Louis D

21 hours ago, JeremyS said:

So, where's the new Apollo 11?  Living in its display case?

Apparently, this thread cannot die.  It gets reawakened about every year now since 2020.

4 hours ago, tomato said:

Yes, I also disliked the overlaying of text onto your image, especially as it made reference to an object in the image it was obscuring. 
I also note they reserve the right to use any images they don’t publish in future editions, a smart way of building up a free image library. Still, it does mean your image could still get printed.

I've read that if you want to be serious about stock photography, you need to shoot in a square format to allow for rectangular crops in either direction and to leave plenty of blank space around the edges and especially at the top for titles and text.

As you say about the terms, that's the main reason I've never entered any of my non-astro photos in contests.  I like to retain full control of them.

I'd go for the doublet for G&G.  I picked up a used TS Photoline 90mm FPL-53 Triplet for about $800 pre-C19.  While it has very nice in-focus sharpness and is color-free, it takes over 30 minutes to equilibrate just 20 °F (11 °C) warmer or cooler.  Star images are all spiky in focus during this time, which is disconcerting when the seeing is rock steady.  By comparison, my 72ED doublet is good to go straight away with no cooling/warming.

Be aware of how large a 100mm ED or APO can be.  My 90mm is about at the limit of what I'd want to deal with for G&G.

Sky & Telescope was acquired by the American Astronomical Society back in 2019, so hopefully that bodes well for the future of it.

15 hours ago, DaveS said:

I had prepared three images that I thought I might submit, but then I saw that out of five DSO images, three were from robotic telescopes, (Including the image of the month) and one was from Tivoli in Namibia.

So I thought "what's the point?". I don't have a sexy robotic image from an exotic location, just my back garden.

Don't overlook APOD.  I see plenty of images from backyard imagers featured there.  Try to find a novel way of showing familiar objects to increase your odds.

I'm thinking you could image some of the larger nebula regions like NGC 7000 and IC 5070 and take closeups of the Cygnus Wall simultaneously.  Same goes for the Veil Nebula with closeups of the Eastern/Western Veil along with Pickering's Triangle.  M16 is smaller, but has great detail up close.  You could then composite the high resolution closeups with the wide field views.  I'm not an imager myself, but there are lots of nebula regions with small detailed areas and larger diffuse areas.

I guess color scheme wise, it depends on if you want something that looks like a serious scientific instrument, or one that matches your favorite fingernail polish.

25 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

Astro engineering I thought were UK, I've a 1.6x barlow and I've found it good.

A UK brand, but that is either a Japanese or Chinese zoom.

2 hours ago, col said:

It was gifted to me nearly 20 years ago , but cant remember for sure exactly when.  

That makes it difficult.  The Japanese and Chinese versions look superficially very similar.  It could be a late Japanese or very early Chinese zoom.

It would help to know when you bought it and how much you paid for it.  If it was over 15 years ago and cost $100 to $170, it's probably Vixen made in Japan.

However, Vixen discontinued their zoom over a dozen years ago, as far as I can recall.  It's more likely to be a branding of the Chinese made Celestron/Meade/Zhummel/Agena/Astromania/etc. 8-24mm zoom which was itself a clone of the Vixen zoom.

20 hours ago, Zeta Reticulan said:

I believe Meade were acquired by Jinghua Optics & Electronics at one time. There is also a Bresser link somewhere.

Meade was acquired by Ningbo Sunny, but after a lawsuit filed by Orion USA was settled, Orion USA was awarded ownership of Meade.

This probably included whatever NA manufacturing capabilities and warehouses remained.  So, Orion USA is partially a manufacturer as well now.

Indeed it would help to know if you received it as part of a package with a tripod, mount, eyepieces, and finder.  I put together a 127 Synta Mak camping outfit for my grown daughter before C19 hit.  I bought or scrounged everything separately.  Literally every component is from a different manufacturer.

I guess I was thinking of the following alignment option which might not exist within the Synscan Virtuoso GTI mount's software:

North-Level Alignment (AZ Mode Only)
This alignment is similar to a Brightest Star Alignment, except you don’t need to be able to identify stars, you just need to know which way is North.
Set the scope/mount pointing north and level.  Bubble level and smart phone compass, and even best eyeball guess is accurate enough in most cases.
Confirming north and level will sync Az/Alt to 0, 0.
The mount will then slew to the 1st star coordinates from the current Az/Alt.  Accuracy will be dependent upon the accuracy of the north and level placement.

I picked up a used 25mm Edscorp volcano top Abbe ortho, and haven't been all that impressed so far at f/6.  I took it apart and cleaned it, tried all four possible orientations of the two lens groups, and the way I received was the best, so it's just the execution or design.  Perhaps this design works better only at shorter focal lengths.  Since I can see the astigmatism in my observing eye at 1mm exit pupil, I still need to wear eyeglasses even with short focal length eyepieces, so the field narrows even more.  This becomes a royal pain on my manual alt-az mounts.

