesting though! Thanks for putting together this information!