Paz

Very impressive - without computers and without the easier maps, better scopes, and all the information that we have available today it must have taken a lot more effort and skill to find anything up there!

I wonder how many SGL'ers have got historic star maps of some description? Here's a picture of the Skalnate Pleso Atlas Coeli (Antonin Becvar, 1962). When I got Burnham's Celestiial Handbooks I noticed that he referred to this map and to Norton's Star Atlas so I went looking for a copy of each. Norton's Star Atlas (I got the 16th Edition, 1973) was easy enough to get hold of but this took a long time to find! Both are Epoch 1950.0 maps. The Atlas Coeli is my favorite map - totally impractical for the field and out of date but great to pore over and as much art as a map - it was printed from hand-drawn originals. I have since had half an eye on other old star maps but will try not to get drawn in to buying any more - it seems that sometimes really obscure things come up for sale at huge prices!

I'm getting to know the Bresser MC-127 Maksutov and one thing the manual doesn't tell you is how to adjust the collimation. I'm not planning on adjusting it but I'm interested to know how everything works. In the first photo you can see three single-nut holes and three slots with two nuts inside them around the back. The single nuts look like they are just to hold the back on, but I can't tell which of the two nuts within the slots are for adjusting collimation (or maybe both have some role to play?), and I don't want to guess! The second photo shows a close up of the inner and outer 2 nuts in one of the slots. Does anyone know?

Wow - so many good set ups! However I am slightly worried by that Williams Optics - there appears to be a huge hand grenade stuck in the eyepiece holder!

They are exactly what I've got!!! They aren't ideal but looking on the bright side they were a present, they've got me into astronomy, and the only way from here is up!

I've got a horizon 8115 and it's great. You can tension everything and lock everything, and I find it really solid. One thing I would say though is I have a weak plastic mounting bracket between my binoculars and my tripod (it came with some binoculars, not with my tripod) and I get wobbles that I have traced to that bracket. I don't envisage ever needing a better tripod, but I would benefit from a solid mounting bracket.

Great post - I've made a note of these tips for reference.

I've got some Boots 8x30's that were a birthday present to me probably about 30 years ago, and some 12-60x70's of unknown make that were a Christmas present more recently. Not the best for astronomy but both were free from my perspective!