Notice how the Edscorp isn't all that great across the field sharpness-wise.  I'll have to check sometime at night to see if contrast, stray light control, and on-axis scatter are better than in my other eyepieces in this range.

18 hours ago, SthBohemia said:

Here's a story for yas. A  SCT was sitting outside with its face to the ground. One of the cats looked at it and said, 'mine' an' marked it 😞 Had to take the lens out and give it a wash ! 🙂 

This just reinforces why I love this T-shirt of mine:

Since I had a bit of time on my hands, I went ahead and composited the various AT72ED f/6 zoom images into a single image below:

The individual images are each at full resolution.  You can see how both image scale and AFOV shrinks with increasing focal length with traditional zooms.  However, the varifocal SW has a constant AFOV from one end to the other.

If you open the image to full resolution, you can see how the traditional zooms are very sharp at the longest focal length.  They get less sharp with decreasing focal length.  The SW stays about the same.  However, SAEP grows more severe with decreasing focal length in the SW.  This matches with my experience that the more Barlow extension you use, the more SAEP that gets introduced.

You can see how my two traditional zooms stack up against fixed focal length eyepieces in various images in this post of mine:

If you open up the individual images in a separate tab, you'll be able to examine the full resolution images in detail after expanding them.  Honestly, the zooms hold up at least as well as Plossls, if not better.  They're certainly better than the various Kellners, MA, RKE, and 25mm Ortho eyepieces in those images.

The SW Zoom spanks most of the other eyepieces, but it should for the original price I paid (about $400 in today's currency).  It's more of a varifocal, though, in that it is not at all parfocal.

If that tripod has the plastic leg clamps, make sure to avoid overtightening them because they will crack and become useless.

Another good step-up zoom to hunt for used or NOS is the Celestron Regal Zoom 8-24mm.  It was also packaged with the equivalent Olivon spotting scopes.  The latter come with a rubber grip instead of metal ridges as with the Celestron.  I've picked up multiple copies for about $65 each over the years from CN classifieds and ebay to keep with various scopes or in the BV case.

They do lack filter threads, but the top doesn't rotate while zooming.  This is important if you swap in winged eye cups while binoviewing.  The standard twist-up eye cup screws right off after twisting all the way down, revealing an M37 thread making eye cup swaps easier.  It also maximizes eye relief for eyeglass wearers like me.  I use a pair in my binoviewer.  Some versions zoom smoothly while others I've gotten are stiff to zoom.  They come in several different marking variations depending on which spotting scope they were sold with, or if they were sold stand-alone.

I find them easier to use with eyeglasses than the BHZ.  They're not quite as wide at the short end (about 63 degrees) as the BHZ, but it still feels quite wide.  They're 45 degrees at the long end, so an improvement over the cheap Celestron 8-24mm zoom.  They reasonably parfocal, but certainly not perfect.  The field stop is sharpest toward the middle of the range.  The edges aren't perfect even at f/6, but they're not that bad, either.  The central region is quite good throughout the zoom range.

If you can pick them up for cheap on the secondary market, they're quite a good deal.

Here's a brief review of the Orion on CN.

Yep, that's a GSO dielectric.  I've got them under the TPO and ScopeStuff labels as well.

8 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

If you are thinking about astrophotography then it’s got to be the EQ mount.

You can definitely do DSO astrophotography with a dual axis equatorial platform as well.  In fact, if you're using a 12" or larger Newt, I would recommend to go that route over an enormous GEM EQ.

9 hours ago, Zeta Reticulan said:

These are probably the best value for money. At 390g it's the lightest 2" diagonal I own.

Does it have the restriction at the bottom of the eyepiece holder like the 1.25" version?

I just use SkEye on my cellphone while mounted to the OTA.  After alignment on an object, the map moves with the scope, and I just two finger zoom in to see what I'm pointing at (or close to since there can be a few degree error).  Works well enough for free for me.

• EQs track, Dobs can too with either an EQ platform or alt-az motors and computerized control.
• EQs weigh quite a bit more than an equivalent alt-az mount due to the massive counterweights for a 200P.
• EQs are insanely top heavy once assembled, so next to impossible to safely move around the yard to dodge obstructions unless mounted on a dolly/wheeley bars/etc.
• Dobs are bottom heavy and quite stable.  They can be moved around assembled by penguin walking them while hugging them close to the body.
• The focuser rotates into awkward orientations on an EQ for Newts if lacking rotating rings.  It's stays in pretty much the same orientation for Dobs.
• You need a really beefy EQ mount to handle a 200P that can cost well more than the OTA.