mikeDnight

I've given it some thought Alan and I've decided I'll still talk to you. After all, I talk to Jeremy, and he's got a Schmidt Cassegrain. Enjoy your solar imaging!

I'm not so sure. You might find he would rather throw his wife and kids, TV or car out before he'd harm any of his Tak's.

Don't worry. At least you got a few pulses racing. It shows how the name Takahashi still runs deep. 💘

Freezing fog here from midnight until mid morning.

I went out with the FC100DZ earlier in the evening, and just to pass a little time while the scope cooled, I looked at a few lollipop's using a 24mm Panoptic and three higher power Naglers I recently inherited. Using the 5mm Nagler the E & F stars in the Trapezium were obvious. The nebula itself appeared glorious too, but dropping down to the 24mm tempted me to start wandering. M35, 36, 37, 38, NGC 884 & 869 were among the early catches. Then to Jupiter which was over the tree tops to my south and beginning to be affected by heat. However the disc was full of detail with the GRS on view and belts galore, but not really good enough to make a sketch. Mars was gorgeous with Solis Lacus stating straight back at me from its southern hemisphere. Later in the evening it was the turn of the Genesis SDF to entertain me, which it did admirably. With a 35mm Panoptic and 4.5° field the SDF delivered awesome views of rich star fields that few other scopes can come close to. I was in awe of the explosions of peppered starlight and vast chains and open clusters through Cassiopeia and Perseus. Brighter DSO's fall effortlessly into the wide field of this scope and so I swept up all the previous targets of the evening along with some I've not noticed before. Time now to check my atlas for the identity of some of the large clusters I came across.

Solis Lacus is looking good in your image Geof. I observed it earlier in the evening and immediately recognised the eye of Mars staring back at me. Love your image!

I'd like to see more Vixen's in the limelight Steve. I've always loved them and observed with many, and I can't ever remember a time when a Vixen played underdog to a Tak of equal aperture. In fact it was looking through a Vixen FL102 back in January 2003 that started me down the apo path. Unfortunately Orion Optics UK were unable to import one for me, as at the time Televue had got their greedy mitts on them and drained the supply. You likely remember the S&T double advert for them stating "Your Ship Has Come In", which showed a big Vixen cargo ship. That's why I had to rough it with a Tak. And Vixen were a far better deal too, as for £2200 you could buy a FL102 with 6X30 finder, Vixen GP mount with RA drive and aluminium tripod, and two or three lovely LV eyepieces plus a diagonal.

I love the drawings and find them exciting. Its great to see what you've observed. I cant remember ever seeing NGC2071. I must try harder, and perhaps from a darker site!

That's one of the problems with a flip top roof as dew forms on the upside surface. If the underside of the roof faces down when open, as with a sliding roof, you won't get the dew formation on the underside.

It will be wonderful to follow your progress Malcolm, especially as you'll have so much spare time on your hands once you're retired. Seriously though, it's a very good sketch and I'd bet you feel all the better for doing it.

If it were mine, I'd probably keep the steel frame and reclad the walls with 1/2" or 3/4" ply, clad on the outside with plastic cladding, (same as on the roof) You could use angle iron runners attached to the top of the walls that extend out to an H frame. The roof itself would run easily on 5" wheels. It would mean reroofing so that the apex is sealed, and a rubber skirt around the roof edge. Below is a pic of my friends observatory similar to yours. No leaks! Alternatively you could raise the walls so you could have a flat run-off roof giving you more protection from wind and stray light. The roof on mine is 1/2" ply covered with rubber roofing material. It's 12 years old this coming April and is easy has never leaked. Below are a few pics. I built my runners and the H frame from angle iron. If you place the wheels 1/3rd in from the roof edge, you won't need a long external runner. This pic shows the strong angle iron H frame and the position of the 5" wheels. Here the roof is closed, showing the H frame along with the rubber roofing, which also acts as a skirt and rests in the gutter. And this final pic shows the angle iron runner terminating about 3/4 of the way along the top of the wall. No need for it to run the entire length as the 5" wheels are set one third of the way along the roof.

