BGazing

As someone chimed in when I waxed lyrical about my first light with Quark, prepare for H-alpha madness. Days are long and nights are short, timely purchase. I'm kinda surprised your prominence-surface spread is 3 clicks...but whatever works! I viewed that GIANT prom today on -5 and it showed the plague region nice, too. Also, tried it on AYO and not on tracking mount and...hey, it works, magnifications are not really that high. So do not be afraid to put it on manual altaz if necessary. Also, what you will see is that the thinnest cloud can wipe out all detail suddenly. Seeing and transparency is much more important for H-alpha than for white light, IMHO.

Hi Andy, Buying your first refractor is going to hurt you long time, simply because you are going to buy more of them in the future. You currently have 5 inch Mak (I used to have it), 6 inch newt and want another scope. I guess you have the mount to go with those scopes, hopefully at least in the EQ5 class. I do not know how good your seeing is, whether it supports bigger aperture, but here are my two cents: If you go for SCT, go for 8 inches, perfect size unless you are into bying a hefty mount. If you go for a frac, 100mm ED is a great instrument, but will not give you wide fields to compliment your mak. It's a fantastic scope, though. Whatever you get you can get rid of 6 inch newt, it would be redundant and, IMHO, has the worst optics and mechanics out of all the scopes mentioned. It does have one inch over Mak but plenty of coma at low powers and is less sharp at high powers. The problem is that 100 ED is too close to the Mak, but then again, Mak is better if you need to pack it for travel on some ultralight mount. Visually they would perform pretty close.

Seconded.

But just to be clear, what you are describing is most unusual. I would absolutely not expect it to show anything remotely interesting when unpowered for 5 hours. I am completely baffled.

Don't know what to say...if your Quark is on band at your ambient temperature at the moment, it is unusable at any other temperature and you cannot heat it or cool it properly in order to perform. Contact your dealer and/or Daystar.

No power could not possibly be better than -5. -5 and then switching off and having a short time span where it is better than -5 means that -5 setting is too high for that particular Quark and I would ask for replacement. As the etalon cools or heats the view will not be uniform, and as it further cools the fact that there is no heating meansthat you can not control its temp until it rests at the ambient temperature. My point being, if turning off at -5 results in a fleeting moment of picture being better (less than 1 min) than its -5 setting is too high.

Seeing best proms and surface detail at -5 suggests that this is your Quark's 'on band' setting. Seeing them best when it is unpowered (as opposed to -5) suggests that 'on band' is outside of the temperature range of your particular Quark. Ask for replacement, but NOT before verifying that unpowered is indeed better than -5. Make sure it is. Heating brings etalon 'on band'. Turning the knob represents a range of temperatures and one of them should be 'perfect' for your etalon to come on band.

I hope we can agree that the level of protection needed for checked-in luggage and something that is in the luggage compartment of one's car is different. Now, whether checked-in luggage is the option in the near future...that is another issue.

Looking at your signature, I would say that a soft bag is sufficient. Small catadioptrics and the assorted equipment can fit into a good photo bag or photo Rucksack. Hard cases are normally not necessary, we all tend to baby the heck out of our equipment, though.

I bought mine with TS more than a year ago (FLO was not yet selling them). They also advertise with 'we test it on the Sun before we ship it'. Well it arrived with what appeared to be a smudge on the back red filter. It took me a while to figure out that the best setting for it is -5 (all the way CCW). Honestly, I expect that 'testing on the sun' would also involve figuring out where the best setting is, as on the other settings the Sun appears featureless. My Quark has been serving me well and it is one of the best purchases I have made, completely transformed my observing patterns. I am sure a double stacked 80mm Ha Scope would be better, or a more expensive Ha back etalon...however... Here's a link with my experiences

If you want to dim the image a bit try single polarizing filter and put it on EP. Quark is already polarized do by rotating you may dim the image and keep the resolution instead of stopping it down. I think at f/32 (which is your 7.5) the f is good enough for the Quark to operate as it should...

If you turn the power off the view will not change much immediately. But it will degrade and become featureless soon. It takes longer for it to cool than to heat normally. I tried stopping from 71 to 62 in my 5.6 refractor (have a stopping ring). This stops it to 6.42, so overall f27. Image gets dimmer and a bit more contrasty, I'd say, but not sure if due to bigger f or because the image is dimmer and easier to look at.

