Roy Challen

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.

Did Earth even have a significant atmosphere during that period?

Reminds me of the time I had Wasabi beer in Japan...

Yep, it's a top quality barlow, and does give slightly more than x2 magnification. There's one on ABS at a very reasonable price. https://www.astrobuysell.com/uk/propview.php?view=151531

Could this be a meteor moving along the axis of the lens? Explains why it's only in one frame, but alignment and magnitude could be just coincidence.

But if you want a lot of extra adventure, you could do worse than the far southeastern part of Kazakhstan. No light pollution at all, no overhead flight paths, no facilities of any kind, no English! But you'll find the darkest skies imaginable. As an indication to how remote this region is, it's not far from the Eurasian Pole of Inaccessibility. La Palma is probably nice too, but I haven't been there!

Great to see that there is still interest in these fine scopes.

Super!

It’s been two years or more since I last used a telescope to view the skies. Recent inspiration led me to bring the Tal 100RS and Tak EQ mount down from the loft to be used once again. Although there was some high cloud present, and a large amount of light pollution, and add the fact that it is the middle of summer, it might have seemed less than ideal. Also, the planets being situated very low in the sky means I cannot see them at all from anywhere in my garden. I decided to keep my targets few and simple while I get back into things. From the darkest spot in my garden, the Summer Triangle region presented the best opportunities being in the patch of sky that was least exposed to poor conditions. I set up the mount and did a rough PA, glad to see that I haven’t forgotten how to do that. A pleasant surprise was that the batteries in the polar scope still worked. I attached the Tal and put in a recently bought Vixen 30 mm plossl and brought it to focus. The next surprise was that the finder was still aligned to the scope. I found Vega in the crosshair and looking through the Vixen, it was only slightly off centre. Next up – the Double Double. A favourite of mine. Not split with the Vixen, I tried the 20mm Ascension. Nope. 15mm? Again no, although there was a hint of elongation in both pairs. 9mm then, success! I also tried the Zeiss Huygens, which has split them in the past albeit in a different scope. No success there either, so I put it down to the high cloud creating a murky sky. On to M57 Ring Nebula. Using the finder to get me in the right area, I found M57 bang in the middle of the Vixen 30mm. I found the best view to be with the 15mm Ascension and could easily make out the ring structure but not much else. This was a slightly unusual target for me as I usually only do planetary, lunar and doubles. The cloud seemed to be thickening by this point – I couldn’t see Albireo naked eye anymore. As a quick gauge of the sky, between Vega and Arcturus I counted maybe 6 or 7 naked eye stars. Not great. I decided to pack up, satisfied that things had gone reasonably well for my first outing in a long time and I'm looking forward to when the sky gets slightly darker (from here at least!).

Nice report! Perhaps some of the colour experienced in the Tal was due to the cheap prism diagonal? I would try a decent mirror diagonal and compare.

I don't have to clean my EPs that often, but my works microscope EPs get filthy very quickly. A quick scrub with my t-shirt soon sorts that out. As Ruud pointed out above, coatings are hard (although thin too) and can take a fair bit of abuse. Having said that, my microscope is industrial grade and far more expensive than any astro equipment I'm ever likely to own, so I would expect it to be robust.

Congrats on the retirement, Dave! There's a few more years left for me unfortunately, but I'll be well prepared when that day finally comes around. I did mention to Mrs C that you are selling your Zeiss and sent her a link. She said "it's beautiful", so there may be some leverage there😂.

Thanks Dave! It is indeed a Takahashi mount - bigger than an EQ5, smaller maybe than HEQ5. Here's a link to an earlier report I did some time ago - I took the motors off and fitted long slo-mo controls, and the mount lives in my shed now. One of the drawbacks of something this size is taking it out and back in each time I want to use it, so if it's almost in place to start with, then I'm more likely to just grab the Tal and get the mount out of the shed. The shed is at least as secure (and dry) as my house, so not too worried about leaving it there. So, yeah, looking forward to some 'proper' stargazing soon!😀

Last weekend, Mrs.C and I visited her friend for a sleep-over and it turns out they had been given a little reflector that needed my help setting up. Although we didn't do any observing with said telescope, it was fun explaining things to enthusiastic beginners. When I got home, I decided to get the Tal and Tak mount out of the loft - where they have lived for at least two years, and to buy some cheap eyepieces to use with it. I had given the scope a makeover with some carbon fibre effect vinyl wrap which looks quite good, but it went into the loft straight after that and I've only used binoculars for astronomy since (not particularly frequently either). Thanks to Mr Niall on this forum, I now have a Vixen 30mm plossl and 4 Ascension wide angles to try out. So now I'm just waiting for the lovely clear skies this country is so famous for to begin visual astronomy again!

This is true. I just came back from two weeks in India of which one night only was cloud free, and that was in Delhi. Quite disappointing for astro considering how far south I went. Oh well, next time maybe.