Louis D

Here's the link on the ES website. MSRP = $79.99, current "sale" price is $69.99. No mention of a pulse feature. I find it hilarious that an ES made finder doesn't come with an ES style finder foot. For comparison, Telrads cost between $39 and $54 here in the states. All prices do not include sales tax for those of you used to having VAT silently included in prices. I'm seeing £65.00 at one UK dealer for the ES, making it about 10% cheaper than in the US (about $63 after conversion) once you knock off the VAT for an apples to apples comparison.

The OVL and WO binoviewers are both Norin BVs. I would go with the OVL on price and having eyepiece locking collets. Not perfect by any means as they will tilt undercut eyepieces, but they tend to keep eyepieces centered better than thumbscrews. Budget for a good quality Barlow with removable lens element to reach focus in some scopes. On my Arcturus BVs (nearly identical to the OVL), I screw the nosepiece from a vintage Meade 140 2x Barlow onto the front for 3x to reach focus in Newts and fracs. A vintage Celestron Ultima, Orion Shorty Plus, or Parks GS Shorty 2x (all the same Japanese made triplet shorties) also works very well as-is. Either come up regularly here in the States on astro classifieds for about $45 to $65 each.

You did not mention your storage options, transportation options, where you'd be observing from, mobility issues that might affect lifting/bending, etc. Are you comfortable learning the sky or will you insist on electronic finding aids? Just about any scope will show the moon and planets. To see the planets in more detail with require a larger aperture. Nebula also tend to benefit from more aperture. Don't overlook open and globular star clusters. They don't look that exciting in images; but to the human eye, they are like well lighted, twinkling diamonds on black velvet. Again, aperture allows the smaller ones to be resolved instead of just appearing as a fuzz patch. There are all sorts of 6" to 8" Dobsonian mounted Newtonians out there that would get you started for the least outlay, leaving more money for eyepieces and other accessories. Since you're in Utah, I suggest checking with US retailers like Orion USA, Astronomics, OPT, Telescopes.net (Woodland HIlls), High Point Scientific, and Agena Astro to see what's in stock at the moment. Avoid buying astro gear from big box retailers, Amazon, and ebay until you really know what you're doing (~5+ years in the hobby). Trust me on this.

Stargate: Atlantis (TV series) covered this in an episode. The original inhabitants of Atlantis in the Pegasus galaxy leave on a ship thousands of years ago at just under light speed for the Milky Way galaxy (apparently due to their hyperdrive being damaged in battle). They age very slowly thanks to time dilation. Our intrepid Earthlings are traveling between galaxies thanks to various borrowed alien technologies when they detect a ship traveling at near light speed. They investigate. They bring the Lanteans up to speed on what has happened since they left, and they make the decision to hitch a ride back to Atlantis and order the Earthlings to vacate the premises. I won't go into what happens next to them.

Yes, I recall going round and round on the S@N first impressions of the Omegon Panorama II eyepieces.

What are they using to transfer torque to the mount from the motor via friction? Is it some sort of hard rubber wheel? If so, will replacements be available as the rubber hardens and degrades with time?

SVBONY 68° Ultra Wide Angle 20mm pair: At f/10, they're not going to be quite as sharp across the field as at f/18 in my setup, but they won't be too bad. Microscope eyepiece pairs also work well, but require some adaptation.

Try holding your cellphone camera up to the eyepiece to get some idea of what's possible. I haven't tried it yet, but I've read on here that some folks are having success when showing dim objects to young children this way.

Don't hold you breath waiting for it, you'll likely pass out. It's a case of I'll believe it when I see it.

Tighter eye relief than the 12mm T4, larger than the 13mm/11mm T6, older coating technology. They're still popular over here in the astro classifieds.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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