Highburymark

Very nice Paul. That’s another great option for airline travel cabin baggage. Looking at the promotional literature for these scopes, it’s clear the whole package has been very well thought out.

3-8 zoom now £81 on SVBony website! Having just offloaded a couple of Delites because I have all the planetary eyepieces I need, I can’t justify joining the queue for the 3-8, but it’s an amazing price.

Interesting that the 7-21 seems to be the best SVBony zoom according to these bench tests. Impressive.

Wonderful! It’s possible they are of very high quality, with a narrow bandwidth which would really bring out surface detail. Solarscope is still going - and doing maintenance and repairs if you do need help.

This is an amazing find! What looks like double stacked Solarscope Ha 50mm filters. If the etalons are in good shape, they should provide spectacular views through the little Tak (or any refractor). It would be interesting to know when they were made. Solarscope has been through several changes over the years, but many of the earliest filters were absolutely superb. Potentially a very exciting discovery.

Interesting to see Solarscope from the Isle of Man is exhibiting. Wonderful company which has been making some of the best solar filters in the world for several decades, but is rarely seen at this sort of event. For those earlier in the thread asking about the large Askar refractors, 365 Astro is exhibiting, and at Astrofest a few weeks ago in London, they had one of the 185mm triplets on their stand. So likely they will bring it along this time too.

Fascinating - thanks for posting Matthew.

Agree that 60mm is too little for really satisfying WL detail Stu, but the 60mm PST mod sounds promising. Presumably you just swap over the etalon from your monster mod scope? I still think 100mm is the sweet spot for white light in U.K. seeing - it’s the one thing I miss having moved to a TSA-120 from a 100DC. With the 120, I’d say 75% of sessions are compromised by seeing. But the other 25% certainly compensate. Marvellous views at 250x on very special occasions. Have you tried the wedge with your FS128 yet?

I had what I believe was the first Moonlite to be made for a Lunt 50, which unfortunately isn’t made anymore, so good that the FT is reappearing, though no doubt at a hefty price. Worth it though, especially for binoviewers and cameras. My Lunt helical seized up and the whole scope had to go back to Germany for a fix.

Having tried most of the major wider field lines over the years, with the exception of ES I must admit, I don’t think you can go wrong with XWs from 10mm to 3.5mm, Morpheus for the ‘teens’, and a Panoptic 24. Proven favourites with many experienced observers.

That’s good news. I hated the helical when I had an LS50. The FT will be a perfect replacement.

My thoughts exactly. But it sounds like a great eyepiece, and in particular perfect for a compact travel kit.

Ethos do seem to come up in the classifieds pretty often, particularly on ABS. I had a couple of Delites that weren’t getting used, so recently swapped them for a 6mm Ethos, which gives 150x in my TSA, or 225x with the Tak extender. Stunning views of the Moon this week. And an added bonus - it’s a relatively light eyepiece.

I have a bad back - and can carry my Skytee 2 on a Gitzo 5 tripod outside without a problem. It handles my 120mm (6.7kg) refractor beautifully, with the slow-motion control I need for high power viewing. I think the Skytee is one of the best purchases I’ve made. Whether it’s overkill for the 102mm F/7 I don’t know, but I wouldn’t worry too much about the mount’s weight.

It only takes a little practice to feel more comfortable using the other eye, I find. Bit like everything in life.

I totally agree. They have the most similar characteristics of any single EP range I’ve ever used. A lot of people seem to think the 18.2 is the outstanding Delite, but I’ve had the 3, 4, 7, 11 and 18.2 and find it impossible to split them.

If you don’t mind the shorter eye relief and narrower AfOV (though both are still very comfortable), 4mm TOE will reveal intricate detail that the excellent Delite cannot. I recently sold my 4mm Delite for that reason, and I’m a huge Delite fan.

Very glad it’s gone to a good home Steve. It’s a spectacular eyepiece - but more suited to your scopes than mine.

Very nice Mike, congrats. Will be spectacular for planetary on good nights with the FS128 and DZ. With your eye for sketching, it should also be great for teasing out lunar detail.

I’m with you on this Steve - the TV Plossls aren’t the flashiest of choices but they remain among the best eyepieces on the market. 25mm and down are all under £150. Superb for binoviewing and barlowing, solar Ha, planets, Moon and deeper sky.

Nice one Nick. It’s going to be a very interesting 2024.

Very nice - the ultimate easy way to stargaze.

I always use an artificial star for my testing. Pretty much all doublets at F/7.5 and faster will show CA out of focus - even those using fluorite. My FC-100DC had a clear purple ring out of focus. In focus, it was mostly CA-free, but on the brightest objects, a bit of false colour could be seen. This is perfectly normal. My TV85 is the same. I think sometimes “CA-free in focus” gives the impression that no false colour can be provoked even on the most difficult targets, when this is normal for medium fast doublets. Far more important is control of spherical aberration, in my view. If you’re only seeing tiny bits of CA at high powers, I’d ignore it and just enjoy the scope. The only star test I’ve done with no false colour in or out of focus is with a triplet, though maybe slower fluorite doublets might also fit into this category?

I’m a confirmed refractor man. Here are most of my refractors, past and present. Equinox 80ED, couple of Lunts, FC-100DC, TV85, TSA-120 and Tecnosky 60ED.

Very nice Matthew. Similarly inspired, I picked up these two in the past week.