mikeDnight

I think so Jock. I may knock up some extended flexi drives that would put me on, or that could keep me completely contented. I quite like old school methods!

Hi Alan, I have visions of both the Tak and the Genesis SDF riding side by side on this mount, with the SDF acting as the best finderscope imaginable. I'm guessing I'll have to remove the counterweight for that though! I will eventually get round to adding RA and Dec drives. I have the old motors but will need to source new ones. It's a project, and so I'll likely add new images as work progresses.☺

Back in February I bought a 6" F10 achromat which has turned out to be a pretty nice scope. It's a heavy beast though, and none of my mounts could carry it without the tube assembly bouncing around at the slightest touch. Then last week I bought an industrial looking German equatorial who's origin I'm unsure of. All I can say about it is there's no bounce, and if your head makes contact with any part of it in the dark, the mount won't notice. Its not a pretty mount and its cosmetics needed a little touch up, but its a perfect match for the 6". Sadly the RA and Dec motors didn't work, so I've removed them and may get them replaced at a later date. Until then I'll use manual. I couldn't even attempt to lift this mount on my own as I've injured my right arm throwing a rope for my dog. As I swung the rope back over my shoulder so as to get momentum, I hadn't noticed my 75 lb English bull terrier had already attached himself to it, and caused my elbow a serious injury. So I enlisted the services of my two sons who effortlessly hauled it onto my observatory pier. Once on the pier, I stripped the mount down, repainted its components, and cleaned the shafts. It now moves with the gentlest touch and looks a tad prettier I think? It would be nice to learn of its origin. Irving is stamped on the underside of the large setting circles, but i suspect they were a later addition. Here are some pic's. The mount before I bought it: Once on the pier and undergoing dismantling and stripping: Reassembling: And useable but without worms attached.

I wouldn't read too much into the fact the visual posts are down compared to imaging posts. It's easier to post an image than to write a detailed report. Also, its easier to view and study an image than it is to read though a lengthy visual report.

Mars has been hit by some pretty large impactors throughout its history, and some large impact craters are visible even through a small telescope, such as the Hellas and Argyre basins. However the likely cause would be asteroid or cometary impacts. Mars doesn't have a magnetosphere and so it's surface is not shielded from high energy solar particles etc, therefore it's surface is sterile. And the planet is too small to hold onto any appreciable atmosphere and so it is more like our Moon than the Earth. The fact that there is little or no active volcanism, and therefore very little atmosphere as well as no magnetosphere, is indication of a limited molten core.

Possibly, as H-beta certainly helps with the Flame nebula around Alnitak. Also, good dark adaption and transparent skies will help, as will prolonged observation of the area using averted vision.

I've seen the bright slither of nebulosity into which the horse head protrudes, through a Tak FC100DC. I observed this from the suburbs of Burnley in Lancashire. The night was transparent and my dark adaption was excellent due to observing from under a blackout hood for around 30mins on this one target. To date, it has been the single most difficult nebula I've so far seen in a 4" scope. The horse head itself was only hinted at and appeared only as an ill defined notch extending from the extensive dark nebula into the brighter nebula, and could only be noticed with averted vision, which made its precise placement on the sketch I made impossible. It was very tiny!

The images appear the same to me when taking the different positioning of the scope. But its really not possible for the dew shield to increase the field when extended, so there must be something else at play. As for the mat black paint Tak uses, it is the same mat black paint as used in high end japanese cameras, and it really top class at preventing stray light scatter. I can imagine it possible that the extending of the dew shield could improve contrast in a daylight setting. P.S. Tak mat black paint smells fantastic!

If you're looking to get a rich field telescope, you might consider a Skywatcher StarTravel refractor. They range from 80mm to 150mm in aperture and give spectacular wide field views. The 150mm is truly awesome as an RFT. Another, but way more expensive, are Televue refractors. It's probably better to buy these second hand.

I managed an hour at tea time and another hour from around 9pm looking at the Moon through my 6". I spent most of my time during the second session studying Gassendi and Mare Humourum. It seems Humourum has more than its fair share of craterlets, so many in fact that I kept losing count. Then to finish off the evening I took the 6" on a cruise through Perseus, stopping off at the double cluster for a while, then the occasional detour when an interesting open cluster caught my eye; and finally a quick look at the Pleiades and the Merope nebula.

Sadly Paz, if you're waiting until you grow up, it isn't going to happen. 👶

The DC focuser was too stiff for my liking, so I dismantled it and struggled to then get rid of image shift. And so i phoned good old Nick Hudson of TrueTech who told me I'd 🤬 it. He then told me how to eradicate the image shift, and all was well from there on. It took me a while to get it right. The only thing I really didn't like about the DC focuser was the limited travel. I remember the chewed up baffle in your DF Paul, and think it was probably a one off made especially for you. 😂

I have to admit I'm not a TV fan, and have voiced my view on numerous occasions. Baader offer some outstanding eyepieces at a fraction of TV prices and that perform stunningly, even in short F ratio scopes. For on axis performance, where it really counts, you really can't beat a quality ortho or plossl, if you're willing to forfeit a wider field. I wouldn't swap my old Parks Gold and Celestron Ultima's for anything that's currently on the market, especially those from 10mm and longer. As for apo's, I think there are so many great alternatives available today, that I'd have to question the sense in buying a premium brand if finances were an issue, which they often are. Technosky and Starfield refractors look awesome and are a fraction of the price of a Tak. But I can't help but love Tak optics.🥰

