F15Rules

Steve,

It's just great that you look like being able to keep Andromeda 👍..scopes like that come along only rarely, and we both know that the scopes' optics are exquisite.

That Rowan Altaz mount also looks superb, and it's ability to handle such a large scope so smoothly is testament to it's wonderful engineering.

A Vixen ED103s will make a genuinely top notch grab and go setup - and it would make a great Megafinder sitting on top of Andromeda too!😂🤣😎

Your evident delight and enthusiasm for your setup is heartwarming, and I wish you well both with your observing, and importantly with your continuing recovery from your injury.😊

Dave

Thanks Mark.

I'm getting there gradually..in recent times either the weather has been awful, or we've been travelling to visit family (grown children in Devon, The Midlands and Yorkshire) before they tighten visiting, or I've just been too tired to get out on occasion. Finally, the seeing over here on the east coast has been mostly lousy for weeks..we do get some good skies at times, but sometimes the weather seems to get "stuck", as it has recently. Mars has been incredibly bright but also incredibly "shimmery", making higher powers to get larger image scale almost impossible. But just now and again you get short spells of steadiness, and that's when you get the "Wow!" factor.

I've now settled on pairs of Morpheus 17.5mm, Celestron Omni 32mm plossls and I have a pair of Celestron Halloween 26mm plossls which I may keep or let go..am undecided yet as they are quite close to the Omni 32s, but both pairs give great views.

I use a Baader Hyperion zoom 2.25x with the above for much higher magnification and also a W.O. 1.6x nosepiece. I find the above mix to be pretty good.

Cheers,

Dave

"Although there are also tiny Allen screws which can be seen on the attached pic - they don’t release or tighten the EP holder apparently, and Baader warned they should not be fiddled with. Can’t find anything on web which reveals what the screws are there for."

Mark,

I bet Denis Levatic, the binoviewer guru would know what they're for.

He is known for supercharging and servicing binoviewers and was very active on Cloudy Nights (he serviced a pair for me a couple of years or so back. 

Might be worth trying CN threads to track him down?

Dave

Not technically brought by the postman, I had to collect in person😊.

A nice oldish Helios Evolution 90mm F10 refractor (forerunner of the Skywatcher Evostar) for grab and go. It is in really nice condition, very lightweight and with a nice smooth focuser, which I've enhanced with a couple of spare Tak FS focuser knobs!

The 90mm is a worthwhile upgrade to an 80mm, but slimmer than a 100mm, and the few reviews I have seen or heard of this scope were very positive.

I gave the scope a good clean and took the objective out to clean both sides. It's a cemented doublet and has cleaned up beautifully. Just need to drill out two new Tak mount compatible holes on the dovetail, but am planning to get a lightweight altaz mount to go with it..

Pleasantly surprised at the decent build quality, and with an application of Renaissance wax it has come up very nicely👍

Dave

PS: I'm not planning to get a handle for this scope, before anyone asks!!😋

I received a nice brand new Celestron Omni 32mm plossl today..bought to make a matched low power binoviewing pair to go with my existing Morpheus 17.5mm pair.

The Omni's are actually very nicely made eyepieces: they have nice large eye lenses with very well applied greenish coatings, a nice knurled type rubber grip on the barrel and pretty lightweight too.

I had a quick first look tonight on the Moon and Mars. The latter was very bright indeed, too small an image scale to see much detail, but sharp. The Moon looked superb, with loads of sharp detail, great contrast and natural colour rendition.

I'm very pleased with this pair!

Dave

Just out now with my FS128 and binoviewer. Very bright Mars, despite even brighter moon not too far west of Mars.

I agree the surface detail isn't easy to see tonight,  I've found that a pair of Morpheus 17.5mm with a WO 1.6x nosepiece in the front of the BV is giving me around 165x I think, that's been the best for me this evening. I am sure I can see both polar caps, the north at c 12 noon wider than the smaller, sharper southern cap at c 5.30 o'clock (refractor & diagonal view, ie true north and south, but E & W reversed).

