Peter Drew

I'm sure you'll enjoy a decent refractor, I certainly do as I have several including a 150ED and a 220mm achromat but anything less just doesn't cut it for me on DSO's. You can't change physics and light grasp is the name of the game for DSO's

I personally wouldn't buy any refractor primarily for visual DSO observation, they are far too small in the affordable price range. A good setup would be a 10" Newtonian for visual plus a 80ED for grab & go and future AP. 🙂

Thanks for the info Jonk. Just caught it in time, hope I didn't jinx it! 😱

How to watch this live?

I can see a dual purpose emerging, something for the cloudy nights? 😀

But what if you want a decent size telescope? 🤣

What size of mirror are you considering? I've had several OO mirrors over the years and even the lowest spec ones have been good. I can't have just been lucky every time. 🙂

The assembly looks ok so it must just be the adjustment. I suggest trying backing off the central screw and tightening the ones either side of it, small increments. If this doesn't improve matters it may need the reverse, slackening the two outer screws and tightening the central one. What's needed is to reduce any clearance between the shaft and the flat on the focuser drawtube. 🙂

All good advice, however if it's a Takahashi they are indestructible I hear , so a Brillo pad and Ajax are all you need. 😀

Well it's one of our favourites at the Astronomy Centre during our outreach sessions. Keen sighted visitors can usually see Alcor presenting a naked eye double and are then amazed to see in the telescope that Mizar is itself a double. A graphic example that there is more to astronomy than meets the eye!

Yes, I've often used a pair of non click zooms on a binoviewer. I found is surprisingly easy to judge when the magnifications matched. 🙂

Yes I have. None of my usual mounts, not even a Fullerscopes MkIV, was really up to the job of carrying a 12" F8.5 Newtonian so a "Cross-Axis solution seemed a worthwhile project and one that I had been mulling over to try out a motion damping scheme. Being experimental it was floor standing and the mainframe was in 3" x 2" wood. There was no South pillar, just an angled bearing plate. The base was an "A" frame and the North pillar was a braced "goal post" carrying the top bearing. The polar axis was a length of 4" square 1/4" wall steel tubing with stub axles at each end. The friction damping discs were 18" diameter made from MDF faced with aluminium, variable friction was supplied by adjustable PTFE brake pads. The cross-axis was a stub axle on one side of the polar tube carrying the telescope and a counterweight shaft on the opposite side. The main object of the exercise was to try out the damping scheme which worked well, the construction has since been dismantled pending a final engineered version when it comes to the top of the "to do" list. Photos of the mount are currently locked on a defunct computer. ☹️

Too much!

As has been said, give it a try, you may be surprised how little affect it will have on the performance once the damaged area is blacked out, it will certainly be usable. A piece of card cut to the shape of the damage and glued to the corrector should do the trick. It may be possible to obtain a replacement corrector, the ones for Maksutovs of that class are spherical as far as figure is concerned so matching shouldn't be an issue. The overall value will be impacted in its current state of course. Most unfortunate. ☹️

The symptoms suggest , that for whatever reason, your Quark isn't coming "on band". I'm sure you've gone about testing it correctly which leaves the Quark a faulty suspect. Time to contact Daystar I think. 🙂

Very good, now add a central obstruction and see how much performance is reduced. 🙂

All Quarks seem to need experimenting with the adjustment depending on the default tuning position and they all vary. I think it is too early to suspect that it is faulty. Despite the general lack of solar activity there should always be a pronounced surface texture to the solar disc. 🙂

Norfolk and good. 🙂

Not to hand but there should be some somewhere on SGL or Cloudy nights. 🙂

I presume you are planning a binocular? I have built several using Skywatcher 150mm F8 and F5 objectives and never had a problem with mismatched focal lengths. 🙂

It was a Sky90. I bought it to use as a Ha solar telescope and then found out how much a Coronado 90mm etalon cost!. It never saw the night sky in my ownership but a view through it of Jupiter, after selling it to a friend, quite impressed me. 🙂

Am I the only one who had a Tak for more than two years, never used it and sold it?.

The 120ED would be even better. I have two 80mm ED's, a 102mm Flourite, a 127 triplet and a 150 mm SWED. The 150 is my preferred planetary refractor. 🙂

I feel 80mm, regardless of telescope type is a little on the small side for planetary observation. True, it would give nice images but a 100mm aperture would provide better resolution. As far as splitting double stars is concerned, there are doubles for all apertures, just decide how close you want to go and then pick the aperture to suit. Personally, I would go for a used SW 102ED and be done with it. 🙂

Might be a good idea to post your problem on the Solarchat forum as most of the Quark experts subscribe. Welcome to SGL. 🙂