It certainly appeared to do so on that night, but the Equinox had also given me some very memorable views over the years. During the Icelandic volcanic eruption some years back, they grounded the planes, and the seeing greatly improved. Jupiter through the 120 at that time was awesome. It also gave me my best ever view of the intricate detail in Saturn's rings. It really was a great scope that could pack quite a punch, so I certainly wouldn't suggest anyone should rush to sell their 120ED. They really are terrific scopes!

The Equinox 120ED is a beautiful scope and can hold its own against many other ED's both doublet and triplet. The very first time I looked through one at the Moon and jupiter, I remember exclaiming "that's very Tak"! By that I meant I thought it was close to my Tak FS128, though the two were never used side by side. The Equinox came on the scene after I suffered a misadventure with a NP101, and it was a real breath of fresh air. However, after buying a FC100DC in 2015, I ran both scopes alongside eachother while observing Jupiter and found the DC gave a more vibrant and better defined view of the intricate belt detail, so I decided to let the Equinox go.The difference was subtle, I just prefered the DC.

A single black and white photo of John Mallas 4" Unitron was so gorgeous that it made me determined have a refractor of my own. A 1950's advert for Unitron. These are some of the ones I've owned and some I still own. IT'S AN ILLNESS AS YOU'LL SEE! They are all works of art to me, and given the British weather, why not buy a scope that's as beautiful to look at as it is to look through! My first was a 60mm Astral. I still have a real soft spot for this scope. Here are some more recent: Takahashi FS128 Takahashi FS152 Equinox 120 Takahashi FC100DC Takahashi FC100DZ Vintage Genesis SDF 6" F10 achromat And a sweet vintage 60mm Carton .

Here's a sketch from Friday 13th. The seeing was steady but the transparency was not so good and deteriorated rapidly. As on most occasions I used my 100mm refractor with binoviewer, a 2X barlow, and paired 18mm Ultima eyepieces. The view is image reversed due to the use of a diagonal, with north top. Also attached alongside the finished drawing is my rough eyepiece sketch.

That's excellent Geoff. You must have a wonderful sense of achievement and satisfaction.

If you could find out who owns what, would it not put a land owners mind at ease if you requested their permission beforehand? I live a long way from Dartmoor and have never observed there, but whenever I've observed from private land I've always sought the permission of the land owner well in advance. So far I've never been refused, and on one occasion have even had the help of a kind farmers wife, who thought she'd help my friend and I to see in the dark by shinning a million candlepower Sun in our faces. People can be lovely when shown a little courtesy.

You're probably doing yourself an injustice Malcom. Having said that, I do think the Moon is the single most challenging object to draw. Shadows move rapidly and features can completely transform before your eyes within minutes. If you'd like to simplify matters you could choose a target away from the terminator where things change more slowly. Wrinkle ridges, domes and shading of tonal differences on lava planes or on the floors of ringed planes such as Archimedes or Plato etc can be a great place to start. But even if you do draw stick men, you'll still have learned more about the feature you're observing while scribbling with a pencil in your hand than without.

We have it in writing now Malcolm, so there's no escaping your obligation to deliver a lunar sketch sometime in the near future.

Here's my Genesis SDF mounted on an old Polaris mount (not Super Polaris). Standing fully extended the eyepiece as shown in the first pic stands at around 6 feet high on an Orion field tripod and half pillar. Not the lightest set-up, but a solid super smooth mount when in altazimuth mode for sweeping the sky.

Absolutely spectacular. It's one of those images you just can't stop looking at. Awesomely awesome ^2!

