mikeDnight

That's one of the nicest looking Dob's I've seen, with perhapse the exception of the rigel finder, knicker elastic and pop bottle. I'm not sure about the price difference between the Bresser and other makes, but the Bresser looks to be very well designed.

I know you'll discard this option but....... If its 10" or under I'd stick a dovetail on it and mount it on one of these. With its slow motion controls or an RA drive there'd be no need to struggle manipulating the Dob.

Which one? I see three creepy faces, (yellow arrows), and a Gecko (red arrow).

Im not too sure I fancy that one. I might let others buy it and see their reaction. Or may be I'll wait a while and pick it up cheap from the Book Depository. I've even ordered a book by Neil English this week. I'm blaming that one on going a bit stir crazy due to the lockdown. "Sorry Neil"!

Bill Leatherbarrow's book is well worth buying, but I'm fast running out of room for Mars books, so I hope its a good one. And I've got the three volumes of Luna Cognita arriving on or before the 9th, which is allegedly a terrific buy for a lunatic. Any more and im going to have to move house.

Total Tak looks so much better, and that amazing tube clamp allows for easy rebalancing when needed. Loving that scope Jeremy. Each time I look at the pic's my heart rate noticeably increases. It's almost erotic! Almost!!

If you were considering a potential new set-up, how much would you be willing to throw into it in monetary terms? I'm asking because a 100ED or 120ED on a driven equatorial can be more liberating than restrictive, as it will track the object you're looking at for ages without drifting. No goto needed, just a simple RA drive! This gives you the chance to really observe without the distraction of wrestling with that awful Dob mount. Dob's are ok for low to medium power, but they are pants at 400X. A tracking equatorial is a simple and joyful thing to use, as all you'd need are three level points on the ground marked out for your tripod, and after the first alignment with Polaris, every other observing session your scope will be polar aligned with no alignment procedure. Alternatively, leave the EQ permanently set up on a permanent garden pier and just carry the refractor tube outside. Much more comfortable to use too! And you don't have to buy expensive high end stuff like the Tak's and Vixen in the pic's below. The Skywatcher DS Pro series are outstanding and are a worthy contender, especially if you can pick up a Second hand 120ED. Easy to carry and solid giving both rich low power and high definition, high power views that are razor sharp.

Is that a microguide or just a cross hair reticule Jeremy?

That's easy. It's a 100mm Apo refractor. Last night I was using a 10" F6 Dob and I hated the thing. Constant wrestling with what has to be the world's most appealing mount design. The views were good but not nearly as sharp or as enjoyable as the apo. High powers were soft compared to the 100mm, which will glide effortlessly past 400X without getting out of breath. Deep sky in the 100mm fluorite is remarkably bright and detailed and its star images are unsurpassed. The Moon and planets are simply breathtaking. So, even though I've owned and used many much bigger scopes, including bigger apo's, my most used scope is a Takahashi FC100D.

I didn't really pay any attention to Pato, but I did snap a few pics on my mobile through the 10 Dob.

That's an easy one to answer. "Baader Morpheus, especially the 17.5mm. Very few eyepieces have the floating before your eye star fields like the old 28mm RKE, but the 17.5mm Baader Morheus does, and so does the 35mm Baader Eudiascopic. They are something special! At the other extreme, there's the Vixen 3.4, 2.4, 2 & 1.6mm High Resolution eyepieces that reach the Zeiss Abbe Ortho level of performance, and very comfortable with good eye relief. You will of course need all the Morpheus and all the Vixen HR's. 😄

Superb! The eyepiece view is always sharper than an image, but even so, I can see a wealth of detail in that image softness that I'd imagine would have appeared laser etched in the eyepiece. Incidentally, the crater in the bottom right of your image 'Werner', is one of my personal favourites. There are a number of fine rilles within Werner that reveal themselves in a sharp scope, but that hardly ever get even hinted at in images. And don't try finding any reference to them in atlases or books. It would be a worthy project for anyone to try and catch these rilles in an image, yet visually I find them quite an obvious feature, even when Werner is at some distance from the terminator.

