jock1958

5 hours ago, Dean Hale said:

Nice yellow box from FLO. Within a little Tak. I had my head set on something completely different and last weekend read a thread here about the Takahashi FS-60CB which knocked that on the head. It's lovely. Maybe a bit showy but it fits in the home office bookshelf too. Too nice to be locked away in a bag.

Brilliant these little Taks and even nicer with the CQ 1.7x extender 😉😀

1 hour ago, johninderby said:

I think the WO 1.6x is only available as part of the WO binoviewer package? 🤔

I think your right, my WO BV’s came with the 1.6x nosepiece but haven’t seen it sold separately. 

2 hours ago, johninderby said:

Can you say murder Taggart style? 😁

Muuurghduuuurrrr!! 😬

Welcome to SGL and enjoy! 

Great sketches again @mikeDnight I now know why I’ve never seen M33....it’s just too faint for my ageing eyes! 
Im surprised your brilliant work hasn’t gone to print, I’d buy a copy 👍

Excellent and inspirational sketches @mikeDnight Just been out 5 mins ago but there’s an ominous cloud obscuring the view, last week it was too low to discern any detail. Frustrating hobby this sometimes 😩

My journey started in the late 1960’s when my Dad bought me a small push-pull telescope very similar to pictures below.

I used the slots in a garden gate as a very crude rest and had my first wonderful views of the moon and the Orion Nebula, I was hooked after that but didn’t upgrade until the mid 90’s when I bought a Russian 4” reflector. 

I use my Tak FS-60C/Q for exactly same reasons as you @MalcolmM I was out briefly on Sunday evening looking at Venus, Jupiter & Saturn before the freezing cold got to me, but like you say it makes things so much easier when you can nip outside for a quick look when the weather is iffy. 

36 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

Er...isn't that 4 excluding the zoom, Iain??🤭😋😂

Your right Dave, am I bad? Which one shall I delete 🤔 maybe the 14mm Delos or the 24mm Pan? Tell you what I’ll get back to you 🤣

55 minutes ago, UKDiver said:

I can't now recall what made me want to remove the prism. It's not as if there was anything to put in its place. It may as well have been permanent.

I have been considering the Baader route more in light of this hassle. I wondered how to join the Baader prism to the scope without using a 1.25" nosepiece as that would end up using the same Tak fitting.

I have 2” visual backs on my Tak FC-100DL & FS-60 so use a 2” nosepiece on my T2 Baader diagonal, see photo

I had a similar problem with the eyepiece adapter ring on my Baader T2 diagonal (jammed solid) I used very cheap gloves from Homebase which have rubber spots on the palm, did the job instantly with no damage 

I would resist mechanical means if you can as it will inevitably end in tears 😭 

Not counting the variety of eyepieces I use for binoviewing it’s my TV 3-6 zoom for planetary / double stars, TV 14mm Delos for nubulae / galaxies also TV 24mm Panoptic & TV 31mm Nagler for widefield star patterns / galaxies /  nebulae. 

Excellent report @paulastro  I’m jealous!! was all clouded out down here ☹️

7 minutes ago, Don Pensack said:

lens nearest the eye: eye lens

lens nearest the scope: field lens

tube the lenses are in: Upper barrel and lower barrel.  Lower barrel also called the insertion barrel

 

Nice one Don, always wondered what to call the different parts of the eyepiece! 

I thought the arrangement of the moons seemed strange but didn’t cotton onto what I was looking at until later when I read your post. 
I should have realised it was a star (45 Cap) above Jupiter and not the fourth moon, also briefly noticed a pimple on the western limb which must have been Io transiting behind. 
Unfortunately it was all a bit of a rush last night to beat the clouds and watch the Formula 1!  
1 out of 10 must try harder next time 😩
 

1 hour ago, markse68 said:

It houses a huge porro ii type prism for correcting image reversal- it’s a spotting scope really. A very nice one though. No there’s no extra back focus for a diagonal unfortunately so Zenith viewing is a pain- literally! Focus is v nicely machined (well it’s zeiss!) helical that the 0.956 eps push fit into. Ive got a nice selection of the original orthos which I’m hoping to try out tonight if there’s a gap in the clouds. It’s f6.6 so they apparently recommended max 42x but i’ll try my 6mm for a whopping 70x on the double double

Mark

Fascinating looking telescope, must admit I’ve never seen anything like it and the condition looks excellent. I assume you turn the eyepiece holder to achieve focus? 

On 26/10/2021 at 14:49, fireballxl5 said:

Having the FS60CB with Extender-Q already, is there a preferred binoviewer that works well with this scope?

I briefly tried WO BV’s on my Tak FS-60Q, and they do work.....however they make my setup tail heavy, puts a lot of strain on the small focuser and for me defeats the objective of ultra lightweight grab & go so I tend to use them on my 4” Tak FC-100DL which I feel is much more suited to the task, YMMV though. 
 

27 minutes ago, woodblock said:

I think you have to make sure that you are using the minimum amount of heat. I put a dew heater on the secondary mirror in my newtonian and I can't remember the circumstances but there was a point early on where I could actually see heat rising from it through the optical system. Sometimes you can see something similar in the shadow on the wall behind a domestic radiator when the light is falling in a certain way. I use a dew heater controller which has LED indicators on each channel so now when I use it I turn the knob just to the point where the LED starts to come on. I don't think it needs much heat at all to stop dew forming.

