Peter Drew

Yes, very happy for others to bring their own telescopes. 😀

The Astronomy Centre will be open all day for this event. Eclipse glasses will be handed out for safe naked eye viewing for the keen sighted, various telescopes with white light and Ha facility will be in operation as well as large format screening. A link from elsewhere will be used if cloudy. 😎

Looks like a good start. The surface "granulation" is beginning to show through as should be expected with a DS "like" performance. There is little else to see currently, conditions significantly affect the end result. 😀

As already said, very small tweaks are all that it is needed. Make sure that the star is central in the field of view when assessing the collimation. When this looks good check again at high magnification and fairly close to focus. Polaris is a good test star, doesn't move much and is of a suitable magnitude. 😀

I don't think there is such a telescope, I think it's the user that's serious or not. 😀

A chap inherited an old violin and an ancient oil painting so he took them along to an antiques expert for a valuation. After due deliberation the expert said "the good news is that you have a Stradivarious and a Rembrant, unfortunately Rembrant made rubbish violins and Stradivarious couldn't paint to save his life". 😀

I use binoviewers exclusively on my Ha solar scope. The aperture is 150mm operating at a native F10. I use a standard SW Barlow lens screwed into the nosepiece of the binoviewer. This arrangement with 40mm Plossl eyepieces produces 150x magnification which equates to a 2000mm diameter image viewed from from 1.25m. The images are bright with very high resolution achieving my long sought "holy grail" for solar observation. 😎

My legacy will be the Astronomy Centre, all of my equipment will stay on and hopefully continue to be useful long after I am gone. 😀

Funnily enough, I've really never thought about it, just seems part of life to me. 😀

Pictures 6/7 show a Schmidt-Cassegrain visual back. it screws on to the rear cell of the telescope and is essential for accepting a diagonal and/or an eyepiece.

If you can purchase it without selling your 9.25 then give it a go, you can then sell the "loser". Good 9.25 lunar images are hard to beat. 😀

As probably known by now, my main interest is outreach, I think a deal breaker for me would be whether NV devices could be displayed on a screen for group rather than individual viewing and whether the images can be recorded. I fully appreciate the luxury of a stand alone system. 😀

I was just defending solar scopes as not necessarily being "one trick ponies". I'm actually a big fan of EAA and have done a significant amount in the past and plan to do more in the future. The majority of my EAA "observing" was done with a 12" SCT at F3.3 coupled with a Watec 120n+, the results were far better than my 30" Dobsonian used visually. I've not had the benefit of trying a NV unit but my images seemed fairly comparable. I stand to be corrected, but the main advantage with NV seems to be real time imagery instead of the 10 seconds delay of video. The price difference is considerable. 😀

My 150mm solar telescope can do Ha, CaK and continuum. Undo 3 screws and it becomes an excellent night/daytime normal telescope. 😀

Difficult to avoid considering the travel distance from China. They will be dry spots and would probably blow or brush off. The good news is that they will have no effect on the performance, compare their size to that of the secondary holder and you can't even see that in use. 🙂

Nice pier. 😀

Sounds to be a great Society Carole and a role model for others. Well done! 😀

Worth considering if it was a choice between astronomy or no astronomy, but for imaging , a chainsaw would be a cheaper option. 😀

I think both makes have improved significantly over the years. My impression is that Meade, having entered the SCT market later than Celestron, is simply just playing "catch-up". 😀

What matters most to me is that all aspects of amateur astronomy are maintained/increased in the future. 😀

I've always preferred the Celestron package and they have in the past always had the edge on the Meade optically. Before I'm "shot down" I must confirm that I haven't used the Meade "Edge" series which enjoy a good reputation optically. I have four Meades, 8", 12" and two 16". if Celestron had made a 12" or 16" I would have gone for the Celestron. 😀

I have a 8" Meade and a 8" Celestron, I would buy the Celestron. 😀

One could buy the Skywatcher 150ED and have around 1K to put towards a suitable mount by comparison. 😀

One telescope to do everything always results in significant compromise. Two telescopes, one for each area of interest mitigates this considerably and usually ends up cheaper in the long run. 😀

If you use a piece of tubing, deep enough to clear the boss on the bottom of the mount casting you can bolt directly through the top face of the hollow block, no brake discs needed. 😀