Paz

Nice report. I think mixing up some doubles with moon observing is a great idea that is often overlooked.

Congratulations on bagging M81. I've seen galaxy cores and sometimes can get the shape/elongation from light polluted home (where I can see mag 4.5 stars naked eye) but seeing any structure in my case requires going somewhere darker.

On the occasions when I set up in a public place I often get passers by asking what I'm looking at and am happy to show them. Most often this is when I'm on holiday and set up near a hotel or whatever. Once a passing family who thought I was observing the moon asked to have a look. I let them have a go but didn't tell them I was actually looking at Saturn which was nearby. That got a good reaction!

When I can I go out late but often that's not possible. Sometimes the views in daylight can be good fun. I agree about planetary views, the best views I've had of Venus were in twilight.

Thanks, I've got an ND0.9 lying around somewhere, I'll give that go.

Sometimes I'll have limited opportunities to observe meaning that the choice I have is observing the moon in daylight or not observing at all. I've tried things like polarising filters and filters that cut out blue light (E.g. green, yellow, orange, etc) and these sometimes help. I was wondering if there's any other ideas that may help that others have tried.

Nice report, I'm quite jealous that I can't go out tonight. I've never seen Plato at the right time to go for the craterlets properly but will make a note of the photo for reference when I do get an opportunity.

Nice report, very professional!

Great report. I've read a lot of good reports about equinox scopes and the 80mm is going to make it easy to get out and have a go at most things.

Clear skies here but can't afford to get tired from a late night this early in the week so I'm hoping this might still be on at the weekend.

Good luck! Whereabouts is the supernova and is it known how long will it stay above mag14?

Great report. It was an unexpected clear night for me also. I was checking out the terminator from Klein up to Aristoteles with my Maksutov. Very good views and held up to high magnification well. Lunar X and V very prominent also.

I've tried all sorts of finders and in the end found the combination of a red circle finder (telrad or Rigel) and a 9*50 raci finder to be best for me. I now have this set up on all my scopes big enough to allow it. Often the telrad does the job, but the 9x50 is good for going across faint star fields. It is also useful in that I can leave a high powered eyepiece in place because I don't have to use the main scope for finding purposes... unless I'm looking for something very difficult.

Great report, that's a lot of galaxies covered.

Here's some additional comments... This scope is short, light, simple, reliable, colour free, has lots of in/out focus travel, high contrast, relatively low cost, and it goes easy on eyepieces. The cons are small maximum field of view, cool down longer than a comparably sized refractor, slight focuser shift at high magnifications, you can't use it with a Herschel wedge, the effective focal length changes if you change the distance to the eyepiece and the move the primary to refocus, and dewing is more of a risk. I've used this on all targets from solar to dso's. It gives the cleanest images of all my scopes except when I stop down the VX14 which is also very clean. I have found double stars and open star clusters suit it the best. I have modified it with a dual speed focuser, Telrad and Raci finder, dovetail weight, dew shield, and sometimes use a filter wheel. This scope and my ST120 are my most used scopes, usually this one is used if it's primarily brighter and smaller targets, and the ST120 if it's dimmer or larger targets. I went for this instead of the sky watcher because this scope is slower just like nature intended maksutovs to be(!). It's also better looking (call me shallow) but that's just a benefit of it, not a reason to buy it. I was supposed to sell this ages ago but it's still with me and seeing action.

Great report. I've had one of these for some time and have done a lot of observing with it. Here's some shots from the family album... The last one is side by side with the VX14 which illustrates how compact it is. I'll try and add a few comments about it when I get a moment.

+1 for sky safari, I've got various apps but have only used sky safari for quite a while now.

I went for the biggest scope I could set up and take down and move around on my own. When I was looking it was either going to be a 14" solid tube reflector or a 16"-18" truss tube reflector. In the end I landed a 14" solid tube and I'm very happy with it still and enjoying the advantages a solid tube provides. I'd love to have somethung bigger but I dont envy bigger scopes as I know I couldnt handle them so easily and so wouldn't use them enough. Aperture fever is a common feeling, and so is regret getting something too hard to handle or set up.

What if you put the observatory on top of the tallest building in Hong Kong, how much would that assist with dodging light pollution?

I think we all know exactly what you are talking about here, a quark is much more discreet than another scope! They ought to push this in the marketing.

Nice report. I missed reading this until now but by chance I did see the moon/m44 event. I was so absorbed in just seeing them together that looking out for occultations didn't occur to me at the time - doh!

It would either have been done by the previous owner who was very handy with mechanical engineering, or it might have been specified and then given to Orion Optics UK to do (the manufacturers of the scope).

My VX14 has an extension to the ota which was done by the previous owner. The purpose is so that I don't need an extension at the eyepiece for visual which means less work putting bits together when setting up and more focuser stability due to less of a moment working on the focuser. I only do visual so I don't need the in focus that the VX is normally set up for. I think this may mean I could drop down to the next smaller secondary but I've never got around to doing this.

I've got those quasars the set up in sky safari and hope to bag some of them. Another one to mention is BL Lacerta which was a blazar I read about even before I started observing. It's variable from mag 14 to mag 17 and is named like a variable star because that's what it was thought to be at first. At its brightest it should be doable.

If it was for night time only I'd go for a dobsonian of up to 12", but if it was for solar as well then maybe a refractor up to 120mm. In either case I'd get the biggest thing I could easily handle up to those aperture limits and downsize over time as I got older.