mikeDnight

After almost continuous cloud due to all the inconsiderate astro purchases at the Practical Astronomy Show earlier this month, tonight the skies gave me a half decent view of the Moon and Venus. Tacky hasn't played out for almost a month so I thought I'd take some pic's of him all excited and ready to strutt his stuff. Tonight I also had chance to really observe with my new Maxbright l l binoviewer, and also my new Altair 30mm Ultra Flat eyepiece. Tonight was also the first time I'd tried my Baader click lock on my BBHS Zeiss prism with the 30mm 70° field ultra flat. What a wonderful combination!

I know I'm going to get my knuckles rapped for this suggestion, but as you already have a 8" SCT that you obviously love, and which will give you some very nice deep sky views as well as the Moon and planets; why not go for a complementary scope that will enhance your existing set-up. My suggestion would be to go for a Starfield 102ED refractor from First Light Optics. It will give you a lightweight set-up capable of giving terrific wide field views with seriously sharp star images, as well as being great on the moon, planets, double stars and comets. Mounted on an AZ4 the Starfield would make an awesome grab and go scope that would perform straight away without hardly any cool down time, and virtually no setting up time. May be you could check out some of the refractor threads to get some feed back on their performance.

Venus is in the evening sky, so you can watch it as it grows in size and its phase goes from a tiny gibbous to a large thin crescent. If you spend some time studying it you may even note its bright polar regions, and along the terminator you may detect bright regions that appear to bite into the terminator. Alongside these you may even notice subtle darker wisps of cloud extending around the brighter zones and often creating a horizontal Y formation along the equatorial region. It's very subtle but not imaginary. If you can see detail in the cloudtops of Venus, you'll have a great time with Mars next time around. Mercury is another challenging target, but your scope is more than capable of showing you albedo features on its surface. Often deep sky is thought of as being only nebulae, galaxies and star clusters, both open and globular, but stars are deep sky objects too and many are spectacular, especially contrasting binary stars. Then there are comets, of which there are usually several each year. And don't forget the Moon, the alien world right on our doorstep. With your 150P you could have more than one lifetime of enjoyment and discovery.

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There is just one minor issue that may arise during use, which is that with the helical micro focuser, you could very easily defocus slightly by a slight left or right tilt of your diagonal unless you lock the microfocuser so it can't rotate.

Lovely scope Dave - shame about the mount!

I think your scope is special! If you read Starlight Nights, the adventures of a stargazer, an autobiography by Leslie C. Peltier, and particularly the chapter entitled The Comet Seeker, I guarantee you'll see your scope as special too.

Hi Moonshed, These were on show at the Practical Astronomy Show at Kettering earlier this month. I'm not sure how practical such a trolley would be in practice, or if I'd want to pay so much for one, but its an option at least. Also, would it really protect your back? Then you also mentioned that you keep your scope in a shed. If the shed is just for your scope and astro gear, perhaps having the shed, or at least part of the shed, roll away rather than carrying the telescope could be an option. It might make for a more comfortable observing experience if low walls surrounded you and your shed became an observatory that's clean and dry? You would however need to wear a smoking jacket and a Fez or similar silly hat while observing.

Grab yourself a binoviewer and two pairs of good ortho's, Plossl's, or similar. They don't need to be expensive! Something in the 25mm & 16mm range or there abouts would be fine. With a 2X barlow attached to the nose piece of the binoviewer you'll get around a 4X amplification. It's a real game changer when observing the Moon and planets.

Thirteen hours in and no replies, so it's looking like you and Andy might be on your own Paul. It will be spacious at least!

That's beautiful Garry. A real jewel!

Excellent post Ags. It was a fascinating read about something I haven't previously paid much attention to. Thanks for posting.

The 5mm Pentax XW is a very nice eyepiece, and so is the 3.5mm. Both would be nice with your Starfield 102.

That's a beautiful sketch of the Pleiades along with some nebulosity Craig.

I'd start by getting rid of the presenter's, followed by the entire behind the scenes crew, and finally the BBC. Professional astronomers should be interviewees not interviewers, and The Sky at Night should return to its original purpose and format. One amateur astronomer with dynamism and personality (could be a challenge to find), speaking to like minded enthusiasts and encouraging newcomers to this wonderful hobby. I stopped watching The Sky at Night years ago after listening to Chris L and a female presenter feigning fake enthusiasm, bat comments between themselves. He'd say a few words, she'd say a few words he'd say a few words, she'd say a few words, and so it went on - forever. One person talking into the camera would do, but no - have money will squander - that's the BBC. By the end of it I was suffering from whip-lash as it was like watching a fast shooting tennis match - a really boring one! But the truth is, that even if a good presenter was found, no one could come close to matching good old Patrick.

