Roy Challen

8 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

To prove I am not off topic, what about those old eye pieces? 
M

Zeiss eyepieces, regardless of design, are pretty much as good as it gets, as long as you can accept a narrow fov, and ridiculously high prices that they now command. Televue never made a bad EP either, although their modern eyepieces seem to better somewhat than their earlier designs. Plossls made today aren't really any 'better' than than those made 30-40 years ago, IMO. You can search for rarer designs (pseudo- masuyama etc), and these are good, but not necessarily better than modern designs, but to many collectors, their appeal isn't always about the optical quality - they are good though 😉.

Plenty of nice vintage orthoscopic designs around, try Baader BGOs, almost any Japanese ortho of the 80s-90s is worth a try too.

1 minute ago, DaveL59 said:

I guess there's also differing needs according to the scope used. A lot of the older scopes were "slow" but the short fast scopes these days put different demands on the eyepieces so there's a lot of options now out there.

For many of my older ones I've had them apart for cleaning the glass surfaces and where not already, blacked the lens edges which has made a slight improvement on the views. The teeny tiny lenses in some of those sure were a pain to work with tho!

Yeah, very true. I kept the Huygens because they work best at f/10+. The design of the telescope does indeed make a difference, and my 'fastest' scope is f/10😄. I would like a Telementor one day, although I'm not sure it would offer any more than what I already have, and an APQ...but this is an eyepiece thread!

1 hour ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

 

We all assume that newer is better but in some areas of life this is not always so. Just a question, to get a grip on how much we have improved or not. I take it that TV Nagler are the best. (generally right now) 

Has this always been the case, or are there times when different EP’s were the choice with scopes of the day? I understand that sometime ago scopes for amateurs were not what they are now (no reference to quality) but the choice now is amazing.

Marvin

I guess for many people, this is true. However, many of the eyepieces in this thread were premium in their day, and are seriously collectable now. The only drawback may be their relatively narrow fields of view, and poor eye relief compared to modern eyepieces. In all other (or most) respects, they are as good, if not better than most moderns. IMO , of course 😉.

Someone with a set of ZAOs will probably be along soon.

Lovely sets folks! TBH , I very much prefer the aesthetics and very possibly the views from these older EPs. Here's a set I really, really shouldn't have sold. At least I still have the Huygens.

I did have half a set of the Celestron Ultimas too, another regretful sale.

Hi, welcome to SGL. I'm in Watford, and apart from a brief dalliance with AP, I only do visual. You mention Ashridge and Ivinghoe, and I think these are your best bets - certainly for visual. However, flight paths from Luton airport could be a problem for AP.

Good luck, you'll need it!😉

15 minutes ago, Nigella Bryant said:

 It therefore couldn't have been a comet, a meteor or a conjunction of planet's as these would have been moving faster than a fixed point of light that the Magi followed for quite some time.

Serious question, could a comet in a retrograde orbit not give the required impression?

10 hours ago, nephilim said:

I'll grant you the position of Astronomer Royal for putting me onto this cracking idea because I'm generous like that 😂

No probs, as long as you understand that the real power lies with those behind the scenes, ie Mrs C!

😂

8 hours ago, nephilim said:

 

When I start with my cynicism regarding the daily comi......erm I mean  newspapers & their love of disregarding actual science fact over paper sales, my friends start to lose interest, when I continue with the actual real distance between these planets, my friends start to yawn, as soon as the words 'arc seconds' leave my mouth, my friends eyes glaze over, I've lost their interest completely & that's pretty much where the discussion ends.

Tell 'em what they want to hear. Great conjunctions are portents of significant events, this one tells us that a saviour will soon appear to deliver us from the pandemic. When the vaccine finally appears, you can say to your friends: "see, I told you so!"

😉

47 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

 

I really don't understand why modern mount makers like Skywatcher don't just make a simple design change to allow their manual equatorials to convert to altaz mode..? The cost would be minimal and yet you'd have two mounts for the price of one🤔??

Lovely scope Dave.