There is a large land mass visible but not well enough defined (and my knowledge of Martian features too poor) to be specific tonight. It looks.vaguely like the Australian sub continent?

A nice sight but frustrating in equal measure!

Dave

2 hours ago, jock1958 said:

Great job with no fuss and drama!

I had similar muck on my lens thought it might be a combination of tree pollen and dust stuck on with dew. 

Looks lovely!!👍

Dave

That lens is now, to quote our @JeremyS, very lickable!!😇

Dave

Yep, that looks genuine.

I owned a full set some time back, complete with rotating turret - still available.. https://www.tringastro.co.uk/baader-q-turret-eyepiece-and-barlow-set-1275-p.asp

I recall that I was a bit miffed that Baader had ended production of the wonderful Baader Genuine Ortho (BGO) range, and the new "Classic" range didn't look nearly so nice.. however, John conducted a test of the new ones on this site, and was very complementary about their performance for the price (at launch, they were very significantly cheaper than the old BGOs), and he particularly waxed lyrical about the 6mm. 

I thought that the 6mm was probably the best of the shorter focal lengths, although eventually as my eyes got older I felt less able to accommodate the shorter eye relief that all orthos offer.

I would think that for the one you are watching online, a sale price of £30-35 posted seems reasonable?

Good luck.

Dave

I'm not a Cassegrain user to date, but I do find these models very interesting and keenly priced. I will watch forthcoming reviews with interest.

I'm probably in a minority, but as with refractors I do prefer the white paint job over the black 😊😇

Dave

That doesn't look right, definitely not straight..send it back!

Dave

Lovely sketching Fraunhofer!

I admire not only your drawing  skills but your staying power for a 6 hour marathon session👍😊

Dave

9 hours ago, andrew s said:

Have a word with Mrs @JeremyS I am sure see can sneak one out from under his nose without him noticing he has so many now.

Regards Andrew 

Takahashi scopes not noses that is 

Yes, he might offer you a further discount if you say you are happy to buy one of his scopes minus the handle?😇😁.

...over on UKABS, is that beautiful unmarked FS102 that's been reduced a bit..😊

Good luck with whatever you go for, Fozzie.

Dave

Hi Chris,

I am currently using just two pairs for my Binoviewer, a pair of Morpheus 17.5mm and a pair of old Celestron Halloween 26mm plossls. 

I also use a Baader 2.25x zoom Barlow and a W.O. 1.7x nosepiece to get higher powers: I place the Barlow or nosepiece  into the binoviewer nosepiece, and I believe this is giving me around 3.8 or so times the native so magnification: so, in my FS128 at 1040mm focal length I'm getting c59x at native, or 1040/17.5 x3.8 = c225x.with the Baader zoom Barlow, which is working really well for me on Mars at the moment. The Morphs have around 20mm eye relief.

The Halloween plossls give me 40x at native or 152x with the Baader Barlow. The Plossls have about 25-28mm eye relief.

I know MikeDnight swears by pseudo Matsuyama 30mm or 35mms (Celestron Ultima, Parks Gold, Orion Ultrascopic, Baader Eudiascopic) for low power wide field, and your Maxbrights should accommodate the 30s with little or no vignetting?

If you like the Morphs, then why not also consider for the 12mm slot the Morpheus 12.5mm models, much cheaper than Delos?

Good luck with your choices!

Dave

10 minutes ago, vineyard said:

That's the adapter I've pressed "go" on at FLO earlier in the week so that is v good to hear!  I like the compression ring on it (the set-screw on my current 1.25" is starting to become quite unreliable), and also that its got 5mm of fine focus travel.  So I'm hoping that that will effectively also synthesise a nice two-speed focuser - the single wheel for coarse focus, and the EP adapter for fine 🤞🏾

It will Vin!