Thanks Mark, I'm not sure if it's a refractor thing as I don't often observe with reflectors. I did however have a 200mm F6 mounted alongside my FC100DZ for a while back in 2020, and have attached a sketch of Mars made with the 200mm and one with the FC100 made close together. To me they are very similar in the amount of visible detail with the 200mm showing a bit more detail, but the 100mm showing the albedo features with a bit more intensity. Both show Syrtis Major split and tailing off in oposite directions in the south. I'm not sure if these tails are related to any supposed canals, but the fact both scopes were so close in the detail they showed, I'm pretty certain reflector users won't have to rush out and buy a refractor. The globes are made from stainless steel balls of the kind used as garden ornaments. I spray painted the globes with a mat spray paint, then divided the globes into quadrants and divided the equator into degrees. I used the thirty plus observational sketches for each aparition as as my reference. Using a soft graphite applied using cotton ear buds, it was relatively easy to place the albedo features in their relative positions with reasonable accuracy. A putty eraser was used to lift graphite off the globes to produce a mottling effect and to sharpen edges. Once completed the globes were sprayed several times with gloss lacquer. The most difficult part was drilling through the steel globes to enable their being mounted to a base on which they can rotate.

I've never tried looking into people's houses except for focusing on the occasional light bulb. I have a great view of Pendle Hill from my home, and I like to count just how many crazy people walk along it's top on a bitterly cold winters day. I have wondered however, just how many astronomers might be looking at me, so to discourage that I'll often iron my clothes while stood in the window overlooking the town. Only the desperate or criminally insane would want to watch a 60 year old man ironing, while dressed in nothing but his boxer shorts.

Nobody wants to hear the advice " buy a pair of binoculars", but its probably the best advice, as binoculars really do help you in finding your way among the constellations. They will show you star clusters, some beautiful wide contrasting double stars, variable stars, and from a darkish site many brighter deep sky objects. The craters of the moon, phases of Venus and the moon's of Jupiter are also doable through binoculars. Almost all newcomers to the hobby however desperately want a telescope, but your £100 won't get you a worthwhile scope unfortunately. It's probably best to get a pair of 10x50 bino's a star atlas, and then save for a while longer until you can afford a scope that's worth having. You'll have a great time with binoculars, they can be thoroughly relaxing and enjoyable to use, and you'll become a better observer because of your time with them.

Even though many observers saw canals, the Interpretation of what they saw varied quite a bit. Lowel was convinced they were a product of intelligent design, where as Schiaparelli did not. During the 2003 apparition of Mars, I made many observational drawings of Mars using a high quality 5" refractor, and to my horror at the time, I saw and drew some of the presumed canali recorded by Schiaparelli. On several occasions when there were fleeting moments of truly perfect seeing, the surface of the planet presented a fractured egg shell appearance. Unfortunately such moments were far too brief for me to record the effect in a sketch however. Perhaps what I was actually seeing were the boundaries where surface tonal differences met. The planet was 25 arc seconds in diameter in 2003 and high in the sky, which allowed for truly awesome views, but the moment when I realised I was seeing canals really troubled me at first. I'm not so troubled these days as I've learned they are well established visual features that appear again and again. The two pic's below are af Mars globes I made from observational sketches made using a high quality 4" refractor. The smaller globe was made in 2016 when Mars from the UK was very low and bouncing off the rooftops from my observing site. Despite the low altitude I was able to make more than 30 detailed drawings of the disc. The larger globe is from observations made throughout the 2020 apparition. Both show several established linear features linked to the canal hypothesis. The canals extending from Sinus Meridiani (Dawes Fork Bay) are named Hiddekel (left) and Gehon (right); also from Margaretifer Sinus extending northward is the Indus canal creating a visual link to Mare Acidalium. [[[ Note the globes present a mirror diagonal view as seen through a refractor using a prism or mirror diagonal]]] The glob pic's showing Solis Lacus (The Eye of Mars) to the lower left, shows two canals within the darker boundary and radiating out from the dark central region. These are named Nectar ( horizontal) and Ambrosia (vertical). Reassuringly I'm not alone in being a modern day visual observer who has seen and recorded these features, so I know I'm not completely nuts. In fact if you look at the aspect of the globe showing Olympus Mons as a white cloud covered spot, its not hard to imagine how the subtle though complex linear shadings could be mistaken for channels seen by Schiaparelli. This a a great book on the subject: