Roy Challen

Evolving quickly 

Amazing details!

I think the mount head and tripod head would fit an EQ5 tripod, but I'm not sure the mount head on its own would fit well. The central bolt fixing in the head is only 20mm diameter, not sure what the hole size in an EQ5 tripod head is.

Images of my Polaris below, which happens to be for sale...with a tripod 😉

The pedigree was never in doubt, Steve, but I'm very happy for your purchase 😊

8 hours ago, Saganite said:

I have had the good fortune to grab a 4 hour observing session under very good seeing conditions within  the last week , just a few days  after this APM 6" arrived.  What I have seen so far has left me with no doubt that it, along with my Vixen, is a lifetime scope.  I have been ' blown away' with its performance on all types of objects, but the real show is yet to come, Lunar, Jupiter, and Saturn, and I can hardly wait.

The 3" Feathertouch  rack and pinion is sublime and handles the weight of the bino and eyepieces with such ease, no slip ,no notchiness, just buttery smooth and solid excellence.  Although it is a big scope, the AZ100 handles it with ease. On the tripod  It is excellent  but is absolutely rock solid on my pier....

Fantastic setup, Steve! That first photo is very deceptive, the scopes appear very similar in size, but the second pic reveals all.

Glad all is well, and I'll be keeping an eye on my usb socket/leads too.

1 hour ago, Jonk said:

If you regularly unplug it, then my money's on the potential that the usb socket might be faulty.

I have a quark but not checked to see if it can easily be opened to replace the socket.

This issue appears on phones, usb speakers, rechargeable torches etc all the time, unfortunately.

The socket could also be full be full of dirt. Phone sockets get full of pocket fluff...worth giving the Quark and your phone a quick clean. If you have access to compressed air, that'd work best.

I've not experienced this, but you could try a different battery and cable just to eliminate the possibility of a fault with those.

17 minutes ago, BGazing said:

That would be around 30x, so Baader plossl was able to take the entire disk and then some? Did you have to move the scope to frame the entire prom?

Yep, easily fit into the field of view. No need to move the scope. Even with an 18mm BCO, the whole disc fits...just.

Yes, thanks for posting. I'm not sure whether the appropriate emoji is a sad face, thanks, like, or what?

I've not noticed any change, and I observe as often as I can.

Worth knowing, thanks again.

Good question, and seeing as I started this thread, I'll try to answer it.

In my sketch above, the prom at middle left hand side is twice as 'tall' as the next tallest prom. Also, it would have extended past the narrow field of view of GONG images.

To me, that's huge. The end/top could be 100s of 1000s of km from the surface.

I don't know if it's possible to predict when a prom will appear on the limb, but when an active region looks extremely bright, something could well happen in a short space of time. But equally, it might not!

Cheers for the heads up, missed it though...

1 minute ago, Mr Spock said:

Interesting. I've always found the NLV and SLV to have a pure, colourless tonal quality, like orthos. I did test a 10mm NLV against a 10mm Radian once. The Radian had a distinct yellowish tint on the moon whereas the NLV was clean. I sold the Radian...

The LV is supposed to be the same optics - different coating perhaps?

I agree, I've only owned one LV, a 20mm, but also had an NLV15mm. Both were very neutral in colour, I would say only my Meade RGOs were 'colder' - one reason I'd like to build another set.

5 hours ago, Stu said:

I may be misunderstanding what you put there Roy, but the Sun is still a full spectrum source through the Astro solar film, so will show any CA the scope exhibits. Adding a Continuum filter would be well worthwhile to get rid of it and sharpen up the detail a little. It turns the Sun green, but you get used to that pretty quickly.

EDIT Lovely set up by the way!

Yeah, I think I confused myself when I wrote that. White light still contains the full spectrum whether dimmed by solar film or not. And the semi apo filter just removes a part of it.

I used to have a continuum filter, might have to add one to the shopping list.

I agree wholeheartedly, yet I often get good views from my middle of town garden as long as I set up not too close to my house. Looking over the rooftops is usually ok if sun/moon are at a high enough altitude. Otherwise, I'll try to time observing sessions to avoid looking over the rooftops.

Seems the seeing has been poor for everyone regardless of the time😐

Yes, seeing was poor this morning, your images way sharper and more detailed than mine.

Yep, flourite lenses by Canon Optron, same as Tak, very light weight, super versatile due to modular construction. What's not to like? I had a Borg achro f/6 some time ago, it had virtually the same amount of CA as my f/16 Skylight, maybe less. Very good scopes. 

Downside? Really not cheap.

4 minutes ago, Chaz2b said:

This is my latest purchase, ioptron CEM25p, literally collected this morning, now it’s set up with Celestron 80ed Lunt Herschel wedge and Baader continuum filter fitted to a Televue 20mm eyepiece ,….and outstanding views!

chaz

You can tell it's fresh, still has the cling film on the tripod legs!

2 minutes ago, IB20 said:

Have really struggled with a wedge and the Tak 76DCU, the light path is too long. It has worked in my Starbase though, but the high mags with a GPC with 15mm meant the image was very soft. I need to get some 30mms to try.

I recommend the Baader 32mm plossl, it is exceptional in my Daystar, way better than a Vixen 30mm or even a TeleVue 25mm I had before.

1 hour ago, Paz said:

That Skylight scope looks epic! I had a look in Ha for a bit this morning and it was interesting on the surface where 3007/3012 are, plus some broad prominences on the leading limb. I swapped to white light and could tell straight away the seeing was not so good, but I'm relatively new to Ha so I was not so sure about assessing the quality of the seeing until I swapped to white light. No binoviewers for me today, I'm keeping the set up more simple while I get the hang of Ha observing then I'll go back to using them more often again.

It is a superb lunar telescope, I use it with a semi apo filter to remove the residual CA. I thought it would make a very good white light scope too, and it is, but I didn't take the filter out. In my image, you can see a bit of CA on the limb. Although a phone snap always exaggerates CA, I wonder if it is now introducing CA to what is effectively monochromatic light?

Interesting comments about binoviewers. When I had this scope made, I asked Richard Day to shorten it by 50mm to allow a Herschel wedge to focus with all the eyepieces I had at the time. It seems likely that the same would apply for BVs, but what about BVs and a wedge? Anyone have experience of that?

It's been years since I did any white light observing, so I thought I'd rectify that. Got some Baader solar film and fitted it to a spare dewshield for my Skylight, and popped it on my Tak EQ along with the Daystar.

The extra resolution of the Skylight and extra mag from the zoom ep really showed the sunspots well. Faculae also show up really well. My phone also takes better pics than in Ha!

The seeing wasn't good so I'm sure there'll be more to see when the seeing is good.

Both scopes are really complementary to each other. I need to adjust the alignment a little bit, and it would be good to get the eyepieces closer to each other as long as balance can be maintained.

1 hour ago, Carbon Brush said:

Thanks again for your input.

I have pushed the 'buy' button on a 2" Lacerta wedge from 365Astronomy and will report in due course.
If we have daytime solid cloud for a month - sorry in advance.

 

 

I'd be interested in how you find it. I'm thinking of buying either 1.25" or 2" - not sure which yet, so if you tell us how much focus the 2" uses up, that'd be great.