Roy Challen

For me, good sleep is way more important than astronomy. I would rather have 7 hours of good sleep, than even a couple of hours of astro (heresy, I know!).

Luckily, I'm very much a morning person, so getting up at 2 or 3am isn't a big deal as I'm usually up at half three anyway. It's always quieter, there's usually less in the way of street lights being on, and the seeing tends to be better. Of course, it does depend on my desired targets, whether I'll get up earlier or not.

Solar astronomy doesn't require any of this, of course! That's why I love it so much 😄

1 hour ago, Richard N said:

 

I am only interested in visual astronomy. Bortle 5 site.

I don't have any specific observing interests but DSOs are hard work from my site so I tend to look at other stuff.

Budget £500.

'Other stuff' being planets, moon, double stars? In that case, it will be difficult to better the ETX, imo. My FS60-CB certainly isn't better than my Skymax 90 for those targets, but it is a great wide field scope and very portable, but then again so is the ST80. They complement each other very well.

An ED80 would be a decent upgrade over the ST80, and may even beat the little mak if the seeing is good.

2 hours ago, Alan White said:

Clearly a yes, they would not expend time and resource otherwise, it say Tak on the side, it will sell.

Yes, I suppose. I guess I should have asked 'what will these offer other than a premium name and price?' 

The title of this thread is pure clickbait, the reality is somewhat underwhelming. Is there really a market for what seems like a plossl variant when there are plenty of good equivalents already available at much lower cost?

9 minutes ago, John said:

I've just thought of one quite local to me - the Herschel Museum of Astronomy, 19 New King Street, Bath. Fascinating place and Uranus was discovered from the garden 🙂

Herschel Museum of Astronomy

Bath Astronomers hold their meetings there.

I visited whilst on a uni residential week in 2017. Not sure it's 'pilgrimage' destination, but worth a visit if you're in Bath.

Whilst on holiday in Kazakhstan, I took a very basic phone cam shot. No editing at all.

Agree with previous comments, changing the tuning subtly affects the contrast rather than making big differences to the view.

An 18mm Baader BCO just about gives a full disc view but I use the 32mm plossl 90% of the time.

I leave my Solarscout in the 3 o'clock position.

Superb image Neil. I think I've learned more about the appearance of Saturn from looking at your images than I have from reading books😄

I never actually used it while I owned my Tal 1. It looks like it is designed for afocal photography, and should be ok for that purpose. Most people would use a phone mount around the eyepiece these days though.

Personally, I wouldn't bother. In the UK the Tal 1 is regarded a decent scope but is easily obtainable for around £50 or even less - I acquired the one I had for free and passed it on for free too.

If I had kept it and wanted to upgrade, I'd likely have bought a motorized EQ5 second hand.

19 hours ago, Saganite said:

I always thought Ant was a founding member, but may well be wrong.

When I first joined, I thought @Johnwas the founder due to the number of posts he made😄. Additionally, SGL is one of only six websites I have permanently bookmarked, and the only 'social media' I can bring myself to care about.

3 hours ago, John said:

I'm still not convinced that I've seen anything "real". Any similarities between my crude sketch and images could well be purely co-incidence. 

This is how I feel about Venus. I saw a feature that matches a small part of your sketch. It was actually quite obvious to me, so I assumed it must be some distortion in the eyepiece or our atmosphere, or even a suspiciously stationary floater. I was using my FS60-CB and a solar continuum filter! The view was super sharp and not as dim I thought it would be 😄

9 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

That has a vintage look to it Roy, and is probably the kind of thing I was meaning. Being Tak though, I suppose it probably wouldn't work on a non-Tak mount such as a Vixen GP?

It would likely not be a bolt on fit, however if the worm gear on the RA axis of the GP is the same as my mount, I see no reason why it wouldn't work.

1 hour ago, mikeDnight said:

 old fashioned RA drive built like a tank and with adjustable tracking speed that's indestructible.  I think Tak mounts are reportedly some of the best, but £££££

Like this one Mike? It really is very good, but often I don't bother with it, it adds quite a bit of weight 😀. Silent in use and certainly accurate enough for even high mag visual use, runs on regular batteries as well as mains.

The long oval crater 2/3rds up is Schiller, nice pic.

Agree with the above, also don't know what the lower peak is😀 I use Phillips moon map.

A good alternative to a long achro is the Maksutov. Near-apochromatic views, compact tube, don't really have to worry about collimation, excellent for planets and moon. Not expensive.

Downsides? Slightly narrow field of view, but not much difference from a long refractor, might take a bit longer to cool.

Swings and roundabouts for all types of telescope. Have you given any thought to what you want to observe?

33 minutes ago, Ravi Hegde said:

In 102/1000mm refractor, how sever the CA will be?

Only you can decide that. It's different for everyone. I had a Tal 100RS - a 100/1000 achro refractor. Personally, I thought it was very good, others may disagree. Only way to know for sure is to try for yourself.

Modern Pentax bins are very good, I had a pair of 12x50 SPs. Are they as good as Zeiss bins? Probably not, but Zeiss are much more expensive.

1 hour ago, Mike Q said:

There is no correct answer here.  This is a personal choice.  The only way to figure out what you like is to seek out a astro club and look at targets through both.  Then you will know what to buy.  

Absolutely right! As a beginner, you want to look at everything, however no scope does it all. If you want to look at the sun in hydrogen alpha, you'll need a refractor. To look at the faintest galaxies hundreds of millions of light years away, a huge dob is best.

It is cheaper to obtain good performance in a reflector, however a high quality refractor is able to provide equally pleasing views albeit at a likely higher price point. 

As such, most visual astronomers have at least two telescopes, usually of different types.

Excellent capture, so rare to see colour, let alone enough to id the airline 

1 hour ago, gorann said:

Very impressed! I have never tried solar imaging. Did you know it was coming or were you just lucky?

If he knew it was coming, could we please, please have a bit more warning? 😜

Like most, I get floaters too. However, I noticed a strange thing last night whilst looking at the moon. I was using my Skylight, which gives very small exit pupils at high mags. Between about x140 to x250 the floaters are apparent and mildly annoying, but past x300 up to x390 ( I was using my zoom plus x2.25 barlow) they all but disappeared.

Obviously the view wasn't the sharpest, but it was ok and there were no floaters. Exit pupil at x390 is 0.19mm! 😄

As it turned out, the best view with minimal floaters was at about x125.

8 hours ago, MalcolmM said:

Awesome is a very overused word these days, but that scope ... Awesome! Beautiful! It must be at least f100 🙂

Malcolm 

f/100, that would be fun! That would make it 7.6 metres in length😄

It is a very good white light and lunar scope, not so good for stars and DSOs. Very conveniently, it has the same tube diameter as my FS60, hence it fits the cradle you see in the pic.

Very good seeing over here, managed to resolve three peaks,  four during still moments, using my Skylight. Also like the shadows from the Alpes and Piton, nice features.