mikeDnight

The fork arm looks very close to the Sightron mount sold by FLO.

It's difficult to say for certain. When I first bought the BBHS I looked at a random stone wall a couple of miles away just to see if I could see any difference between the Tak and Baader prisms. The Baader definitely appeared sharper during the day when studying the toothed outline along the top of the wall, with the Tak being a little less well defined. It was a very subtle difference, so wether its a better prism, or the silver coating that made the difference I couldn't honestly say. So I'm inclined to say "yes" the Baader is better, but when looking at the Moon and planets, or stars and nebulae, I don't see any immediate difference. I suspect the Baader is marginally brighter, and because of the wall comparison, sharper, but I think it's borderline. I've used both at very high magnification and both perform great on stars, but because of the helical micro focuser option of the BBHS, I tend to opt for that when observing double stars, and because I know its at least as good as the Tak. Hope this makes sense!

I use both the Tak 1.25" prism and the Baader Zeiss BBHS 1.25" prism. The latter actually has a larger prism so that you can use a 30mm Ultra Flat 2" eyepiece without it vignetting if you use a 2" click lock on the prism. I also use a 2" nose piece on my BBHS prism. When it comes to the microfocusser issue, I used to use a Tak micro focuser on my DC, but found I didn't really need it with my DZ. I do however sometimes use a 1.25" Baader helical focuser attached to the BBHS prism for double stars, especially at high power. It offers an excellent, precise, and cheap alternative to the Tak or More blue versions. The down side is that the BBHS prism isn't cheap, though it is excellent!

You could look at sketches made by other observers such as John Mallas, Walter Scott Houston, and Stephen James Omeara, all of whom used 4" refractors. So you can get a good idea what's possible with modest apertures.

I've read the opinions of some who say colours are more vivid in larger apertures, but I'm sure there's some variation in colour sensitivity involved between observers. Using a 4" I find the colours of some doubles quite vivid while others not so obvious. With the more subtle colours simply defocusing by a tiny amount can help differentiate the colour differences between the components. I'm not sure why good dark adaption seems to help in my case but it does?

Is that your original copy Jeremy? If so, I'm impressed! S&T was the best, especially back then. I especially loved the ATM section which had some genius ideas. Of course the old Unitron adverts were up there too, along with some of those beautiful classic Newtonian double page spreads. They were so gorgeous that even a refractor nut job like me would love to own one. Rotating rings essential of course!

I tried the Sightron with my DZ. It's a nice mount that's had a lot of thought put into its design, and it was certainly adequate for carrying the DZ. However, it had one major drawback for me. The altitude arm isn't long enough to allow zenith access if you mount the scope behind the mount, as the azimuth control gets in the way. You can use the Sightron in various configurations, even mounting the scope on the outside of the arm so as to get around the zenith access problem. I'm just not a fan of side mounted scopes and much prefer to be behind the mount, so the Sightron was not for me. Had the altitude arm been a couple of inches longer I'd have liked it much better. Some pic's attached: The Sightron also allows a Takahashi Tube clamp to be directly connected to the mount rather than using the dovetail connection if prefered.

That's not good! Sorry to hear that! When I think about it, it must be fast approaching 20 years since I've seen anyone from LAS. Don't know where that time went!!

Are you a member of Liverpool AS Paul? There are some good guys in that society that may be able to resolve the problem if it continues.

It makes me wonder if either of the mirrors are under strain, causing two foci? It might be worth loosening everything off and starting collimation from scratch. If its worked perfectly in the past then that's all I think it could be. Anoher cause could be an Astigmatic secondary.

I love Mak Cass's! Very clean star image when thermally stable. I think the most obvious difference between star images is that the Maksutov will have a noticeably brighter first diffraction ring, caused by the diffraction effect from the secondary mirror/ central obstruction. There's also no spider diffraction which is also a plus. The advantage of the refractor is that its also capable of wide field viewing, and rich star fields is something I'd miss if I only had a Mak Cass.

He'll be out fishing or chopping wood ready for winter. ☺️

I managed to see IC 434 some years ago. I'd had some success with the Flame Nebula and fancied the challenge of seeing how far I could push my scope, and my observing skills. The night was transparent and so I thought that to maximize my chances I'd need to block out all stray light. I used a blackout blanket around my head and focuser, and observed the region for quite some time so as to achieve good dark adaption. It took a while but eventually a thin shard of bright nebulosity appeared to me eminating it seemed from a tiny star. Once I'd seen this shard, everything else gradually started to become apparent. All this was visible only by using averted vision, but what I found to be most obvious was the black nebula which gave the impression of a solid wall of jet black dust, blacker than the space around it. The bright and dark nebula was quite extensive and after an hour under the blanket I dared to try making an eyepiece drawing of what I was seeing. While sketching under a dim red light I noticed a tiny black notch protruding into IC434. It was difficult to place on the drawing precisely as I was using averted vision, and it was on the border of discernability, but I'd seen it for long enough to be certain of its reality. I was really thrilled to have seen IC434 let alone what I believed to be the Horse Head, and to this day it remains the most challenging DSO I've ever detected. I was using a 100mm F7.4 refractor and prism diagonal! The use of a prism and its orientation while observing means the angle of the mirrored sketch may appear strange, but this sketch illustrates the overall view. I kept Alnitak out of the field of view throughout the observation, until the very end when I wanted to catch the Flame. What may have been the HH certainly didnt have any discernible form to it, so may be itvwasnt the horse head, or may be it was? A blackout blanket to block out any peripheral stray light really does help. It would have been an impossible challenge for me without it.

