omo

A spaceport up there is as much an unrealisitc pipe dream as building a bridge to Ireland, have to be careful could get political real easy

Going to need some major redevelopment of the roads to get moderately sized rockets up there, a lot of it is gnarley single track

The Vixens are really nice, having just passed my SD103 on, its new owner is liking it a lot too

I have both the T2 prisms, Zeiss and BBHS mirror, both are really good, not cheap - Christmas is coming though and its always a good time to ask for donations towards astro gear. The modular concept gives lots of options as to how you build them up. Light path for the 2" prism is quoted as 100mm, for the 2" BBHS mirror its roughly 10mm more, the T2 Zeiss is shorter probably nearer 70mm with a 1.25 clicklock holder or 85ish mm if going to a 2"clicklock it also has 34mm clear aperture. I found once i added a clicklock to my Vixen SD103 focuser that the additional length added meant my 1.25" Pentax's and Tele Vues would not quite reach focus in my 2" BBHS diagonal but would with the shorter T2 using a 2" clicklock. Could be what the ES24 / 82 needs

If they ever made a fluorite 140 probably all of them, not that i am biased but the DZ is really nice 👍

We will know you are in trouble when you paint the tube Pink

I was able to do away with the Altair pier adaptor , wont work on a HEQ5 any more though as i drilled the M10 out to M12 and added 1 more hole to the Losmandy plate to let me use 2 of the M8 slots as additional mountings along with a spacer i ordered some time ago, finished faffing about with it now till i'm tempted by motors:

Not exactly sure to be honest i just always put one on, I would go with what @johninderby suggests, he has tons more experience than me 👍

Another couple, Altair Sabre And its successor the AZ100

Just ordered the adaptor to let the AZ100 be used on a HEQ5Pro tripod: May be able to do away with the Altair plate using this 👍

A local machine shop would be able to drill and tap your existing saddles, you would get the dimensions from the handle bracket when you recieve it, save a bit of $, or @Dek Rowan Astro may be able to provide those on a drawing to you?

The continued evolution of the mount is a very good thing, looking forward to seeing the completed motor assemblies 👍 It's not a problem at the moment for me, thank you Derek for the offer to have the plate tapped out should i need to

Seems there is another add on bit - a pan and tilt handle: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/alt-azimuth/rowan-az100-pantilt-handle-mounting-bracket.html So it appears there are two versions of the Losmandy clamp as the Mk1 i have certainly has no holes to secure the handle, best make sure yours does if you plan on adding this to the mount 👍

I was thinking about what @Don Pensack was saying about the 8mm Ethos putting the focal plane much closer to the barlow glass so lengthen the barlow to get nearer to the 1.6x. The connection between the nosepiece and twistlock is T2

If i am understanding this correctly, with the Antares having a T2 fitting it would be quite easy to add a T2 spacer to extend its length and get nearer the full magnification with the Ethos in 2 inch mode

@Ships and Stars have you considered a conventional bino viewer on the 500p for more relaxed viewing, would be a lot of effort transporting and setting up 2 of them at your dark sky's sites. Or is that impractical as it would exclude using the 100degree eyepieces?

Thank you @John and @dweller25 for your kind thoughts. Once i can find a 6 x 30 Raci in stock somewhere i will be adding one and probably a fancy finder bracket to swap it out easily. A new soft case and foam block have been ordered so i can keep it safe when not in use, similar to what i do with my Vixen

Collecting refractors seems to be almost as addictive as eyepieces, but for me this is one I had not intended on getting for a couple of years yet. However my father passed away 3 weeks ago and it seems i have been a very good boy in the meantime - during a discussion with my mum i was asked what scope i would likely get next. Like everyone i like to dream and a Tak 100 or an LZOS 130 have often been drooled over however in time i doubt i would be able to handle the 130's weight so a FC100DZ seemed the honest answer. What i did not expect was to be handed the money to buy it there and then. So once that was banked the order was placed with Aunt Flo for the package and a Tak dovetail. This duly arrived yesterday. A detailed un-boxing of one of these was done superbly by @dweller25 recently so no point in repeating that 👍 Once i got it out of the triple boxes all i could say was wow, its exquisite, i was surprised by the weight of the clamshell, impressed by the m8 bolts for attaching to the dovetail - very secure then there is the lustrous paintwork of the OTA itself. The focuser action is so smooth it makes both my APM and Vixen almost feel rough. The dinky little finder bracket with grub screws instead of a o-ring not to mention the adjustment bolts and lock nuts is wonderful, if only it was right angled but i know this is not the Japanese way of observing. From reading here its also binoviewer friendly which i will take advantage of. The only negative point i can find is the profile of the Tak dovetails is slightly different from the vixen type and i cant get it to tighten up in either a Primaluce of ADM dual clamp, temporaily sorted by using a spare dovetail i had. A new ADM losmandy bar has been ordered from FLO along with a cllicklock as i prefer to use the 2" fitting. Although the twistlock clamp as standard and alloy end cap are very sweet. So i set it up tonight in the eternal hope i might get a bit of clear sky - there was no may contain clouds sticker on the box - never made any difference the perennial clouds rolled in, still gave me an opportunity to take a couple of pictures: Seems i can answer a question i asked a day or two ago as well now as there is no dust apparent in the lens assembly, honestly never expected there to be due to the typical quality of Japanese engineering. I am extremely happy with the scope it will not be going anywhere other than with me ever. Now can i just get a chance to use it please

Late yesterday, very excited 👍

Good you are sending it back, I wonder what owners of other high end scopes reckon to "never get a refractor telescope that is completely free of dust particles" ?

I have one of these, and fitted a baader click lock i had lying around to it. According to Agena Astro's info you can also push the magnification by fitting it in front of a 2" diagonal giving approx 2.4x

On grinding of gears. For me its buyers who dont post "pm sent" to let the rest of us know someone has made an expression of interest on an item. It's just common courtesy so the member selling something doesn't end up wasting there time replying to multiple PM's. As to posting prices, knowing what is a realistic price may be a issue, i tend to go for the 60% to 70% area as is often the advice given here.

I would forget ENS Optical on ebay, maybe best speaking to Mr Asbury / ENS away from ebays fee structure that over inflates his prices 👍

When i first got the AZ100 i was a bit miffed that i could not get enough of the various holes to line up with my Primaluce clamp: There was also the problem of the clamp being too close to the Alt clutch bolt which would result in nipped fingers. Not to be put off i bought a lump of aluminium and proceeded to drill 10 holes in it, countersunk 4 to attach to the mount the tapped out another 4. Finally i applied a bit of paint to give me this: So this solved that minor problem, there was also a fringe benefit, the offset of the clamp now means my scopes clear the legs of the tripod if the rotate to a vertical position. Whilst i was at it with the pillar drill i drilled three holes in the pier adaptor i use to bolt this together, this allowed me to revert to the original Losmandy pier extender top plate and do away with my 7" plate; A nice result as it looks better and saves 0.7kg of weight I'm quite happy with how it turned out 👍

Very nice looking setup, like the look of this a lot 👍 Hope you enjoy it immensely