F15Rules

I agree, they did remind me of both the Ultima LX (a half decent range IMO, I owned and liked the 13mm and 22mm), and the conical top reminding me of the Skywatcher LET (a pretty poor range in my opinion, unworthy of the SW ED scopes it was often bundled with). I enquired about this on UKABS as it was described as a SWAN eyepiece, but not like any WO Swan I've ever seen, so I didn't pursue it. If it is similar to an Ultima LX it should prove a decent bargain Let us know what you think!☺ Dave

...neither am I, but I still find my body clock waking me up most mornings between 6.30 and 7am..do you find that?☺ Dave

Hi Roy, Thanks for your kind comments, I somehow missed your reply until now.. As you probably gathered, the Zeiss went to a new home and I met the new owner at a halfway point on the road to hand it over about 3 weeks ago. I am now getting used to the idea of being retired and Sunday evenings are now strangely happy and relaxed affairs!😀😀. Dave

For the overall combination of affordability, reliability and great engineering, I'd pick the Vixen GPDX. Simply lovely to use and look at, and such good value as a used purchase. Shown here with my Moonraker 80mm F15 ☺. Dave

Congratulations John, a nice take on a legendary mount. As you say, very smooth, lightweight and well engineered. An RA drive will finish off the setup nicely, great for high power comfy observing😀. Enjoy! Dave

The Pentax is a great zoom eyepiece, as good or better in build as a Leica which I have also owned (but not nearly as wide a field as the Leica). If you think of the Pentax more as an 8-20mm range in practical terms, and add a decent 22mm to 30mm wide field fixed length eyepiece for low power, you might not need any others. If you want to go higher magnification than the 8mm can give you, just add a decent 2x Barlow lens such as Baader Q or Baader Hyperion zoom and you will find you have a very good high power 4-12mm zoom as well. Contrast, sharpness and colour rendition are as good as the Pentax XL/XF fixed ranges, but with a less wide FOV. Hope that helps☺ Dave

My son in law is in Chile for the event as part of his job at Exeter Uni (he got his PHD in Astro Physics back in December and is now doing post-doc work). He is somewhere in the Atacama desert as we speak I believe, but not heard from him yet.. he was very excited though, as his work is mainly theoretical, so the opportunity to get some real life observing of a total eclipse was quite an event for him. I told him I was VERY envious of his all expense paid trip, even though it took him 2 flights and almost 24 hours to get there! 😊. Dave

FS128 in "first quarter" pose back in February when it got properly dark..😁 Dave

John is correct, I owned this scope and sold it to Mel (Astro Baby) some years ago. Great scope. (I owned at least 6 of these over the years). The weak link on the 100r was the focuser with only about 25-30mm if travel and not the smoothest The purple objective though was excellent and a shade better than the RS one IMHO. But the RS had the (then) new 2" Crayford focuser which was streets better than the 100r unit. The Tal EQ mount was better than the EQ5, but quirky (eg, had limited manual axis movement without resetting). Built like a tank though, and a great wooden tripod. I find wood a better tripod material than steel. The supplied EPs were mixed. The 6.3mm is not great, with poor eye relief. The 9mm I never used (I had a 10mm which was ok), but the 25mm was/is fabulous- think Tele Vue quality optically. Both R and RS are great achromats so whichever you have, just enjoy it!😁 Dave

I found this really nice miniature handmade model of a 19th century Comet Seeker 4" refractor, made in the USA by Barry Crist. It's made from solid wood and brass, and the mount can move in various directions. See here for more info on the maker:https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/427023-barry-crist-models-are-finished/page-2 Just lovely craftsmanship ☺. Dave

Hi Stu, Well, we had cloud on Thursday night! We are only 15miles or so from the Wash in the Linc's Wolds and the weather can get "stuck" here...that can be good or bad..last year the Beast from the East made our weather endlessly cloudy for weeks, but then the hot summer gave us clear nights but a very wobbly atmosphere. Friday was my last working day (yay!!), but I was shattered (long story), so I'm still waiting for my first session for over a month. But when the clear, steady skies DO arrive, I will be waiting..and NO more getting up for work!! 😁😁 Dave

Hi Roy, Great to hear you have taken that lovely scope out of mothballs! I hope that means that you are ready to get back into "proper" scope stargazing again as the darker nights resume again before too long😀? You mention a Tak mount, but that looks like a Vixen SP you have the scope on? They are a great mount, even today..I recently found one for my son in law in mint condition and it is SO smooth. Welcome back! Dave

Thanks for all the kind remarks guys☺. It's starting to sink in now, having been a bit surreal to begin with. I'm certainly looking forward to some longer late night sessions from autumn onwards. Stu, I've had the Moonraker for almost 5 years.. it was I believe a prototype made by Mark at Moonraker originally for Neil English. It's based around a Towa Topic (aka Meade 339) 80mm F15 optics set, with an aluminium tube made by Mark and what I think is a Crawmach USA dual speed Crawford focuser. It's very good on doubles and the Moon, and at F15 has great depth of focus, so getting a good focus at high power is much easier.. The dewshield is a beast and weighs a good deal so I tend to remove it when observing. Dave

