Peter Drew

It's expensive!

Yes, this does appear to be a Bird-Jones design of Newtonian, commonly considered not the best for high magnification performance.

I was fortunate to be born with two decent eyes. Good enough for my astronomy.

There are many designs of pads that contain a jelly that can be microwaved for a few minutes. The heat lasts for several hours, hang one round your neck suspended inside your jacket.

Same here unfortunately.

Glad I'm concentrating on solar observation these days.

Had a look at both comparing views through a 127 Mak, 8" Dob and 30" Dob. Very turbulent seeing so rather poor images, specially extrafocal showing "flowing water" syndrome. Could make out some blurry markings and light albedo areas but difficult to hold a good focus.

Yes, best for quite a while!

I use steel tripods in the main as they come with the telescopes and I find them adequate. If I need a "serious" tripod in either wood or aluminium I build my own as there are better designs available.

Nice images Charl. Just come in from a visual session, best solar seeing for some time, the spicule layer is very sharp looking, pity there's so little surface activity as the texture is very well defined.

Thanks for that Olly. I was fortunate to see Bob McIntyre ride several times at TT's and domestic short cicuit events. Had he not been killed in 1962, the races against Mike Hailwood would have been epic. I last saw him on the 285cc Honda at Mallory Park.

@ollypenrice. I'll probably never take a photo worthy of printing on anything but my racing motorcycling interest goes back a long way, what period did the book cover?

I have a developing cataract issue but on any average to good clear night I can still easily see M31 unaided despite being 77. Plenty of experience though which helps.

Very good basis for the argument in favour of the justification for the telescope purchase.The wine cannot be used and retain it's value whereas the telescope can provide a lifetime of enjoyment. And cheaper !.

Your logic is correct but the operational field of view can be increased for a given solar telescope by using a larger blocking filter. Be aware though, that this does not increase the "sweet spot".