iPeace

The offer still stands for you to review the full set.

Thanks for your interest - someone else has claimed this one, for now. I've sent you a PM (personal message) to explain.

Indeed Mike, you're far from done...

Yes, I don't know how they've done it, but somehow they really make this work. Enjoy!

SkyAtlas Epoch 2000.0, Chart number 7 (self-laminated). Canes Venatici, Boötes, Corona Borealis, Coma Berenices, Serpens Caput.

*** SALE PENDING *** For sale a 12.5mm Baader Morpheus eyepiece in excellent condition, boxed as new with all included accessories. £120 includes tracked and insured shipping to UK with signed-for delivery. PayPal (friends) accepted. Thanks for looking. 

For sale a 8mm Vixen LVW eyepiece in excellent condition, boxed as new. £115 includes tracked and insured shipping to UK with signed-for delivery. PayPal (friends) accepted. Thanks for looking. 

For sale a 22mm Vixen LVW eyepiece. It is in good used condition, optically perfect. £130 includes tracked and insured shipping to UK with signed-for delivery. PayPal (friends) accepted. Thanks for looking.

*** SALE PENDING *** For sale a 42mm Vixen LVW eyepiece in excellent condition. £150 includes tracked and insured shipping to UK with signed-for delivery. PayPal (friends) accepted. Thanks for looking.

I recently got a Moon filter, the thinking being that on the one night it's clear enough to have a go, Luna will invariably be just about full and a filter might just make it a bit more fun. As I reported on my first session in months, I couldn't resist trying out the filter, even though it wasn't strictly necessary to my mind. I quite liked it! To my eyes, it truly made good on the "neutral density" promise, tempering the brightness while maintaining colour. For the record, this was with an 8" f/6 newt; I'll be certain to try it with my 85mm f/7 frac as well (perhaps a 'weaker' filter might be in order there). So yes, having tried one, I can honestly say I can see the value of a Moon filter - certainly of the neutral density variety - and will continue to use it with the 8" newt.

I use a Tak prism in my Borg 71FL, which, if I'm not mistaken, has the same focal ratio of 5.6. The views are better to my eyes than with a mirror diagonal - one labelled 'everbrite dielectric' from some obscure firm named 'Tele Vue'. That said, I'll probably keep at least one good mirror handy to swap in whenever doubts should descend.

I've resolved to reduce my pile of astro kit / gear / stuff to that which actually gets used (when the weather actually allows any use at all)... this process of reduction might take a while. I don't get enough observing opportunities (clear sky) for anything to get boring, so I can just cruise the visible sky and be fully content.

Indeed it has - so good to get out again, thanks!

After months of cloud, with only the exceedingly occasional and slightest fleeting glimpses of anything worth observing, this night quite unexpectedly offered me the opportunity to get back into this pastime. I was quite prepared for the clouds to roll right in as soon as the scope of choice was mounted and ready, but it actually turned out to be a great session. Luna was first - that's what the 8" f/6 newt is for, after all - and it was very nice; Hadley Rille, the Straight Wall, and even glimpses of the Davy crater chain. I got to try out my Baader Neutral Density Moon filter, and it does a good job, I like it a lot. In my haste to get any kind of observing done, I had left off mounting a finder - who needs one for the Moon, anyway - but having gotten this far, I dared hope for more. I took Moose (my TV-60) out of the bag and deployed it in its super-finder configuration in order to seek out some favourites. The Pleiades welcomed me back; my beloved chain of M-thirty-somethings from Castor's foot up into Auriga were still there, and I took my time to enjoy each one. Orion's sword had a surprise for me: for the first time ever, two very faint extra stars in the Trapezium, exactly where you've all been promising they would be (not that I ever believed it, of course). Had I not known where to look for them - these faintest of dots - they would not have appeared and I'm only just barely convinced that I saw the F star, but I'm calling it a result. Then over to NGC 457 and to finish, the Double Cluster. By now, despite my polar attire, my toes were ready to return indoors and so I did. It's been worth the wait. May you all enjoy clear skies.

PM incoming...