Roy Challen

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!

Me too!

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.

Nice links Andy?, I like the Pentax frac on page 1 - shhh, the Tak fans might lynch me!

Looks awesome! You're gonna need a bigger garage...and gym membership? ?

This is an interesting thread. It looks like a perfect ultra lightweight travel setup and I would certainly be interested if it can be used for widefield visual. Before anyone goes cutting one up, might it be worth considering using a combination of Borg adapter/mini helical focuser/short-light-path diagonal? I recall that Tak prisms and Tal mirror diagonals both have light paths under 70mm (nearer 60 for the Tal) and one of the huge range of adapters that Borg make must surely (hopefully!) be of use. I had a Borg Mini 60 achro a few years ago. That worked with a Baader Amici prism (the expensive one), Tak prism, mini helical focuser, T2 adapter, Lunt wedge and all of my then current eyepieces except 2 of my Zeiss orthos. Point being, I would be surprised if there isn't a combination of off the shelf parts that didn't work.

Nice! I see you like your long achros...

I too had a SkyTee a while back. Easily handles a cpuple of Tal 100s (one on the top mount), as well as my f16 Skylight. Long cables definitely make things easier, and ADM mounts are highly recommended. Can't comment on the Sabre as I never had one, but it does look like a nice bit of kit.

I too used (still do) a TAL 100 on a EQ3-2 but found at high mags (anything over x125ish) that vibrations were borderline unacceptable. This was on a tripod that I made modifications in an attempt to reduce these vibrations. Eventually, I got a SkyTee 2 which was a massive improvement, then got a Takahashi 90S which is more like a HEQ5 or EQ6 in size. No more vibrations! Incidentally, my SkyLight (Prinz 660 - f16 f/l 1250) is a very light scope tube (but still 100% metal components) but wasn't happy on anything less than the SkyTee, and even on the Tak mount it still amplifies wind shake at high mags (over x150).

I had the Baader Amici prism, in 1.25" flavour. It came with a second hand MiniBorg achro and worked well with that scope as a super RACI finder and ultra portable travel scope but it was very good indeed in my long focus achros. I would say that it was close to the Tak prism in performance but with much better construction and versatility with its T2 threads. Another item I really shouldn't have sold, I would certainly have one again but probably not at normal retail price.