You can get a 2" adapter for the back of the DC. I did this with mine, and to keep the light path as short as possible I used a low profile 2" to 1.25" reducer, so I didn't need the Tak locking ring on the scope. I still use the low profile 2" to 1.25" reducer on my FC100DZ, and it's an amazing piece of kit. Attached are some pic's of the DZ extension tube with the low profile adapter. It locks solid enough to hold a binoviewer at any angle without the use of excessive pressure on the locking screws.

Unfortunately not. It's a real Alice In Wonderland nightmare world of screws, screw hole seperations, bolts, silly screw-on extensions, and focusers from the 1960's. I think Tak do it on purpose!

I don't use go-to Paul, so I'm only guessing. If you were to disengage your RA axis while the mount was tracking, would that not give you the preceding direction so you'll know where north is? I wouldn't know if that would cause any coordination problem, or whether you could simply renegade the drive and recentre the star without issue.

I've seen some nice duel mounted set-ups also, and even considered it on occasion. Having two complementary scopes side by side seems quite appealing at times. The trouble for me as a purely visual observer who likes refractors, and also one who prefers equatorial mounts, is that I'd be tempted to use them at the same time. There can however be some subtle side effects to this observing method.

Heres a relatively cheap option. You could use a camera adapter plate which isnt too expensive, remove the screw from the slot, and bolt it to your mount. The dovetail connector will bolt easily to the slotted bar. And you don't need a long expensive ADM dovetail connector. There are plenty of shorter yet strong options on the market. Although I didn't use a dovetail connector in the pic's below, you can see the camera adapter plate is plenty strong enough to hold a quite heavy Genesis SDF refractor. In this instance the tube clamp was bolted directly to the adapter plate, but a dovetail connector could easily be attached. First Light Optics sell the camera adapter plate and smaller dovetail connectors.

I suspect you have an SCT? Different beasts, different qualities, and could be an interestingly different thread.

I'm still not sure, but Vega in the east appeared like a motionless blotch. There was no shimmer due to heat or turbulence, which I'd have have expected had it been a heat plume. It looked like the star image seen in a Schmidt Cassegrain, not a top class refractor. I should have known better, as the scopes planetary definition was outstanding, and fine planetary definition is a major indicator of optical quality. A similar thing occurred in April 2017 when suddenly Jupiter lost definition all of a sudden. There was no heat, turbulence, or shimmer, just a stationary blur as if frozen. It wasn't until the next day that I noticed that Jupiter had been directly over a chimney. Perhaps the gentle heat of a boiler pilot light was enough to damage the view? Similarly, the star seen through the FS128 on its first night had been over a conservatory situated a block away. Seeing no turbulence is what baffled my and my friend Derek. It never occured to me to look at a second star! Thick or what!!!?

As promised. Here's a picture of my Polaris mount. It has a similar design to your mount head, but has the V shaped plate and ADM Vixen dovetail clamp attached. A cheaper option might be to use a strong wooden or metal block bolted to a dovetail connector, and bolted to your mount head using the ring holes.

I doubt anyone would be interested, but just for the sake of closure: The FS128 on first light gave the best view of Jupiter and the worst stat image I'd seen to that date. I did give poor Nick Hudson grief, but as the courier didn't turn up I decided to take the scope to my local astronomy club to get backing from my friends. I must have had a face like thunder as I walked up the hill to the observatory with the Tak over my shoulder. Paul, along with Gain and a whole bunch of other faithful friends proceeded to collapse on the grass and roll around in sheep droppings in uncontrolled laughter. I was the only person in the world unfortunate enough to buy the one bad Takahashi FS128. Peter Drew took the scope off me and mounted it on a Vixen GP. I encouraged all to gather round and see just how bad the star image was. My friend Derek was at my side giving moral support, after all he was witness to the poor star image. Then Peter after focusing the scope on Vega turned and looked at me and said "I can't see anything wrong with that. It looks perfect to me." I stepped over the pack of laughing Hyena's now wetting themselves even more at the news it was a perfect scope that I'd almost sent back, and looking into the eyepiece saw a perfect Vega. Gain with my FS128 at the Astronomy Centre Todmorden. From left to right: Paul (paulastro), Gain, Yours truly, and Derek. At the first Practical Astronomy Show at Kettering.