Peter Drew

Not guilty!, this was before my move to the land of hills and sheep. A later advert was even more zaney, if I can find a copy I'll post an image. 🙂

Feels like it these days Mike! I have had only one and made a 10" Newtonian for it, worked well. 🙂

Astrosystems of Luton of which I was a founder director were the Vixen importers. Rob Miller was responsible for the Vixen imports. Opticron eventually took over the dealership following Rob's move to the USA.

Despite having a 30foot dome I'm still running out of space. I don't think anyone has ever built an observatory that was too big. 🙂

It certainly is, the RA shaft is 4" stainless steel! I have mounted it on wheels as it's not a grab & go. 🙂

Looking forward to trying this Rob Miller special. 10.25" F7.something Newtonian with small secondary mounted on an optical window, no secondary spider. 🙂

I think there is a slight misconception regarding spherical optics of long focus Newtonian mirrors. Both short focus paraboloids and long focus spheres are difficult to make. If you want 1/10 wave performance you still need a 1/10th wave sphere. 🙂

I have an 8" F8 planetary Newtonian built round a 1/20th wave OOUK optics set and a 12" F8.5 Newtonian with optics by unknown maker but tested and described by Wildey as being so perfect that nothing could be done to improve them. I did at one time have a 12" F15 achromat objective with which I was going to make a folded refractor but sold it and bought a 16" SCT with the funds. 🙂

A plastic tube thick enough to be suitable would "weigh a ton"! Better to consider a truss tube?. OOUK rolled me a couple of aluminium tubes, bare with no drillings some years ago, might be worth a call. 🙂

RA?,DEC?, mount?

Is this a "TP" record?, 6 external and 1 internal. 🙂

A simple structure devised by a simple mind! 🙂

Guilty as charged. 🙂

One for solar would do me but I seem to have a lot more. 🤔

Is this a new or pre-owned telescope? 🙂

There seems to be very little difference between the performance of high and low end binoviewers for solar observation. I have Revelation, William Optics and Denkmeiers and each gives a good result. The most important aspect of binoviewers is collimation. 🙂

I use a binoviewer exclusively on my 150mm Ha solar telescope. I have to use a 2x Barlow, lens only, screwed to the front of the binoviewer to reach focus, this results in a minimum magnification of 150x with 40mm Plossls which I find ideal for high resolution views. 🙂

Looks good to me as well. 🙂

That's a big shed you have in the garden! 🙀

Just re-read this thread and realised it was a different type of mask enquiry. still worth making an aperture mask for a large scope. 🙂

Aren't you the lucky ones, we have 4" of snow on flat areas, plus drifts and plus no power for 24 hours so far! 🥳

I made one for my 30" out of thin aluminium sheet, three holes provided me with a choice of 12" F10, 10" F12 and 8" F15 pseudo apochromats. 🙂

I would have thought that it wouldn't be too difficult to "repair" the slippage? The adjustment thumbscrews on the top of the mount appear to bear down on the altitude axis. If you remove them and place a piece of nylon or similar to the bottom of the hole the screws should renew their effort. Similarly, PTFE or similar washers placed between the outer thumbscrews should improve that action. If the binocular is slipping then it must be unbalanced, that too should easily be addressed. 🙂

I had a Rolex once but some joker at the factory had misspelt it as Timex. 🙂

I have had a couple of the small Questars run through my hands. Yes, they are good but I do have a very good Meade ETX90 that will give one a good run for its money performance wise. I suppose I would look at a Rolex watch more often than I would a Questar but fortunately I need neither. 🙂