Paz

You can focus an sct using binoviewers without a goc but in a perfect world using a barlow or gpc to enable the primary mirror to stay in its optimal position is ideal. If you have the primary mirror far out of its optimal position in order to focus it compromises its effectiveness.

I got out last night for an hour on Jupiter and the moon. I'm back to using my eq5 which is more hassle to set up but it's so much better having tracking. I had the SM125 out with binoviewers and SLVs at 127x and then 254x. I didn't have a plan for the moon so just wandered around the limb. The views were good but I'm having much more enjoyable lunar sessions these days when I have a plan and targets I'm seeking out that I have researched. Jupiter was very good, 34 degrees up and the seeing was ok. I could see good details in the equatorial belts and towards the poles, especially to the North. I put a ND0.9 filter in for the moon at first as it was so bright, and in the end the filter stayed in the whole session, it just made everything more relaxing and I think it may have actually helped with tuning in to the details on Jupiter but I didn’t do any back and forth comparisons. I wonder why this filter seemed so useful this time. I was out the front and managed to frighten my neighbour who parked up and didn't see me until they got out of their car right next to me in the dark! Having tried it in colder weather this SM125 does cool down quickly, which is good, but it also warms up again quickly when I bring it back indoors and so dews up as a result. I need to put a towel around it or something when I bring it in so it warms up more slowly and doesn't dew up (I'm obsessed about avoiding dew on my optics if I can at all avoid it!).

I use a voice recorder when I want to recall good quality notes, amd I listen back to that and write up the bits I want to write up. I had a cheap one from amazon that had the benefit of a tiny red light on it that flashed when it was recording so I could tell if it was recording or not and I didn't get night vision problems. Since that broke I use the voice recorder in my phone. This is a much worse solution with more faff plus all the light a phone puts out, but I have so much light pollution anyway that it doesn't really matter

Yes that will work fine, I've used an astrozap solar film filter with a 127mm Masutov many times. You can also use a baader solar continuum filter with it (or any other colour filters) if you want.

I saw Jupiter was clear last night and on Sky Safari I saw the Io transit was coming later on. I got all my gear to hand (indoors but ready to go straight out) and went to bed aiming to go out in the early hours, but then I didn't wake up and I have no idea if I missed an opportunity or not! But it was a half-chance and that's an improvement.

In my back garden the issues include high walls/fences and houses in most directions, local direct light pollution, nearby town/city light pollution, and heat from the local houses and roads on the estate where I live. However there is a strip of sky I can see from the back garden and the fact that I can't observe anything low means I observe more at higher altitudes with the benefits that brings.

One thing to check is how much it dims the image, it might be that the photography film does not dim the image as much as the visual version. The baader visual filter film dims by 1/100,000 or in other words ND5 strength.

Yes I'm happy with it, I've been getting accustomed to the size being longer than I'm used to but now I'm familiar with it it's winning. My ST120 and MC127 I ought to sell now, but I've had a lot of good times with those scopes, plus I'm a procrastinator and a hoarder so its going to be tough My 72mm f6 is still best for travel if I have to pack down and is better for Ha solar, and the 102mm f7 may be better sometimes on solar Ha or white light by allowing lower magnifications but other than that they may not see much action from now on, we will see. The less certain comparison is to the C8, I will be interested to see how that goes. I'm not a fan of SCTs and I was quite dismissive of my C8 for a long time (I really wanted a 180 Mak but couldnt land one second hand, then gave up and got a C8). But in the last year I've put more effort into using the C8 properly and to be fair it has been growing on me and I feel like I have treated it a bit unfairly in the past. So I expect the SM125 to be my main scope over winter and the C8 will come out for a go now and again. Having said that I never really know, the best/ultimate test is letting time pass where you have a choice of what scope to take out, and finding out what gets chosen most in reality.

Yes and the funny thing is it was only left in after M42 because I was constantly on the point of packing up and I thought if I stop to take the filter out again I will end up packing up completely.