I used one on my Tak FS128 until recently, when I was able to acquire a mint Tak microfocuser to turn my scope into dual speed.

The Baader unit works very well and should really help you to "nail" best focus at high power.

Dave

Great thread Vin, thanks for sharing!

I note you're a relatively recent member of SGL so you may not have seen some of the other interesting stuff about all things Vixen in previous threads?

Here's a link to a thread I started back in 2018 about Vixen gear..not just scopes, but mounts etc as well:

Hope you enjoy it😊.

I think, for many of us "oldies", the scope that we aspired to own, back in the 70s and 80s, was the Vixen SP102M.. I remember when Orion Optics UK were the main UK dealer for Vixen, they used to offer Vixen refractors and mounts right alongside their own-built Orion reflectors, and they promoted the Vixen SP and GP mounts as being ideal for mounting their 6" and 8" reflectors - but often on a pedestal rather than a tripod.

In those days a complete SP102M outfit, with SP or GP mount would set you back around £750 - a King's ransom at the time!

Your SP102 sounds like a cracking scope...as such, if you want to invest a bit in it, and really extract the very best high power performance from it, you could do worse than look for a nice GPDX mount - the real flagship of Vixens' equatorial range for years, until the Atlux came along to hold their mammoth 6"Atlux refractor.

The GPDX has even better build, more heft (but still very portable), and even finer engineering tolerances than the SP or GP, and is just a wonderful Japanese built platform for a longish frac like yours.

Thanks again Vin, for a really enjoyable read👍.

Dave

11 hours ago, Nik271 said:

Well there is this one too as a back up to the launch  http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=2695109 

(sorry couldn't resist - it just came  on my google search)

Good grief!! How would you fit a handle on that?? 🤣😆😇

Dave

Just think what it would be like with a Delos 14 of 17 

glad you had some nice views. 

One day hopefully!

If you buy Morpheus 14 and 17.5mm you'll save almost half the cost!😊👍

Dave

36 minutes ago, johninderby said:

A little box. 🙂

...with those finger-destroying unbreakable plastic handles😇

Dave

Just amazing..you have clearly got a great scope there Chris😊👍

Dave

Wow, Chris, what great images! Thanks for sharing them, you captured some amazing detail there, I must say my visual view wasn't anything like so detailed, and the seeing was changing every minute it seemed, with odd moments of real clarity but more that were "mushy".

I just wish we could get rid of the wretched Jetstream for a bit!

Thanks again,

Dave

PS..What scope were you using?

Thanks Chris..believe me, I cannot draw, so persevere with it!

Any chance of a peek at a couple of your pics?😊

Dave

14 hours ago, JeremyS said:

Don’t wait John: order now! 
🙂

 

He won't do that Jeremy..it doesn't have a handle..🙂

Dave

Thanks Rob for your kind comments 😊.

Below is a link to the Obs book I bought from Amazon: I bought it in a hurry, but there are others on the site I think.. 

I like this one as it's quite compact, but will take around 100+ observing session logs.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B08JF17PST/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_b08jf17pst

Dave

1 hour ago, jock1958 said:

Very nice sketches & write up Geof.
I was out last night pushing my little Tak FS-60Q to the limit and was extremely impressed with detail I was able to see between 120x - 150x.
I use Ade Ashford’s brilliant Mars Mapper app to confirm what I’ve been looking at either before or after I go out.
Screen shot of Ade’s app and one of my sketching attempts from a few nights ago below with my FC-100DL.

Jock,

That's really helpful, thank you!

Such a lot of great information, and Ade's app looks great, and I will download it- it's exactly what I was looking for online, but didn't come across it.

I also really like the notes, very concise but informative: I do have a notes page in my observation book, I was just too tired last night when I came in, but that would definitely be the best time to do it, whilst fresh in my mind.

Your sketching is excellent, and use of colour makes a big impact.

Thanks again,

Dave