That's a truly awesome image. I can't remember ever seeing so much dust detail in that region before. Absolutely brilliant!

Quick to cool down. During the warmer months a 4" will work perfectly straight from the house, but on those cold winter nights you might need to wait for 15 mins for a doublet to become thermally stable. A triplet may take a little longer. It's not a problem if you spend the first few minutes observing with a low power eyepiece just to pass the time. Personally I'm an equatorial fan and a 4" F7 is easy to man-handle on a Vixen GP or SW EQ5, but its a great size scope for an AZ4 or similar altazimuth mount too.

Some Celestron's are white! I think that these days they all originate from China, so I imagine their optical quality will be the same. And historically, Celestron were a tad above Meade I believe. Having said that, I had a wonderful view of the dark dust lanes in M31 through a friend's 8" Meade SCT - I was very impressed. However the next day my friend put his SCT up for sale and it sold immediately. I asked why he chose to sell it, and he said "Compared to your refractor, a 120 Equinox ED, the stars in the SCT were #*@₩!" Of course you'd have the best of both worlds with your FS128 and an 8" SCT - especially a white one!

Back in the early 80's the Crab was an easy catch in my 12X60 binoculars. How things have changed! A bit like M51, it's a good measure of transparency and if you can see either with relative ease, there's a fair chance you'll see most other M objects easily.

If you get chance to go into a model shop, you should check out the small modelling paint tins. They do enamel and mat versions, and there are Tak green and blue, but they aren't called that of course. They are cheap too! You may need to take a clamp so you can match the colour exactly.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Casual Stargazers are probably the happiest Stargazers!

I did just that back in 2015 when I sold my scopes and most of my accessories to fund a 100mm Apo. Honestly, though it may seem a dumb move, that 100mm almost wore me out. It was so easy to use and delivered great views of pretty much every type of object. Obviously it was limited in terms of light grasp and resolution on paper at least, but in reality it never disappointed me. I even glimpsed the Horse Head with it on one occasion. I'd still be monogamous had it not been for some unscrupulous individuals on SGL tempting me with forbidden fruits. They know who they are! If I were to return to owning just one telescope however, it would definitely be my 100mm Apo.

I don't know the owner of this beauty and I hope he doesn't mind me using this pic, but this is what you need for deep double stars. Far better than those reflector thingies! 😉 You just cant beat a refractor for perfect star images! Seriously though, it would take a very long time before you bottomed a double star list in the 4" to 5" aperture range.

I've had several observing sessions with two separate DL's and false colour was totally non-existent visually. I think that Roger Vine does a honest review of all the FC100D series on his website ScopeViews. They are definitely well worth reading. Perhaps colour was produced by the eyepiece, which can certainly be the case with some wide angle multi element designs?! When I bought my DC in 2015 I had to sell off much of my kit to fund the purchase, so eventually I ended up with no other scope but my DC. As such the DC became my scope for every purpose. When you're limited to just one telescope and use it for everything, you quickly learn how capable it can be, even in areas where some might imagine such a scope would be very limited. To me the FC's are powerful all rounders. I even glimpsed the Horse Head with my DC, though it took a great deal of patience and a transparent sky.

Hi John, When I bought a FC100DC in early 2015 I was able to compare it on the night of first light to my Equinox 120ED. The 120ED had given me many stunning planetary views, but in side by side comparison on that first night I remember giving a rather loud "WOW!" when looking through the DC at Jupiter. The belts were visible in both scopes but through the DC they appeared much more vibrant. I've mentioned in a previous post that the belts appeared almost as if they were braided around the planet. Festoons, garlands and white ovals were more obvious - better defined in the DC. During the 2016 apparition of Mars the planet was pitifully low in our UK skies, and I remember a few grumbling on SGL that it basically wasn't worth observing. Throughout that apparition I observed the planet at virtually every opportunity and made many sketches. It really was an awesome experience! Even when Mars was shrinking and becoming very tiny, the DC still kept on surprising me with its high definition, high contrast views. I know looking at looking at someone's sketches may not float everyone's boat, but I've attached these sketches, the first made at the telescope and the second a cleaned up version made shortly afterwards. Note the diameter of the planet, the magnification, and the level of detail still visible over time. The planet was under 6 arc seconds, so how small were some of the features? I was using a binoviewer which I believe helps, but never the less it still leaves me amazed when I look back and remember such awesome performance from such a small scope. There may be times when your 127ED outperforms your new DZ, but when you consider our poor UK seeing, it wouldn't surprise me if you DZ gives better performance much more often. I now have a FC100DZ and can tell you there's virtually no meaningful difference between the DC/DF and the DZ visually other than the DZ being a touch cooler in tone. Both will give high power views when seeing allows. Tak boast about the DZ being a high power scope in their user manual, so I thought I'd see how true their claim was, so I barlowed my 1.6mm Vixen High Resolution eyepiece giving 1000X in the DZ and checked out a few close binaries. The views were simply gorgeous! I never did push my DC so much, stopping at a mere 474X, but I'd be fairly confident that it too wouldn't disappoint on a steady night.

Thanks Jeremy. You and I know they don't all look alike. One has a C on its serial plate, one a F and one a Z. Paul's just being silly. Any chance of a word for word translation, or am I being pushy? 😁

Well that's no good Jeremy. We want a running commentary with pic's, or we don't believe you've got it.