mikeDnight

I regret selling my 5mm and 6mm TMB Super Monocentrics, and I regret selling them for a stupidly low price. I regret not buying the entire set of super mono's including the barlow while they were available. I also regret being too impatient with the Astrophysics waiting time for their super planetary eyepieces. And I regret selling my TMB 40mm Paragon eyepiece. I was also sent the entire Pentax XW range by Tom at House of Optics, so I could try before buying. I regret returning the 30mm and 40mm XW's.

The mount is an altazimuth fork and the black control knob is attached to what is called a tangent arm. It will only move as long as there's room for the thread to turn. Once at the end of the thread it will need winding back to the centre. If the thread turns but the mount remains stationary you could try tightening the chrome knob just above, locking the horizontal axis and engaging the threaded worm. With an altazimuth mount like this, its possible to just push them in vertical and horizontal directions. Prinz made some quite nice telescopes back in the day, and their scopes inspired many to take up astronomy as a lifetime hobby.

Oh you missed a trick there! You should have told him "I thought about selling them to you Steve, but decided to sell them to Mike instead"! I can see him now - laughing uncontrollably. 😂😂

Hi Mark, Would it be possible to simply attach the rings to the mount head, then just lift the scope out of the rings at the end of an observing session? Failing that I'd suggest an ADM Vixen or Losmandy style dovetail connector and matching dovetail that you can bolt straight to your rings. Lots of ideas on FLO's site.

That's a very happy memory for both myself and my wife Chrissy. It was during a telephone conversation that Patrick invited us to visit him at Farthings, the name given to his thatched cottage in Selsey by a previous owner. He also invited us to have dinner with him, and to stay over night due to the distance we'd travelled. I was impressed by just how much of a gentleman he was towards Chrissy. Also, he didn't care for the title 'Sir', and prefered plain old Patrick. There was no treading on eggshells around him, he was just one of the lads. During the time we were with him we got chance to play with all his telescopes, which sadly by that time were in need of some TLC. Patrick was in quite poor health and suffered terribly with arthritis in his hands. The walls of his home were covered with paintings of alien worlds and little aliens, all painted by his mother.I love clocks, and spent some time quietly admiring his Grandfather clock, as well as a cuckoo clock in his study that cuckoo'd whenever it felt like it. He never had it repaired, and I think its quirkiness kind of suited his sense of humour. After dinner we all sat in his study just chatting about astronomy, and anything else that took his fancy. I remember it was around 2am when we decided its bedtime. Sadly, although we took loads of photographs, nearly all turned out blurry, as some clott-head had the camera on the wrong setting. Mobile phones weren't so well equipped back then as they are now, so we'd used a throwaway camera. Patrick gave us a copy of his mother's book Mrs Moore In Space and tried his best to sign it with hands that didn't work, finally apologising for his poor signature. He would often use a stamp with his signature on it, so may be we have one of his last physical signatures he ever made? It's certainly precious to us at least! Here's a pic of yours truly sat in the great man's chair, preparing my opening comments for our new tv program The Sky With Mike. 😂 (Just joking of course)!

Excellent images Geoff. What a great little scope! Mars is beautiful and quite impressive in its detail, and even Venus reveals some subtle detail. Thanks for posting.

Thanks David. That's the beauty of sketching, as you can leave out the turbulent atmosphere. Plus it's an accumulation of detail over time, so invariably gives the impression of a better eyepiece view than it actually was. Having said that, it was a reasonably good view last night, until the winds started.

Syrtis Major & Sinus Sabaeus, with the posibility of Argyre rather than Hellas giving the illusion of a south polar cap, though I'm happy to be corrected if anyone has a sketch or image showing a clearer view. My seeing was deteriorating while making this sketch!

Here is a tiny Mars still showing discernable detail in the form of albedo feature, cloud/mist and Ice. Syrtis Major is obvious on its tiny 5.8 arc second gibbous disc.

High power Venus from April 18th. This was just an experiment to see how magnification can help or hinder detection of subtle detail. Unfortunately the seeing started to suffer from varying amounts of turbulence, so not very conclusive. I think i prefer the lower power view of the two, but reserve the right to change my mind.

I like to stay positive. I believe we're setting ourselves up fo a maga fall relying on satalites and all this mind numbing technology. At the pivotal moment our seemingly pleasant little star will hand us our a##es, by delivering the mother of all solar storms and sending us back to Bedrock overnight. At that time I'll be king, as I'll be the only one left with a knob controlling his telescope. Everyone else will have caved in to goto and push button technology!

You'll have to ask the awesome Janice Broughton about that. I was in love with Janice from being 8 years old, but when I reached my mid teens, for some inexplicable reason I became a Neanderthal. She was blonde with bright blue eyes and a wonderful sense of humour. Then one day as I was walking along the road leading to the local park I heard her sweet voice say " Hiya Michael"! I replied with a grunt and walked on without saying much. What an idiot! My heart still burns when I think about her. She's now a nurse living in Australia, so if nothing else her medical training under my guidance paid off. 💔

Awesome images Gerry. Thanks for posting!

I'd be happy to stand in at a moment's notice for your surgery Paul. I used to have a doctor's set when I was younger, and I once dissected an eyeball in Human Biology O' level (though it looked like it had been attacked with a hammer by the time I'd finished); then I dissected a pair of lungs in Human Biology 'A' level. I was much better at Chemistry, but don't let that unnerve you. I'm sure you'll be fine!