Yes I did Paul. It was the 30mm LE with its awful eyelens placement and bad edge correction, then the 5mm LE, and one of the Hi LE's that had mega ghosting issues. I don't own any Tak eyepieces any longer. Other top brands don't get away Scott free either, with Televue selling scandelously expensive refractors that can't take magnification, and soften out long before they reach 200X. They are stunning for rich field observing though, but still not worth anywhere near the cost at new prices. And don't get me started on TV's eyepiece undercuts. I think they must have set Jack Nicholson loose in their engineering workshop. The only TV eyepiece I own today is a 35mm Panoptic which I use only with my Genesis SDF. Thankfully I don't need to buy anymore TV eyepieces, as my Baader Morpheus eyepieces perform amazingly well in the SDF despite it being only F5.4. Rant over, until next time.

All pure and unadulterated Takahashi in the four I've owned.

I knew you'd cave in sooner or later!

I think some brands win respect and acquire a following because they are consistently good. Takahashi, Vixen, TMB, and I think there's one called TeleVue, which are well thought of for one reason or another, but not all their products are great, so to blindly follow a brand simply because of its name can be a mistake. And sometimes, old or forgotten brands costing very little can give these more modern upstarts a serious run for the money.

Thanks Louis, I'll need to try and resize the images before I could post them. CN isn't as forgiving as SGL, but I'll certainly give it a go. ☺

If any scope needs a handle, this one does! A big one!! Perhaps Jeremy has a few spare?😂

Thanks Dave, When I bought the scope I met the seller at a carpark and it was raining lightly. I didn't look at the lens but asked if it was coated, at which he said "yes". It was only after getting it home and looking at it properly that I couldn't see any coatings on it. I wasn't too bothered by that as long as the optics were fine. I know Edmunds used to give the option of coatings or not on their lenses, so it could be an Edmunds lens as the seller claimed. Whatever it turns out to be, its a superb figure and dead sharp optics with great colour correction. The fact it appears to be uncoated though did have me wondering about its age. May be Peter Drew might have had dealings with similar lenses in the past?

I'm hoping someone can shed a little light on the history of my 6" refractor. It was advertised as an Edmund Scientific 150mm F10 achromat, but other than that, the only thing I know about it is that the Edmund's objective is mounted in a home made tube assembly with a Celestron rack & pinion focuser by someone in the UK. It's a hefty tube assembly, and the scope may possibly have been moved on in the past due to presumed poor optics. My immediate impression while looking at terrestrial targets in daylight was of an objective having very good colour correction. It was only later that night that I realized there was a real problem with spherical abberation. It turned out that the objective had been fit back to front, and after carefully removing the glue dabbs holding the retaining ring in place and reversing the lens, the the problem disappeared completely. The scope shows very little CA on bright stars, and virtually nothing around the limb of the Moon, which to me indicates a very well thought out objective. It may be a long shot, but if possible I'd like to hear of anyone having experience of this scope or from anyone knowing anything about the age/date of the objective or its history.

Its grim up north. We've just moved to sepia. Remember those tri-coloured screens they sold in the 60's to place infront of your tv to add colour? I still use one. And my tv runs off towns gas!

Oh Pinocchio, you big fibber!!!

Although I had a humble 60mm refractor, I really cut my sky teeth using a pair of 60mm binoculars back in 1980 and for a few years afterwards. Those binoculars taught me my way around the constellations and gave me my first views of countless deep sky objects. I think that back then, telescopes were not quite as easily available as they are today, and were relatively expensive. Even a pair of Swift 80mm binoculars cost in excess of £300 in 1983. How things have changed! My skies were more transparent back then though, and what I could easily find in my binoculars back then, requires a significant aperture today. This is the only pic I have of my 60mm binoculars on my home made binocular fork mount and tripod. The fork was designed so that the altitude pivot was in line with my temple. That meant that the eyepieces remained at the same distance from my eyes as I altered the angle. Genius!! I'm not sure I've ever felt lonely, as I've always had a small number of local observers to help keep me enthused, but mostly I do tend to observe alone. I am aware of several other astronomers in my locality who I've never observed with, but perhaps they like to be alone? I know how distracting it can be when several observers get together. Although it can be a nice social event, it can also be a pain when someone is hogging your eyepiece during a rare moment of exceptional seeing. 🥊

That's quite a bag of objects you've seen in one night Malcom. It proves three things, first your transparency is pretty good, second your scope is very capable, and third you are a very capable observer. If you really want to see more with your DC, you might consider a blackout blanket or hood over your head, and then spending time with each target. For example, the Owl despite being subtle, comes to life when you spend fifteen minutes on it in complete darkness under a blackout hood. It's ghostly glow becomes quite bright in the 100mm, and with averted vision the large dark eyes stare back at you quite obviously. Every target you study this way will be seen, along with your FC100DC, in a whole new light.