Roy Challen

Beautiful work indeed, I particularly like what you replaced the wood with.

I've been following this thread with interest, bad luck about the lens, Dave. If want to keep the 0.965 setup, I have 3 eyepieces you can have. They came with my Prinz 660, but I don't use them. Either way, I hope you carry on with this old scope.

The Independent called it "blazing".

That is a stunning image. Aside from the wonderful detail in the comet's tail, and all the stars when zoomed in, I love the standing stones and hills in the background. Thanks for posting.

Fantastic sketches, Mike, and just as impressive as all the images!

I also went out this morning, with Mrs.C. We went to the same place I went on Tuesday, and saw it straight away with eyes only, and through the bins it was spectacular. Mrs.C has never seen a comet before, so this was extra special for her. After looking at the comet for half an hour, we had a quick tour of the planets - Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter with three of it's main moons also visible. As a bonus, on our walk home, we also saw the NLCs that others have mentioned. What a great early morning out! When we returned, I quickly went up to the north bedroom and looked out the window, the comet was still easily visible in the lightening sky, well above the houses.

Don't forget the Maks! And the Mak-Newts!

I got up at 2am, saw the clouds, and thought " this is probably a waste of time". I went to my chosen observing site - a multistorey carpark - only to find it shut. I decided to walk to a nearby park that has a decent north view in the hope that the trees at the northern end weren't tall enough to obscure my view. I stood patiently, and the clouds kept on coming. There was a narrow, clear band of sky developing just where I needed it, so kept scanning along with my binoculars. At about 3:05am, I got my reward. One second it wasn't there, then, it was! A beautiful sight in 12x50s, easily the best comet for me since Hale-Bopp, and absolutely worth getting up for! This is the first actual astronomy I have done for at least a year, and confirms to me that I do still love doing it! I took a few snaps with the phone through the bins, then walked home very happy indeed. The image shows the band I mention, it's not the horizon, so I suppose it's a couple of degrees wide at best. The timing couldn't have been better, lucky me.

You should be able to use a standard vixen style dovetail - I have a TAL100RS that uses the Tal rings with a vixen dovetail without any problems. Of course, this depends on whether or not the screws on your tube rings are long enough to go through the holes in the dovetail and still be able to attach those knurled nuts on the other side. You can just about make them out in this old pic.

Thanks for that Jeremy, brings up memories of my trip there in 2018. The Jantar Mantar complex was one of the only clean places I went to in India, so was memorable for that alone. Didn't do any observing at all, far too much air and light pollution.

The slo-mo controls really are nice, aren't they? Happen to fit perfectly on my Tak mount too.

Looks very nice indeed. I particularly like the handle's 'weaver' style rail. Common on air guns (and real guns, no doubt), always thought they'd be a good idea on telescopes.

Telescope>trouser pocket>washing machine. There you go! It's in the washing machine😀

In the dog?

I can see why some people may want the box, perhaps an item 'feels' newer with it rather than without. I'm not at all bothered as long as the condition is good. The best EPs I've ever used were Zeiss CZJs, none of them had boxes, and IIRC I sold them on without boxes.

That is quite a 'collection'.

My answer to your question depends on what airguns you swapped 😆. If it was a couple of Gamos then I would say you should've kept the bins, Wiehrauch or Daystate though - wouldn't have let them go in the first place! Seriously though, as Icesheet mentioned, it might be worth checking the warranty.

Shouldn't be too difficult in this country 😉

Blimey! That is heavy! Is that common to the Mak-Newt design?

I seem to recall a report comparing the ETX 90 to a Questar with the conclusion being quite favourable. Not sure how accurate that is having not looked through either, but that is surely a good recommendation for that era of Meade Mak optical quality. Just found that report. http://www.scopereviews.com/90mmComparo.html

I would keep my Skylight, to go with with my Zeiss 25H in the other 'one only' thread. And I would only have one mount too.

I would keep my Zeiss 25mm Huygens, but get lots of barlows.

To the letter this is the same way I do it!😆

Really? It's barely any bigger than the ED50! Here it is next to my Tal 100.

I had its big brother - the Mini 60 Achro. Worked with a prism diagonal (Baader Amici correct image, and a Tak prism, probably would work with any diagonal ) with a helical focuser. Although it was an achromat, it had good colour correction and coped with magnification upto about x120. All my EPs came to focus in it and it was small enough to fit in any rucksack. Should not have sold that combo.