Louis D

Here's some APOD moon halo images: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220102.html https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210201.html https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180502.html There are many more that have been featured over the years.

Here's evidence at least the 25mm Meade 3000 went to Taiwan:

If you're using an iPhone, pick up a used phone with the necessary sensors, but older or with a bad SIM card tray. You don't need service to use SkEye.

I'd put polish near the top of the list. If the lens polish isn't extremely smooth, you'll get scatter. This scatter can easily ruin high power, low contrast planetary viewing by placing a veil of haze across the image.

I think you'll find a preference over time for an eyepiece swap to get to higher powers rather than swapping out the eyepiece, swapping in the Barlow, and then swapping in the eyepiece into the Barlow and then having to refocus quite a bit with many Barlows. I'd recommend the Svbony 3-8mm as well. See my write-up below: It will probably be going on special sale price during the lead up to the holidays.

I use that same technique to confirm or reacquire comets hidden in the twilight murk. The latter is needed because I slowly lose sight of them while observing them. It's bizarre, but my brain just averages them out with the sky glow over time as some sort of background noise to be ignored since it isn't moving or changing. It's a good thing astro cameras don't behave the same way.

You could also trying using the SkEye phone app as a push-to finder to help get you in the ballpark. I mount my phone to my scope and then center a bright star or planet and then realign SkEye to that object. I still keep a QuikFinder and RACI finder scope on there as well.

Try decreasing the exposure with the exposure compensation slider. Slide it to the left into the negative numbers. Your camera is trying to expose the dark background sky at 18% gray. Try the -3 setting for starters. That should get you in the ballpark of the correct exposure for starters. Try other settings and see what you get.

The UHC filter would probably help to reduce skyglow so you would get better contrast of nebula against the background skyglow. For star fields or open clusters, you probably want to avoid using a UHC filter because it throws off the star colors and would probably cause star bloat. You can always increase contrast on star fields in post processing by adjusting levels/curves.

I was reading up on your phone's cameras, and near as I can tell, simply choose lower resolutions. It will result in lower resolution images, but, for instance, 2x2 binning at 1/2 the linear resolution (1/4 total pixels) results in 4x as much light gathered per pixel. Give it a try at various resolution levels to see which produces the best compromise between resolution and image brightness. Lower resolution results in a shorter exposure time to get to the same image brightness (density) as at higher resolution. If your mount doesn't track, keeping exposures shorter will reduce image blurring as the Earth rotates under the sky.

Pentax XLs, XWs, ES-92s, 30mm UFF, ES-82, etc.

Being an ultrawide, low power freak, I would recommend getting a GSO coma corrector first. I demand sharp stars from edge to edge while letting objects drift across the field of view. The inherent coma in a parabolic mirror prevents this with even the finest eyepieces. I use the CC during all but high power observing sessions where the small amount of central spherical aberrations gets noticed. I rarely use a Barlow. Get a Svbony 3-8mm zoom if you want high power views in a compact pacakage.

Don't use an ultrawide angle camera lens with an eyepiece during afocal projection photography. As you've discovered, it results in a massive mismatch in fields of view if you do. Try using the wide angle and then the telephoto cameras to see if you get a better field of view match. For night photography, you'll definitely want to do pixel binning with those high resolution imagers behind those camera lenses. You could try taking ultrawide angle images of the night sky using that ultrawide camera. Just mount the camera to a tripod and take some images of different exposure lengths to see what you get.

If you are indeed performing afocal astrophotography and the black area outside the eyepiece's apparent field of view is bothering you, buy an eyepiece with an angular apparent field of view wider than the angular diagonal field of view of your camera.

The Svbony zoom goes for around $120 with tax delivered here in the US. The BHZ Barlow runs about $165 with tax delivered in the US. The BHZ + BHZB combo goes for around $380 with tax delivered. The BHZ alone is $280 with tax delivered. Thus, the BHZ + SZ would be about $400 or about $20 more than the BHZ + BHZB combo purchase. I'd rather have two separate zoom eyepieces myself for that $20 difference.

I like how Vixen couldn't quite decide where to put their logo or even what that logo should look like over the years.

I'm wondering how far out of focus the image is. That's the only way I can see spider vane shadows at the eyepiece. Try racking the focuser end to end to see if you can minimize the out of focus image. If the image gets smaller in one direction, but stops shrinking before reaching sharp focus, let us know which way that was, all the way in or all the way out. We might be able to make suggestions on what to do next.