It's not just Skywatcher, they're all like that. Even my lovely Tak mount is EQ only. The mount that came with the Prinz 660 I bought from you is EQ/Alt-Az, I fettled it to fit on a Horizon tripod, it works nicely as a grab and go but the 660 is a bit long for it really.

Damn, my previous post sounds somewhat depressing reading back. Sorry about that.

13 hours ago, andrew s said:

Like  the OP, it has bilpped into existance and will then disappear without trace.

Regards Andrew 

Yes, possibly. But it will take so long to do whatever it's going to do that we will never know. So maybe there will be a trace, it's just that we won't be around to see it. That, I think, is the sad part of it all.

Blimey! It was only on Tuesday that John posted this

This may be a fake advert, @John reported a very similar one recently. The true value of this scope is way higher than the starting bid. The text is almost word for word the same as in the link below. The pictures are the same.

https://www.apm-telescopes.de/en/offers--lists/secondhand/apochromatical-refractors-2-lens-opt.-tube.html

It may also be genuine...but I doubt it. Nope, it's fake, I'm sure of it. I deleted my ebay account only the other day, so I'm unable to report it. If someone else would be so kind...

14 hours ago, wuthton said:

I'm going to politely disagree. Natural selection by it's very nature means that the next generation will be faster, more intelligent and disease resistant with better senses of sight, smell and taste. The direct opposite of the second law. 

This definitely doesn't apply to humans.

A lovely setup Dave! I don't have any fresh photos of mine, but here's a link to a thread I started when I first got my Tak mount.

Everything is clean and working now (has been for ages actually), except for the LCD screen on the control box. I also found a more suitable counterweight. I did refit the original black dew shield though as it better matches the rest of the components.

My garden looked tidier back then too😁

Hi Rod,

As far as I'm aware, it's a Kenko lens. The scope itself is based on a Prinz 660 which is also 76mm aperture.

On 08/11/2020 at 13:13, RodAstro said:

 

Yep I love the Zeiss Orthos I have the full set and two of each for the bino head and a 40mm and a 63mm Zeiss huygens that is fantastic. 

I had a few CZJ orthos a little while back, and have to say that they were the best eyepieces I've used in any telescope. And I still have a 25mm Zeiss Huygens, which is a fantastic ep in my f/16 (one of Dave's old scopes!).

Oh yes, I forgot about the annular eclipse in 2012. My wife and I were on our honeymoon in Japan, we saw the eclipse in Kyoto. That was pretty special. That's what my avatar picture is of!

3 hours ago, Peter Drew said:

My oldest telescope is a 3" brass refractor by Davis of Cheltenham, circa late 1700's.

You win!

I think my eyes are the oldest astro equipment I have, they're 45 in a couple of weeks.

My Skylight is based on a Prinz 660, so it could be older, but I can't prove it, and my Tak mount is probably mid/late 80s.

46 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

The 2012 transit of Venus, because I won't see another.

It was 2004 for me, 2012 was clouded out where I was.

Neowise would definitely be a recent highlight.

Number one though, the first time going to a truly, truly dark sky although that wasn't really an event, it felt like one though!

Had a go early this morning with the bins, the moon was in the worst place possible and only just past full so just washed everything out. I'll be keeping an eye or two on this one though.

That is very nice indeed.

Got my first pair of bins from the Tring shop. My brother-in-law has them now. Sad to see DH go, but at least there is still an astro-shop there: Tring Astro, and very good they are too.

It was only last week that you were angering 'them up there'!

😁

Like several have already said, 2003 was a vintage Mars year. That opposition was the reason I got my first telescope, a department store special - it was a Bushnell I recall. The optics weren't that bad really, but the mount was. However, I didn't know any better, and I still enjoyed the view. In the intervening years, the scopes I had were decent, but lacking in aperture and f/l, and between 2016 and this year I didn't do much observing. So the best view I've had was last Saturday, through my 100 RS.

The funny thing is I am far more willing to get up at a very unsociable time in order to get a good view now, than I was 17 years ago!