@BillP thank you for the review! You wrote also that "Looking at the prism surfaces visible from the ClickLock Eyepiece Holders or visible from T2 Cap Nut Connector of the MaxBright II, one can see that the reflected light from the 7-layer multi-coatings on the prism's optical surface (called reflex color). This color is not what is usually seen on astronomy equipment, which typically is anywhere from purple-blue for single coated optics to green for many multicoated optics. According to Baader Planetarium this more unusual color on the MaxBright II is the result of their specialized coatings that are specifically tuned to have the highest possible transmittance in the same spectrum where the human eye has its highest sensitivity (green light). This was done is an effort to make the MaxBright II's views as visually bright as possible." Would that mean that the transmission is lower in the reds, including H-alpha? Lower as in lower than in typical budget binos?

Well I have 47 mm clicklock extension on my Tak which was bought beause with a T2 diagonal I was 'neither here nor there' so I had to take things on and off for reachin focus when doing white solar with barlow, this was perfect. If you want something further up your tube you may use something like this (chose the longer one, 28mm) https://www.firstlightoptics.com/baader-planetarium/baader-hyperion-finetuning-ring.html but it is by no means a must, especially on 80mm scope. Also, it is recommended not to screw the filter in tightly, so as to allow it to expand if necessary under load.

R-Sky is great, never a problem with them, fast and cheap shipping and good products. Solar hood is a godsend.

ED 80 will be fine. Telecentric barlow in the Quark will bring it over f/30, which is enough. Internal ERF should be sufficient for ED80 and, as per Daystar, on 120 too. Putting it further up the tube (ahead of diagonal on extension tube) would help. You need to use something that cuts BOTH UV and IR: UV/IR cut, Neodymium (IR-cut version) or 35nm. 2 inch diagonal is pretty much a a must if you want internal ERF, as this is the place where you mount your filter in 2 inch diagonal it will meet the light cone earlier. Any portable phone charging battery capable of supplying 2A would do. Unfortunately, they all tend to cut off when no power is necessary. So does Celestron Power Tank... Make sure to test it for the 'best' setting. Do not assume that 0 setting will be on band. Mine is on band fully CCW (-5).

Andrew?

I tried 212x (that's 3.5mm) on Jupiter only once when the seeing was superb, and then only to enlarge some details at the expense of losing color. It was not bad but the view became almost monochrome. Below 0.7 exit pupil Jupiter quickly becomes bland. Mars, on the other hand...

Thanks...I see it now, bizarre that it is not available from the drop down menu, or I am not seeing it...

@JeremyS congratulations! You sourced it through@FLO but I do not see it listed...so they ordered it on the side for you? Is that Az-EQ5 you put it on? If yes, how do you rate that mount?

My DF mags are as follows: Moon in good seeing - 185x, if superb 212x, if iffy, 150. Jupiter 150x, Saturn 150-185x. Mars 185-212x. Venus what the seeing allows but not more than 212x. 260x on Moon if seeing is stupendous. I have not tried 250x on Mars, did not have the EP at the time. At 185x my floater population is still not intrusive. At 212x it is borderline acceptable. Except for the Moon and Mars, other Solar system targets get dim for me with additional magnification. Moon can take it but then the floaters kick in. My 'good' seeing caps at around 200x, so it is not I am missing much normally. My more common 'not great not terrible' seeing is around 150x.

Congrats! If I understand correctly, the dew shield is 'shallower' than that on the DC and DF? I used dew shield on my Tak only in extremely dewy conditions, normal usage does not require it.

Ludovic, hi. I got the stabilizers. I did not have the opportunity to test them in the field. The thing is, they sort of protrude a bit from the trusses and my current shroud was made too tight so I was afraid I would rip it. I widened the shroud a bit but a new one is on its way from Heather. I think that the issue is not the stability of the poles per se, but structural - the upper cage is light and the trusses are light so looking lower naturally invites a bit of a sag. But that was to be expected, seriously I knew it was super lightweight. I was getting better with collimation. Basically, what I did not know was that I have to 'register' laser with TWO out of three screwes for repeated registration and to then 'register' the ep the same way, ensuring that focuser does not introduce tilt. I checked the laser by rotating it through Borg focuser and it did not flinch, so Farpoint laser is indeed as advertised, well collimated out of the box. But one has to make sure that one registers both the collimating laser and the EPs in the same way. Attaching secondary - I got better at it. It is still not super fun, but that is the price for taking it on and off every time. I have to say that during two tests I had on M42 in February the scope performed well and that most of the problems were induced by me not understanding the 'registering' bit or not securing something firmly and then wondering why it felt wobbly. Alkaid was supposed to debut at our dark place in the galaxy season...cue Covid quarantine. Fingers crossed I will be able to take it out in May under some dark skies...

Uh oh...

Oh yes, I remember there was a horror story or two in there... Looks like they are not THAT bad recently.