My highest power eyepiece in my 100mm F7.4 scope is a 1.6mm Vixen HR giving me 463X. I know it sounds a rediculous power for a 100mm refractor, but I can tell you the eye relief, exit pupil and image brightness is great on all counts. Looking at numbers can give a misleading impression. Don't be fearful of pushing your esprite as you'll probably find it will suddenly begin to soar way past your expectations on a steady night. To be perfectly honest, I think you should look at perhapse the Vixen HR or Takahashi TOE series of eyepieces that will really give high definition views. Currently the HR's can be bought from Europe but the Takahashi TOE's are available in the UK.

Beautiful! I really love these high power images as they make my heart skip a beat. There's some great detail in the 300X shot. Thanks for posting them.

I'd first try Trutek Astro and have a word with Nick Hudson.

While you've still got a bank account, what about essentials like, the Tak accessory ring for your 120. And a Tak finder bracket or a super cool Tak carry handle. It's only money! £££££££££ There's no need to thank me!

First things first. Rugby is by far the superior game than either boring cricket or girly football, and the rules are much simpler too, - whoever gets the ball dies! I lost interest in cricket after seeing my 10 year old school friend Gary get his teeth smashed out with a cricket ball, and the teacher rush him off to hospital in his car. I've never played it since. And who in their right mind could ever like a game like football, when everyone blatantly cheats and no-one does anything about it. And watching grown men cry when they trip over a daisy is just too much to bare. Rugby is much more sivilised in my book. (I'm ugly with a bad back too!) Now to the Mewlon. What a brilliant choice. It will cool far more rapidly because of its open tube and will be both sharper and brighter than any catadioptric. I've never looked inside the Mewlon at its cell design, but Tak are renowned for making solid, well thought out mechanics. As for the focuser, well that's the mystery of Takahashi; nobody has a clue why everything is so complicated. As a visual instrument the Mewlon would generally leave Cat's in the dust, and if you only observe for short periods you'll appreciate their rapid cool down. Personally I wouldn't bother with wide field eyepiece designs, but would use things like the 35mm Baader Eudiascopic, and Takahashi LE's and longer Orthoscopics.

There's also quite a time difference between the images. Although I didn't actually pay attention to the time of my images, I'm reasonably certain they were around 9.30pm (20.30 UT) ish, as opposed to your 17.58UT☺

Sorry Jeremy. I shouldn't laugh! My sense of humour is something I'm trying to work on - continuously.

Not sure what its like in Cheshire just down the road, but its as cloudy as cloudy gets here in Lanc's. And we know who's to blame for that, dont we! 😠

That's nice Paul. I've put them side by side for easier comparison. I noticed that in the Tak/i-phone image at 463X, the parallel rille running alongside Rima Ariadaeus is visible. In the eyepiece this was extremely sharp but the phone camera, and hand held lack of skill on my part, has blurred the view.

I know Takahashi have had some outrageous colour schemes in the past, and now, but I think pink is the sole territory of Cape New Wise. Not that im judging!

How Many times have you used that one Jeremy? And does she fall for it every time?? I think its wearing thin with my wife, but I might give it one more go in the future. 😁 She's certainly a beautiful scope, but you do know that green finder bracket will drive you bonkers on the blue focuser!

Sorry to make things worse, but this is what generally happens here. Eyepiece choices, like shoe's, need to be comfortable and one size/design doesn't fit all. Just as an example, a few years ago myself and two friends were comparing the views through several different eyepieces. Two eyepieces we were comparing were the 24mm Panoptic and 24mm Hyperion. We were using three apochromatic refractors, a 100mm F7.4, a 102mm F6.9 and a 90mm F5. Two of us prefered the 24mm Hyperion because it was much more comfortable to use, with a larger eye lens and better eye relief. The Hyperion was also sharp towards the field edge in all three scopes, which we all agreed on. To my eye the Hyperion gave a more pleasing on axis star image too. At the end of the night two of us had all but dismissed the 24mm Panoptic and played merrily with the 24mm Hyperion. The one who did like the Pan better was its owner, who goes weak at the knees at the sight of black & green. The Panoptic was certainly the better looking of the two. I've always thought the Hyperions were bug ugly, but in the dark no-one sees. At the end of the day, its down to personal preferences and pointless trying to force anyones arm. Just buy something you'll enjoy.

The planes being grounded really makes a difference. When the Icelandic volcanic eruption occurred years ago now, they grounded the planes, and the seeing was spectacular. If I had my way, I'd ground the monstrous polluting machines permenantly. As well as cutting down atmospheric pollution, it would play a massive part in stifling the spread of disease.