Your avatar hadn't gone unnoticed by me John. Thanks for the info on his equipment.

Wow, it sounds like you've suffered quite an injury Michael. Over the years I've hit my own head countless times on counterweight and counter arms. For years now I've had foam laggingaround my counterbalance arm, after my elderly friend who wasn't as tall as me, walked eye socket first into the end of it. There was blood everywhere and its a wonder he didn't do more of an injury. He was a bit prone to telescope injuries so I should have been a bit more alert to possible dangers. It was the same friend who back in the 80's had a 6" F15 refractor in a domed observatory in his garden. One night he decided to adjust the weight balance and so using an Allen key, released the weight which was too heavy for him to hold, and which promptly slid straight off the arm and onto his foot. The long, heavy F15 steel tube then swung around at high speed knocking him into next week. He only made that mistake once! I have seriously thought about using some of that rolled up exercise matting that you can buy cheap from Aldi etc, and cutting a piece to wrap around the counterweight. They may even have the right colour! It's also crossed my mind to cut the balance arm down further reducing potential injury. More recently I had a brief spell with a 6" F10 achromat on an old Irving mount. This mount is a monster as is the counterweight and its long 2.75" diameter stainless steel arm. I saw more stars because of the counterweight and the shaft than I ever saw through the telescope. Eventually I cut a hole in a tennis ball and stuck it on the end of the Irving mount. I'm now back to using my Vixen GP thankfully!

Fabulous! Thanks for posting this John, as I can't remember seeing him stood alongside his 5" refractor before. It was this telescope that really caught my eye when I first bought his little Observers Book of Astronomy. £1.99 it cost me. Little did I realise just how much influence that photo would have on my enthusiasm and decision making. Or how much money would flow out of my bank account as time passed. The hours I must have spent in my early days staring lustfully over the photograph of this refractor, I'm surprised I haven't worn the picture away. In 2007 I eventually got to play with it during our stay at Patrick's. It was at that time in need of some TLC. Of course it has since been renovated. I wonder where it is now?

It makes me glad I'm a visual only observer. I'm happy with 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there. Many times I've waited patiently under seemingly blanket cloud, when suddenly the sky has cleared for an hour with perfect seeing, or brief spells of observing through sucker holes. I can manage some quality observing in just one hour!

You'll be able to stay in the house while AI or some equally boring piece of electronic gadgetry does everything for you, so you don't have to bother acquiring any skill at all. AI answers exam questions and does essays for you so you don't even need to study anymore. Well all be pointless bags of blubber just waiting to die. What fun!

That reminds me of an old Heineken advert from the 70's or 80's. "Refreshes the parts other beer's canot reach!" IF ONLY TAKAHASHI MADE BEER! 🍺🍺🍺

Vixen made an excellent Custom C mount that looked very much like your mount. The custom C had a counterweight arm that extended forward at about 45° from memory from the mounts altitude section. In a different league to Skywatcher!

No phone number on their website.

A really nice set of images again. I like them all and find then fascinating. The features are very relatable to what I often see through the eyepiece, especially the Y formation, and with the final image with its brilliant limb and bright zones being very representative of the general visual impression through my telescope. Excellent and very helpful!

Thanks for all the feedback showing other brands being fully blackened. As suggested I have tried to contact Altairastro and come across obsticles all the way. First I tried logging into their website but receive the warning that the site is not recognised. Anyhow, I eventually managed to get onto their site, but there is no simple way of asking a question, or receiving advice. I did send a message to one link but recieved an e-mail back suggesting I try another. Why my e-mail couldn't have been passed down the line to the individual who deals with problems I'll never know. May be they're sick of people complaining? Anyhow, I followed the direction only to come across another wall. I now had to log in and create an account. Then I had to request a ticket so that I can email, someone. At this point I was seeing red! What the he'll is going on? I know I'm growing old and becoming increasingly intolerant of technology and anti-social business practices, but this beggars belief. At the very least the Altairastro site has been designed by a moron, while at worst, by the most uncaring and unhelpful company I've ever encountered in the Astro community. As a consequence I will never deal with them again. So onto the eyepiece. It wasn't my intention to return the 30mm Ultraflat, as unlike Altairastro, it really is very nice. So I decided to dismantle the field lens to access the bare shiny metal and risk painting it. I had a tin of stove black paint designed for touching up log burners & multi fuel stoves, and which dries dull black. After removing the field lens I very carefully managed to blacken all the internal parts without getting any paint on the inner lens. I should have been a surgeon! I'm very pleased with the results, although I shouldn't have had to do any of this. I suppose 'buyer beware' is an appropriate warning when dealing with Altairastro. Even if they were unaware of the issue, they appear to have little concern for the customer. The original bare internal metal. After removing the field lens. A steady hand was needed to paint the bare metal with stove black. And the reassembled eyepiece, all clean and in this case, better than new. Lesson learned! I should have bought from FLO - which incidentally I would have done had they been at Kettering. Not that I'm implying it's FLO's fault I bought this eyepiece, but.... Perhaps my extra artistic skill has added to the resale value of my Altaire 30mm Ultraflat? Answers on a postcard please!