Very interesting I didn’t think a dew heater controller was essential I just plug my Dew Strap into an EC Power Bank battery which is clipped to my eyepiece holder on my AZ4 tripod.
To be honest it doesn’t get that warm just a bit warmer where the strap overlaps (11cm) and the cable runs down from. 
My original thinking was to save weight and adding a controller would add complexity, weight and something else to trip over in the dark.

Maybe I need to rethink my strategy and get a super light weight controller 🤔

I’ve always wondered myself but I wrap mine around the dew shield adjacent to the lens 🤔Another thing why does my dew strap get warmer where it overlaps? 
Also do they cause warm air currents in front of the lens? 

3 minutes ago, wibblefish said:

I was only meant to spend about 400-500 on a Dobsonian or something, I can safely say we are double that!

I am hoping to sell my old refactor that this is replacing so that will help though I need to try and work out a price, its only a year old but its got a few dew marks, marring on the dovetail and some tube marks from where the rigel was glue'd! Still have the original boxes and might even chuck in the semi-apo filter I have since I shouldn't need it any more

If it’s dew marks on the lens then that can be carefully cleaned using Baader wonder fluid and their cloths, there’s plenty of threads on here about that or leave it if u don’t feel confident. Cleaning sticky residue off the tube can easily be done, I did it this morning on one my finders using  some tar remover and a bit of brake pad cleaner on a cloth. In my opinion I wouldn’t worry about about marring on the dovetail, it’s fair wear & tear...although I’ve seen people using aluminium strips to preserve them. 
Going rate for second hand gear is approx 65% of original price if it’s in very good nick. 

3 hours ago, wibblefish said:

Thanks, no not yet I am going to see how it goes without them first but I imagine they might end up being necessary, presumably the SW compatible ones would do if needed. Also debating if I go for the extension tube for the tripod but again I think I've spent enough for a little while so it'd only be if it was super annoying to use

I bought some skywatcher ones and they’re fitted to my small Tak FS 60 just now, I find them a bit short & stiff but there’s not a lot of choice out there just now. The Rowan ones look decent but end connections are 8mm and won’t fit your ST 2 (6mm) unless you make connectors to suit. 

I resorted to making my own for my 4” Tak FC-100 and they are much longer and a lot more flexible. 

The 16” skywatcher extension tube is good but weighs a ton and was a bit long for me so I resorted to DIY and made a 5” one out of aluminium tube and used the end fittings that I already had off the 16” tube. I’m pretty sure you can get shorter ones though not sure where 🤔

My original budget when I came back into this hobby (2016) was about £400, I can safely say I’ve blown that figure ten fold 😩😩

Excellent setup @wibblefish I’m sure you will have many happy hours under the stars. Did you get any Slo Mo cables for your Skytee? 

18 hours ago, F15Rules said:

I'll see how this winter goes with no eye cups..the problem is, these Axioms have wide and flat tops, and so would need much wider eyecups than are readily available.

I did consider (Don, don't listen to this part!) cutting down the wide original eyecups from the cloaked units..the original 23mm cap fits fairly well on the 31mm uncloaked unit..perhaps I could cut the centre out leaving the edge rim as an eyecup 😱😁..

But clearly that would be fairly drastic, so I might try looking for something like a Pringles tube plastic cap to to work with..

Dave

18 hours ago, F15Rules said:

I'll see how this winter goes with no eye cups..the problem is, these Axioms have wide and flat tops, and so would need much wider eyecups than are readily available.

I did consider (Don, don't listen to this part!) cutting down the wide original eyecups from the cloaked units..the original 23mm cap fits fairly well on the 31mm uncloaked unit..perhaps I could cut the centre out leaving the edge rim as an eyecup 😱😁..

But clearly that would be fairly drastic, so I might try looking for something like a Pringles tube plastic cap to to work with..

Dave

Bought some cheapo rubber eyecups off eBay for my Halloween Plossls which do the job but can only be described as functional not pretty (they come in all sizes)
Also bought an eye guard extender on a whim from a fellow SGL’r, wasn’t quite sure which TV eyepiece to use it on 🤔 but tried it on my TV 31mm with rubber eyecup folded down and it solved my eye placement instantly, no more kidney beaning and stray light vastly reduced. 

4 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

Hi Iain,

Truthfully, I'm not sure.. functionally, the main purpose of the outer shell seems to be to provide a rotating eyecup effect to allow for more comfortable eye positioning: in a way it's a bit of an illusion, as the outer shell moves up and down as you turn it, making the inner black barrel itself  (which you see now as the outer barrel when uncloaked) appear to rise and fall with the rotation. It does provide a platform to rest your cheek/face on. 

I was actually concerned about how I would be able to hold my viewing eye steady once this "platform" was removed, but in practice it hasn't so far (in admittedly only one short session) been an issue, even with the 31mm "mega east" and it's quite long eye relief.

Cosmetically, the original, cloaked eyepiece is certainly eye catching, and, I think, quite attractive. But it does make an already large eyepiece look very bulky, and adds around a third in weight to the uncloaked central eyepiece unit.

Hope that makes sense?

The great thing is that the process can be reversed in literally a couple of minutes, and with almost zero cosmetic damage and zero build damage.

Dave

Yeh I thought as much Dave same as my 5mm Vixen SLV, it’s a bit of clunky affair but does the job. Must admit I like eye cups as they help with my eye placement, I added them to those Halloween Plossls I bought off you and it does make a difference, cuts out the glare and kidney beaning. 

Hey Dave they look more sleek and expensive now, one thing what’s the purpose of those bits if they only add weight & bulk? 
 

Maybe they could etch Celestron Axiom on the barrels like the Halloween Plossls 🤔