Highburymark

Peter - sorry to hear this - gut wrenching, and such expensive equipment. Does he have a record of the NP101 and Coronado filters’ serial numbers, presuming they have them, like most TV refractors and solar etalons?

I can’t see a difference to be honest. I use the prism with my solar Ha scope as I need the short light path to reach focus, and BBHS mirrors for other viewing

Apologies. Late responding: Tak FC-100DC.

If I had better skies and a better back, then I’d probably side with the “aperture is king” camp. But I went from owning an 8” SCT to a 100mm refractor, and honestly not once have I regretted the move. The excellence of the optics - much sharper than the SCT - together with a 10 minute cooling down time, ability to cut through average seeing and portability all contribute to the frac’s appeal. It easily goes up to 250x without loss of sharpness on good nights, and I feel I don’t need any more. Just my $0.02.

I’m not an imager (at least not yet) but having admired the work of others for many years, I don’t think you’d have any problems getting full discs with any of the smaller Lunts. If it’s affordable, having a Quark for high power imaging and an LS60 for full discs would be the perfect combination

One option if you go for the T2 diagonal is to use just T2 spacers to reach focus. As you see in the attached photo I removed the green Tak spacer element between the OTA and the focuser (it just unscrews) and now can reach focus with binoviewer and all ep combinations, Quark, or in normal night mode with single 1.25” or 2” eps - all I do is change the number of T2 spacers.

Not heard of this. Looks like a good find. The MEF is nice but absurdly priced for what it is.

Very nice! Interesting to read about your modification. I’ve recently bought a pair of Zeiss ‘apo’ binoviewers to replace my Mk V which sadly proved too heavy for my lightweight set up. Must say they are superb - very sharp, and transmission is excellent, and zero false colour even in murky seeing. Look forward to hearing about how your new binoviewer performs.

I spent a happy half hour on Schroter’s Valley and surrounding area too John - stunning last night in unusually stable skies. Used Tak FC-100, Zeiss binoviewer and 18.2mm Delites barlowed up to 180x-ish. So nice to have the Moon at a higher elevation - makes a real difference to the seeing here in the city. Just need the planets to do the same..... Also eye catching last night was (I think) Babbage crater in the north above the Jura mountains. The circular ridge of Babbage A satellite crater was beautifully lit up like a silver ring within the parent crater.

Very nice Michael. 100% chance of rain here for the next 8 hours...🙁

I’ve not experienced a PST Pete, but there are some truly stunning images taken with them. Question - like everything else with solar - is whether you get a good one. Theoretically, the consistency should be greater the smaller the etalon. So it will be interesting to see how the new Lunt 40mm scope performs against the PST.

Nice tip - thanks!

I use my wife’s ex-make up/fragrance boxes for most of my accessories, including filters. I’m pretty careful with them, lots of desiccant, having just seen the price of 2” Chroma narrowband filters nearly double (!!) in price in recent weeks. Couldn’t believe it when I saw the new prices, just presumed they were a mistake.

Ok that makes more sense - €737 for the 82ED at Skypoint in Italy. Thought that first price sounded high.

Notice the new SW Evolux scopes are on sale in Europe now - Altair UK has them listed, no prices yet. But Primalucelab has them - the 82ED is €1,027, so not cheap. F/6.5, nicer focuser than the Evostar or Equinox. ED doublet, though as reported before looks like SW is no longer specifying glass type. 62ED €580. Looks very nice. But isn’t it muscling in on Esprit territory?

You’ve ordered a very nice piece of kit. The 9.25 is a large scope but comes with a beefier tripod. A new diagonal is the first and most important upgrade in my opinion. The stock one is poor. New visual back is also a good idea. As the Evolution already has an excellent go-to system, I don’t think Starsense is necessary. Save your money and get a couple of nice eyepieces - though at F/10 it’s a forgiving scope so most eyepieces will work well.

I’ve just bought (new) a book on lunar and planetary observing which states early on that: “The smallest size of refractor useful for visual work is 4 inches.” There’s that “useful” word again.... I don’t want to broadcast the name of the book because it’s generally very good, and written by a respected author. But on the issue of minimum refractor aperture, I think he’s got it wrong. The amount of joy and satisfaction to be squeezed from the Moon alone with a 3” frac is almost infinite. I’ve often imagined what it would have been like to have had access to a modern scope like an 80ED as a kid - we’re talking the 1970s here - particularly as it was the only time in my life when I haven’t lived with serious light pollution. It would have been a dream. Though I’d have been forced to give up school due to complete exhaustion. Forty years later, I actually bought one. A beautiful SW Equinox 80. June 2016, it was. Just a few weeks later, I took it to some semi-dark (though far from perfect) skies in Spain. And I’ve just checked my notes from that week-long trip - reading the list of Messiers, NGCs and planets, looks like my little, not very “useful”, 80mm did rather good 😁

The Astro Lounge. A place where no entendre goes undoubled.

Best of luck with the knee Ron and welcome back.

Congratulations. Solar astronomy for me is the most absorbing part of the hobby. Being able to grab quick views is so useful for solar observing when skies may only be clear for a few minutes at a time, so your PST will be perfect for this.

Agree with all of this. Except we don’t have enough NV practitioners on SGL to justify a separate forum at the moment. Trouble is we have almost nothing in common with EEVA either. The only threads we can all contribute to are these long discussions trying to define what EEVA is. There’s no common ground - unless we use the same filters.

Thanks - very interesting.

Very nice image of the large spot Pete. Can you briefly describe how you hand track these images - and is it possible to manually track in Ha and produce a satisfying result? Ie with a good alt az mount with slow motion controls?

The article is available to read free on the website Steve. There’s also a thread on CN about it. Good to have another solar convert on SGL! And even better that your Quark is delivering great views. I think 2021 is going to be a fascinating year for hydrogen alpha and white light observing.

I started with a 50mm scope. Even with 40mm/50mm, you can see most of the Sun’s chromosphere features very clearly. As you go up in aperture, you can resolve finer detail though. So I agree with Stu - definitely try it with your 80mm scope.