I have today signed an agreement with my employer that will mean that I take early retirement on Friday 28th June ... I knew this was on the cards around a month ago, but couldn't say anything definite until it was signed and definite. That happened today. I have been selling off quite a lot of items recently in anticipation of this, since my income will drop dramatically before long: I make no complaint about that, as I need to "cut my cloth" for a couple of years until my state pension kicks in. Anyway, this evening being such a lovely warm evening, I decided to photograph my Zeiss Telementor II ready for sale shortly, and while I was at it, I thought it would be nice to take a couple of photos of all my 3 currently remaining scopes together, hence the topic title. I think they look rather nice together, although very different scopes: from left to right, Takahashi FS 128 on Tak EM2 equatorial mount with RA Drive, Moonraker 80mm F15 achromat on GPDX mount with Dual Drives, Telementor II on original Zeiss mount, (dates from 1989) with manual dual drives. I will be sad to see the Zeiss go, it's a fabulous little scope that punches well above it's weight, and is in wonderful condition for it's age. But I will be keeping my Tak and the Moonraker and that will help console me for having to move the Zeiss on. Thanks for looking Dave

Yes, that's definitely the smallest can of beans I have ever seen!! Dave

In that case, Saw, if I were you I would report Mike and his post for not being able to report which Report the scope was mounted on - as reported above. I do have to report that I don't know which Report model it was either..so maybe you need to report me too!😁😁 Dave

Beautiful scope Martin. Sadly my ED103s has now gone to a new home in Northern Ireland, (the new owner is delighted with it), bit they are very underrated scopes IMHO and this bigger version you now have should be a cracker. Look forward to a first light report!☺ Dave

That's lovely Stu, congratulations. They really are great scopes. My later 1989 Mk II version seems to behave more like an 80mm rather than a 63 mm! The optics have a wonderful polish and figure and are razor sharp with very tight stellar points..just great on doubles and Lunar etc. I agree with Helen, the mount is also excellent: very well engineered, (actually maybe over-engineered, but that helps deal with the longish tube), and extremely smooth on each axis. Something that is not always realised is that the mount can also be used in both equatorial and altaz modes (see photos below)..a simple Allen key adjustment, done in seconds. I can also use mine natively with binoviewers by removing the long black focuser extension tube and replacing it with a Baader Zeiss-T2 adapter to give much more in-focus. All in all a wonderful scope. Sadly, mine has to be sold soon as part of my imminent enforced early retirement, but I shall miss it. Thanks for sharing Stu 😊. Dave

I would: 1. Put dustcaps on my eyepieces 2. Cover the whole scope with an old sheet as a dust cover, this can be easily washed now and again. 3. Reflect on the fact that in 30 plus years of observing I have never come to any harm from "suspected contaminated eyepieces", and 4. Get on with enjoying my hobby, life is too short to worry obsessively☺. Dave

Interesting. My money would have been on the 100R for tight stellar points and sharpness, and on the 130 for colour (true colour, not CA of course 😁) and brightness. They sound pretty evenly matched🙂. Dave

...and our imaging friends would have to turn to the "dark side" of visual only - literally!!😁 Dave

A few weeks back I found a very nice Carton GEN 10.5mm eyepiece which I described in this thread.. Since then, I have been able to buy a 28mm version of the same eyepiece (both 1.25" barrels) and now a very nice Carton GEN zoom eyepiece (7-21mm). The zoom is very very solid, a good heft to it, with a nice smooth action. Just looking through it, it seems to open up to more than 60 degrees at the highest power setting, but I will check against my other wide field eyepieces to estimate what it is actually delivering in terms of FOV. This looks as if it was originally designed to be a spotting scope eyepiece, like many other zooms, and is marked with 20x, 40x and 60x calibrations. It is clearly new old stock - I have never seen anywhere either the 28mm or the zoom, so they must be pretty rare. There was also a 16.8mm version and a 2" 34mm version, and the fixed focal length range was also available branded as "Orion (US) Megavista - although I don't think Orion had the 28mm in their range. The fixed eps range from 55 degrees for the 28mm to c 70 degrees for the 16.8mm and 34mm. The 10.5mm is almost identical in field to my Pentax XL 10.5mm, ie 65 degrees, and is just as sharp out to the edge as the Pentax. A few photos of the newly arrived zoom are shown below Dave

Yes John, many congratulations, looks great! Enjoy 😀.. Dave

How about a Pentax XW 7mm John? A cracking eyepiece in any scope and a nice 70 Deg fov..ortho sharpness and contrast but far more comfortable to use. Another great option is the Morpheus 6.5mm. Even wider FOV at 76 Deg and also very comfortable in use. More expensive than the other options above, but you WILL see the difference😁. Dave

New Skywatcher 6x30mm RACI finder for use with my Tak FS128 and Vixen ED103s scopes. I have an SW 9x50 RACi on the Tak but sometimes it would be useful to have a wider FOV (7deg for the 6x30 vs 5.5deg for the 9x50, I believe) and also less faint stars visible when hunting some objects from a star atlas. Had some trouble finding one of these at UK stockists, but eventually did succeed and ordered yesterday afternoon from 365Astronomy, arrived well packed just now, 21 hours later! Thanks to Zoltan and team Dave