In my experience, once you have enough damage to get past the typical 2% of insured value deductible, file for everything possible to make it worth your while. When I had a lightning ground strike wipe out my plumbing and multiple electronic devices, I had repairmen and original cost receipts along with photos and videos of the damage to show them. They just took my word for everything and wrote me out a check for plumbing/electrical repair costs and full replacement value of fried electronics minus my deductible on everything. Six months later I found I'd missed that my water softener had gotten partially fried as well, so its $600 repair didn't end up being covered because the claim was closed. It worked post-strike, but at only 40% capacity. That was a subtle issue to track down and root cause once I noticed the reduced capacity. Thus, make sure to assess all damage before claiming. It will be hard to know if anything you have is repairable back to the level it functioned at before. That would depend on finding a repair facility qualified to do the repairs, and it being able to do the lab testing necessary to verify factory tolerances are being met once repaired. Good luck with that. Instead, push for full replacement value as much as you can. It turns out trying to dispose of a fried 50" plasma TV was the most difficult task of all related to that claim. Our trash collector and our recycler wouldn't take it. I finally found a local repairman who would take it for spare parts. He could sort through it to see what was salvageable.

Well, polos are not sold in the US except as clothing, so I have no concept of it's hauling capacity. For comparison, when I go camping, I take my 2003 Chevy Astro van. It swallows up my 8" Dob like it's nothing. Of course, I get 12mpg city and 17mpg highway with it, but with gas prices around $2.50/gal, it doesn't bother me much for the rare times I take it anywhere. For you, finding faint smudges in Bortle 9 skies is going to be the real challenge. If you can find a large globular cluster in the murk, the 8" should be able to resolve its component stars at 200x or higher power despite the sky glow. Planets should reveal more details and the fainter moons of Saturn should be more apparent. You should also be able to split tighter double stars with the 8". The 6" Newtonian is right at the cusp of being able to resolve large globular clusters by way of comparison. You definitely get the outer parts, but the central area tends to still be fuzzy.

Try using a #56 green filter to see if you can eliminate some of the inherent chromatic aberrations at the violet and red ends of the spectrum. That, and minimize the spherical aberration that can vary across the spectrum, generally being lowest in the green part. I have an ST80, but I consider the views too mushy without heavy filtration to be very usable. My 6" f/5.9 refractor is even worse with respect to chromatic aberrations, but a bit better wrt spherical aberrations. Both scopes are best used on large, dim objects at lower powers.

I like the 2" option on the Bresser. I wonder if the focuser has a dual speed upgrade path? I have the GSO branded version of the Stellalyra that I picked up used. Of course, I already had a nice alt-az mount and tripod for my refractors, so this was not a consideration for me. Figure on another $300 or more for a nice mount for the scope. Even though it lists 13 pounds for the weight, it really doesn't feel all that heavy to me when mounting it. That, and my mount (a DSV-2B) has zero issues controlling it. I would say any mount that can handle a 4" refractor would probably work well with the 6" f/5. If you go this route, it makes moving to an APO refractor later that much easier. The only issue I have with the GSO is with the linear bearing focuser. Tension has to be adjusted just right or the focuser tube just drops all the way down. The problem is that it has no preloading tensioner separate from the focus drag tensioner.

I needed to add a 25mm spacer ring between the optics section and the eyepiece holder to achieve the best coma correction for eyepieces focusing at the shoulder, which is most of my collection. This then required 11.3mm more in-focus with the CC in place than without. Without the extra spacing, stars were still a bit comatic in the last 15% of ultrawide field eyepieces.

We don't know where the OP observes from. Regardless, laser sights should always be used with caution. I have to be careful not to blind myself with them when swapping batteries or checking for faults. Even the reflective spot on a wall is dazzling and takes forever to fade from my vision. I won't even mount one to a scope if anyone else is around. I never use them at star parties. I only use them in the privacy of my backyard when observing alone.

Laser sights are made entirely of metal and are extremely durable. You'd have to use a hammer to knock it out of alignment.

I've used a laser sight for observing for years. However, I'm in Texas, not the UK, so I think folks are a lot more relaxed about such issues here. Unless you're aiming it at police helicopters or into the cockpits of landing airplanes from the end of the runway, I haven't heard of any issues. They're also pretty common at outreach events to point out constellations in the sky. I just listen and look for passing planes before I light it up to be on the safe side. Typical 5 mW laser pointers cease to be a distraction hazard beyond about 2 miles or about 10,000 feet. In other words, unless you live directly under or adjacent to an airport landing or takeoff flight path, laser pointers don't pose much of a threat to random planes at high altitude passing overhead that you can neither see nor hear. Laser pointers could be a hazard to low flying helicopters, so be cognizant of their presence and refrain from using them until they are long gone. All it takes is one goon with a laser pointer at a star party misusing it to get them banned for everyone.