A while back I resolved to be prepared for more early morning sessions. My theory being that early mornings might be more tolerable than late nights, plus the micro climate where I live is often that there are clear skies just before and after sun up more so than at any other time in the 24 hour cycle. I got my gear ready and went to bed early last night planning to check the sky at 5am and go out if it was clear. I promised my other half I would get up quietly, but I was sleeping like a baby at 5am and my backup plan - a wake up alarm on my phone - went off and woke my other half up. That did not go down well! I checked out of the window and there is Jupiter as clear as can be so out I go. Aligning my finders I see clouds appearing and thickening. The street lights are off at this time, usually they are on when I observe in the eveings, I wont often stay up late enough for them to be off. I have the SM125 out on a skytee2 with extension pillar, a Baader prism diagonal, 2.6x gpc, binoviewers, and I start out with 40mm NPLs for a supposed 63x and 2mm exit pupil, but I think it's magnifying more than that. The moon looks fine, but the cloud really builds and everything else is now gone. I consider packing up but I decide to keep going on the moon until it disappears. A quarter of an hour later I'm still observing and the cloud thins again with gaps appearing. The moon is high, about 55 degrees, and the views are good. Jupiter appears again and I swing over to that. I spend most time towards the poles seeing how much I can make out. I'm still on the brink of packing up as cloud comes and goes. A hole of thinner cloud appears over M42 so I try for that. Despite the cloud and the moon and the security lights it's quite a good view and a well defined fish mouth. I add an OIII filter and the views are not epic but surprisingly good for the circumstances, I thought it would be washed out. I switched to 20mm SLVs for 127x and 1mm exit pupil and the views hold up. I spend some time on M42 although it feels wrong to even be trying! Another benefit of this time of day dawns on me (no pun intended)... no neighbours driving up the street dazzling me with headlights, which is what happens in the evenings and until the early hours of the morning if I'm out the front. Venus is now on so I try that with the OIII filter still in, the view is moving around slightly but the brightness is very well dimmed by the filter which also eliminates atmospheric abberation, showing a soft terminator and an albedo gradually brightening towards a sharp limb. I go back to Jupiter still with the OIII in (why not!?). Its a bit softer as the clouds are a bit thicker but the OIII is clearly helping to make more contrast between the different colours, but displaying in blue/green. I spend more time on the thinner bands towards the poles again. Daylight is coming and I look out of my observing hood at a brightening morning sky. I could pack it in after a good session... but no! The moon is even higher and the clouds aren't too thick up there so I have another look still with the OIII. The views were great, very crisp, in particular looking hard at the limb and being able to see mountains and crater walls edge on right up against the blackness of space with no colour issues from the atmosphere or the scope. There was more limb-action to be had at the south pole but also fine features on the limb near quieter spots such as near Grimaldi, once I looked long enough. Often the limb doesn't get my attention, I hypothesise that the OIII is helping by dimming what is a naturally bright and high contrast object, just like dimming the view of Venus helps? I could quit now on a high... but no! It's not far off plain daylight and it's mostly cloudy but I can see Castor by the moon naked eye so I swing over to that still with the OIII (why not!?). I see no split which is unexpected. I look up and figure out I had seen and found Pollux. But Castor was there slightly higher and slightly dimmer. I got onto it and got under my hood. There in the eyepiece were two emerald jewels hanging in the black, floating like plankton in the ocean (or something!). The magnitude difference being very clear this way, I think at night with no filters the magnitudes look closer to me. Only the airy discs could be seen, any diffraction rings being too dim. I sat on this view for some time as it got dimmer with more daylight and more cloud coming. When I take off my observing hood it's 6.45 and looks like broad daylight and almost full cloud cover but thick and thin across the sky. I would never venture out under clouds like this! I packed up very happy. Better views for sure would be had in better conditions but I feel like I took on the weather, and broke a number of my usual observing habits, and won. I'm looking forward to doing more dawn sessions, but it takes a bit more thinking ahead compared to opportunistic evening observing which is my main mode of operation.

I focus on other things and go through phases where I don't think about astronomy much and I do other things, sometimes because the weather is so bad for so long , and sometimes because I don't feel like it and I think the best antidote to that is don't try to do it, have a break from it. I remember the long spell of insanely clear skies at the start of the first Covid lockdown, the best spell I can recall in the 10 years I've been observing, but I didn't have the energy to do any observing at the time and clear night after clear night I passed on going out to observe. Recently it has been the other way around, I've been up for it but the weather has been no good!

Deleted - duplicate post.

Storm Dunlop's "Atlas of the Night Sky" has a section that covers one constellation at a time with a map and a list of the best objects. However it's anything from half a page to a couple of pages per constellation. Those atlases are available very cheap second hand, and they have other useful bits like a normal sky atlas plates at the front and moon maps at the back.

Nice. I"ve been trying to get a full house of reds on clear outside for years but have always had a few annoying bits of orange spoiling it!

