Peter Drew

Due to the virus lockdown I'm at home with a ST80 for solar use coupled with a 60mm Coronado front etalon. It's ok but the SA lets it down overall, I will replace it with my SW ED80 when "out of gaol". The focusers on either are nothing special but I wouldn't spend much extra on a ST80. 🙂

The worst case scenario is that you buy the Esprit 120, a proven performer, and it doesn't quite come up to the parameters you aspire to. There must be a queue of imagers waiting for a 2ndhand Esprit to appear for sale. You would take only a small financial hit but would have satisfied your current dilemma. 🙂

Of all possibilities it seems most likely to have been a fireball. Believe me, in the moment of excitement to be so fortunate to witness such an event, details like brightness, speed of motion and colours can easily be mistaken, exaggerated or forgotten when trying to mentally recreate the scene. 🙂

I have two 16" SCT's bought 2nd hand, an OTA only for 7K and a complete LX200 version for just over 5K, this one was on a "Gigawedge " that retailed at 1.8K at the time! 😀😀

A common British bird often seen in large flocks. 😀

Fairly rare chance for me today as well. In the clear patches the seeing has been quite good in Ha with the surface texture well defined. First filaprom for a while too, was hoping to witness a prom lift off. Still trying to get used to the tiny 50x image which is the most I can get with the 60mm scope and Baader zoom. 😀

There should be plenty of focus travel with or without a diagonal and any eyepiece. You should be able to see the whole of the Moon image with a 32mm or 40mm eyepiece. The point of focus is quite precise, it's quite easy to overshoot, try doing it slowly. 🙂

I double stacked a PST years ago, there was a marked change in the contrast of surface detail so quite impressed initially. After the WOW factor wore off a bit there was something about the image that didn't quite suit me. I think it was as though the image was frozen rather than live, whatever it was, that and the cost put me off. Instead, I put the money towards building a PST "mod", now that really made a difference! 🙂

I was thinking along similar lines to the problems caused by American date format, longitude and latitude order of insertion etc. I have a 8" Intelliscope but have not had similar problems in the past. I have also only used the handset data. The other potential problem area that springs to mind is battery power, the scourge of electronic wizardry. 🙂

Is there a difference between the way Intelliscope and Stellarium input their coordinates?

Well Lunt wouldn't recommend a Coronado DS etalon and vice versa. If I was in the market for a solar scope again I would buy a Lunt and their own DS etalon. I would buy the tilt tuned version though as less to go wrong and a TTDS Lunt gave the best 60mm Ha view I've ever seen. 🙂

I've seen no evidence that unmatched (even different make) etalons suffer any inherent degradation. 🙂

I met Ernie, I knew Dudley well and Rob was my closest colleague for many years I'm pleased to say. 🙂

The gears would have been made "in house" at Fullerscopes, probably by Ernie Elliot or latterly by Rob Miller so can be expected to be nice and concentric. More than can be said for some modern equivalents! 🙂

There appears to be adequate provision for adjusting backlash on either axis.? 🙂

With regard to collimation, with the star out of focus as shown, if placed in the centre of the field of view, the bright disc and the black circle should be concentric. If they are the collimation is ok. Moving the image off centre san give the appearance you've shown. Don't attempt collimation unless necessary as it's quite tricky with this telescope. 🙂

@ andrew s. Higher magnification does increase the contrast due to the darkened background making the stars look brighter, I think it would be a similar case for both X apertures assuming they were the same. 🙂

Interesting telescopes with some good features specially weight and transportability. Slight eyebrow raise at the three vane spider, this will produce six diffraction spikes and the secondary size looks a bit skimpy, on an instrument aperture usually purchased for DSO's I would have thought that maximum field full illumination would be an important consideration. 😃

Visually no, aperture X is aperture X regardless of the focal length. However with the same eyepiece a short focus X will give a brighter image than a long focus X as the latter will be providing a higher magnification. At the same magnification the brightness from both X's will be the same. I'll leave the photography issue to the imagers, can of worms and all that. 😆

Well that's imaging for you!, however when the struggle produces such fine results it appears to be worth it. I'm glad to be a "spectator". 😃

Excellent image, probably your best so far! 😃

Reddish-orange in both. 🙂

Looks like a complete failure to me, still safe but needs replacing to restore the performance. As JamesF says, golden opportunity to upgrade to a PST mod. 😃

The best 60mm Lunt view I've ever had was with a tilt tuned version with a double stacked front etalon that I'm pretty sure was not factory matched. You end up tuning them yourself for best results. 🙂

We are at the Astronomy Centre near Todmorden when not under lockdown. 🙂