F15Rules

You should ask her, John. She might find herself to be "quite content"...😁 Dave

Very nice, Steve.. ..and I never thought I'd press "Like" for a ships funnel🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️! Dave

A wonderful and engrossing read,Tim! Thanks for posting. Dave

Lovely scope, Stu. Yep, thats a re-badged Swift (831, I think).. it's got the distinctive Eikow symbol, like an inverted Circle Y.. I believe Eikow was an early foreunner of a certain Takahashi brand.. see this thread.. Should be optically excellent 👌👍. Dave

Nice one Wookie., and John (@Telescope40).. The star maps are handy, as they're not too big and no need to be precious about the book getting marked etc🙂.. Dave

Hi John, Hope you're well🙂. I thought the following might be of interest to you: I have the same book, but I also have Lancaster Brown's later, and updated (1971) book, "What Star is That?" I bought this in 1971 when I was 15. It cost me £3.50 which was a lot when my only income was c 50p per week! I have always loved this book, you can see it is well used! These come up regularly on ebay and used books stores like W.O.B and Abe Books for a few pounds, and I have a second copy which is in very good condition..the one in the photos above is my original "field copy". The sky maps are great, (they go down to -40 degrees latitude) there are also useful variable star maps for identifying individual stars etc. Finally, they came with a set of colour slides when new, and used copies often still have them..a bit old hat now of course, but a nice bit of nostalgia and quite "cool" when the book came out! But back to your original post..my version of the book shows what I think are the same binoculars you were interested in, and are clearly identified there as being "10x80 binocular telescope, field 7.5 degree, (ex military reconnaissance) "..superb, I'm sure, for astro use.. But the instrument that I really used to covet was the big beast on the same page, see below.."25 x 105 binocular telescope, field 3 degrees (ex military reconnaissance)"..amazing!!👌🤘👍😃. Dave

Beautiful scope Tim👍..and interesting info about the meaning of the "wt" designation. There was also actually an ED103Swt F7.7, as well as the newer ED103s, which of course was itself replaced by the current SD103s, of which range you currently have the flagship SD115s model. Here's a photo of the ED103Swt F7.7 that I owned, and which in 2020 was bought by Steve (@Saganite)..quite a rare scope I believe, and with a single speed but superbly smooth R&P focuser. Dave

Nice comparison Malcolm👍. I agree with your assessment of the TAO..I have a 12.5mm pair for binoviewing, but whether in single or double use, they are remarkable.. Key pluses: -Contrast, inky black background - very tight, sharp stellar images - a subjective point but the Tak Abbes just feel "right"..comfortable, despite typical ortho tightish eye relief, immersive, despite a relatively narrow FOV - the fov draws you into the object being observed, not the surrounding field. - minimalist, light, simple and exemplary build quality Minuses - non for me, although I can see that wide angle fans might find them a bit claustrophobic 🙂 I personally really like the Pentaxs. I currently have a 10.5mm XL and an XL 8-24mm zoom, both excellent. I'm also a fan of the Morpheus range, and found the 9mm and 17.5mm to be my favourites. Dave

This summer has been my least astronomically active one ever, for various reasons as well as (of course) our weather.. But I did start a tidy up of my stuff this week, and as part of that I took out of storage my son in law's Skywatcher Evostar 120mm F8 achromat (it has been largely unused in the past 10 years since we bought it for him, and ended up in storage when they had no room to store it in their cottage in Devon..😭🤦‍♂️). Anyway, I mounted it on my Tak mount so I could check it out. It's a nice looking scope, very light and the focuser, while not the best, is quite smooth. The 6x30mm RACI finder is excellent (I also have one on my vintage Vixen 80mm F15). Last night as I took the air before bed, it was such a warm calm night that I couldn't resist popping the Evostar outside, especially seeing the Moon and Jupiter so close to each other. I have to say that the images of the moon were lovely using the Pentax XL zoom giving powers from 40x to 120x. Crisp, sharp images with a touch of violet CA at the limb. On Jupiter the view was also very nice, the CA was a bit more obvious, and I'd probably use a filter of some kind if I was using the scope regularly. But the 4 moons were nice tiny disks and several belts were clearly visible on the main planet. Literally a quick 10-15 minutes peek, but when you think you can pick up one of these almost 5" refractor OTAs used, for c £150, they are remarkably affordable. Dave

That's a Lake fit for an FS128!☺️ Dave

You clearly don't live in the UK then..😏🙄 Dave

"Show us your wide-field scope" What??🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🙂

Yep, he's got it taped Jeremy..🙃

The mind boggles!! 😂😂 Dave

ED Refractor. The End. Dave

I've owned the MK66, great scope. If you can find one, I would recommend the Vixen Super Polaris mount..why? because the engineering is great, and because you can use the SP mount in both Altazimuth and Equatorial modes. A Vixen GP (Great Polaris) has a higher weight capacity, but can only be used in Equatorial mode. Although the MK66/67 scopes are solid, they are also short, so either of the above mounts should take them very easily. Hope that helps, Dave