I was out recently under almost complete cloud cover having been overly optimistic about the weather and was about to pack up when I got onto eta cassiopiea in a gap and I sat at the eyepiece and observed, the brightness varied as the cloud came back and I looked up and naked eye it was 100% cloud cover and no stars visible but the doublen was still there in the eyepiece so I carried on for 5 minutes or more on this double whilst Cassiopea was completely invisible until it was too thick and I lost it in the eyepiece.

That is amazing, SGL have landed an icon on the moon! I must check this out if the clouds ever part.

The cat is winning, I have lowered the seat so the cat can now lean on the radiator as a backstop, and I had one session without my chair, but if the cat is happy then everybody's happy. 🤔

Here's my final update, I've checked everything out that I wanted to and all is well. I've had some good views of Saturn and Jupiter, not in perfect conditions but good enough to be able to tell that the scope is ok. The focuser has also stood up to everything I've tried in it including a 31mm Nagler and Binoviewers with a pair of 17.3mm Delos. One other thing on the focuser, I think this has very slightly more available in-focus than my 102mm f7. The main challenge I have noticed is just getting used to the dimensions of it, it's the longest scope I've used (on a tripod) so the eyepiece moves around a lot and balancing different eyepiece weights is more of a thing than on shorter scopes, but it is just a case of getting used to it. I have found I prefer to use an extension pier with this scope for a higher eyepiece position which means a heavier/bulkier mount to take out, and it means slightly more vibes, but I have found that it is fine having got used to it. Heavier eyepieces also raise the eyepiece position as the scope has to be further forward to stay balanced. I have taken off the handle as I didn't find that I really needed it in the end and I would rather be able to mount a finder shoe on the front tube ring. I got myself a slightly longer dovetail bar (a More Blue 220mm instead of 200mm - but it weighed less than the original bar despite being longer) to have enough room to be able to balance with light or heavy eyepiece set ups just by sliding the dovetail forward or back in the clamp. However I think this does not give quite enough adjustability and I think I may get a 300mm bar. I ended up getting an ADM saddle for my Skytee 2 as I was starting to worry about if/when the standard saddle might give out with this scope (not because I was worried myself, just from reading so many other people worrying about it with other scopes!). To be fair now I've got one it is obviously more robust and I'm glad I got it. When solar observing the scope performs well as I would expect, but it does catch the heat of the sun very quickly if you leave it at all broadside to the sun. I try to set it up and get it balanced as quickly as I can and then point it at the sun with the cap on so it is collecting a minimum of heat while I do the rest of setting up. I tried it with a quark on the sun and the views were fine, but it's a lot of magnification, I think the quark is better suited to smaller scopes unless the conditions are amazing. I don't know how this would compare to the established top end brands when it comes to squeezing out the last fraction of a percentage of performance but I find myself enjoying the views and not wondering about whether anything else out there might better, which is a good sign. I don't think there is anything lighter and that was an important consideration for me. I'll be using this as my main scope this winter, and I aim to check out how it compares to the C8 in particular. I am interested to hear reports from other owners, please share some comments if you've got one of these.

I took a photo of two of my scopes a while back that this reminds me of, this is my biggest (VX14) alongside my 127mm Maksutov (small but not my smallest)

I don't think I have got any steals in terms of crazy low price, the bargains I have had are in terms of equipment that I have used a hell of a lot compared to their cost (things like my SLV and Delos eyepieces) and in terms of bagging in-demand items from the second hand market that get snapped up as soon as the go up and you know everybody else is also on a hair trigger watching and waiting for them, my 31mm Nagler being my finest moment in this respect.

My worst purchase in terms of poor judgement was getting 110mm straight through binoculars that I have never used in the field other than an initial session to check collimation. I realised that observing straight through just doesn't work for me and I prefer telescopes so it is still in its case over 5 (or probalby closer to 10) years later as I just haven't had the time to sell it. My worst experience using an item is the Televue 32mm Plossl. I bought this to improve on my generic 32mm plossl and because it allows loads of infocus for binoviewing etc but, for reasons I still don't understand, it produces so much field curvature that put me off and it never gets used.

Something else to consider is the collimation screws on the secondary and if any of those has ended up over tight.

Great report, outreach is a rewarding thing to do, I've enjoyed the few occasions I've been lucky enough to do it.

Look forward to your reports, you have lots of good times ahead! What effect does the lake have on seeing I wonder? Some of the best seeing I've had has been on holidays looking out over the sea and big patches of open water.

Its looking ok outside and I'm setting up. I want my observing chair but my cat is not budging and is giving me evil stares.