I reckon it's been nigh on 10 weeks since my last observing session. My FS128, "Trinity", has been in her Oklop holdall in our cool dining room for the past 5 weeks or so, due to the number of Thripps, Thunderflies etc. Like many SGLers, I've found this summer to be a very depressing time, astro-wise, following on from the dreariest Spring I can remember since 2007. All the above said, it may explain why I have felt that I've had a real tonic in the past few days.. Firstly, on Saturday night, my wife and I attended a talk on the Perseid meteor shower hosted by East Lincolnshire Astronomy Club, in Scamblesby village hall in the middle of the Lincolnshire Wolds. It was run in partnership with the Lincolnshire body who have promoted the Lincolnshire Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) for the past 50 years since the area's designation as an AONB. After the talk we went to the nearby Red Hill nature reserve observing site (Bortle 4), with the aim of observing some Perseid meteors and other celestial objects. The sky did have some gaps in the clouds and we did get to see some cracking meteors, before the holes closed up at c 11pm. We also got the chance to see a few nice scopes up close, including a Tele Vue 102 and a huge 20" Dobsonian. Sadly, the skies prevented any proper viewing, but the ELAC club members are to be congratulated for welcoming some 20+ strangers to their talk and subsequent observing site..and, best of all, my lovely wife came with me and enjoyed herself!🤗 Secondly, last night (Tuesday) was by far the best night for literally months in my home location at the bottom end of the Wolds.. I got out my vintage Vixen 80mm F15 achromat to check out a few favourite summer doubles.. This scope just takes me back to my youth..long, thin tube but just looks so cool..this one has a 2" retrofitted focuser, and I put in my decloaked huge Celestron Axiom 31mm to look at Albireo..this scope will never be a widefield scope, but honestly, the field presented by this combination, with Albireo centred, was jaw dropping, with great colour rendition and negligible CA. Using my Pentax XL zoom I moved through the magnifications up to 8mm, giving 150x in this scope.. perfect bullseyes, with a steady, single diffraction ring around each component. Beautiful! After fully half an hour just gazing at Albireo and it's Milky Way background, I moved to Delta Cygni, a wonderful, (and not easy at 80mm aperture) close double at c 2.4" of arc. At 150x, I glimpsed the faint companion sitting right on the diffraction ring, and the scope took up to 260x with a 2.25x barlow, still delivering a clear image. The only other objects I looked at were Vega and Epsilon Lyrae (the double double) and a nice view of Saturn, which was lowish down to the south east. Exhilarated, and mojo recharged, I packed up at c 12.20am after 90 minutes or so of pure bliss. Roll on the autumn and winter skies!!👍 Dave

Is the above available in English, Jeremy?🥴 Dave

Q. What is your favourite f ratio ? A. I'm not telling. Just don't look at my SGL handle..🙃 Dave

John, Write out 100 times.. "Been there, done that, got the T shirt, been there, done that, got the T shirt.." Dave 😁

Great stuff Ed! I bet such a contraption would look really cool though..

...or add Takahashi's own MEF3 1:7 microfocuser at much lower cost..😊 https://www.firstlightoptics.com/takahashi-other-accessories/tak_tka00733.html#:~:text=About this product&text=Takahashi MEF 3 is a,180 and E-130D telescopes. I bought mine several years ago used in mint condition for £150 and am very pleased with it's performance. It also enabled me to retain the excellent original Tak 2.7" focuser which is very robust and can take heavy eyepieces such as my Axiom LX 23mm and 31mm. Here's a link to a thread I found helpful when installing my MEF-3 microfocuser, including a useful visual aid Dave

I've used Trinity several times on a GP-DX and it worked well, with one caveat: you do need a solid tripod under the GP-DX, and IMHO a standard EQ5 steel tube tripod isn't up to the job. A good wooden tripod such as a Berlebach would dampen vibrations far better. My own is a solid custom made fixed height wooden one with a Berlebach spreader and is very solid👍 Dave

Well, based on my own Tak Abbe 12.5mm orthos, I can't see how the outer 50% of the FOV could be any better to my eyes.. Ok, so I'm using them at F8, in a Tak scope..maybe a faster scope, say F5, would show something different, but for my scope they show me the best view optically that I can detect, within the limitations of their designed FOV.😉. Dave

Roy is correct. And he is also correct that a (heavy duty) dovetail can be drilled to allow the clamshell to be fitted to it..but unless you have a Tak mount with 35mm spaced threaded holes to receive the clamshell, yod need to have some kind of adapter made. If you have a different mount head that will accept standard Vixen style dovetails, then you could simply buy (or drill) a Vixen ADM type dovetail with 35mm pre-drilled holes (or drill them yourself) and then bolt the dovetail onto your clamshell from underneath..the dovetail would need 2 strong clamps: you could then clamp the dovetail/clamshell assembly to your mount. I hope this makes sense? The photos below show my Tak mount head with 35mm spaced holes as supplied. Also the clamshell close up and open when attached to my Tak mount, and finally a custom solid aluminium bar dovetail which I drilled with 35 mm spaced holes: this was however to allow use of other scopes on my Tak mount, whereas you may want to secure your Tak FS128 scope to a non Tak mount.. It shouldn't be too difficult to achieve though and I hope the photos help you visualize what I mean😊. Dave