Alan White

Nice to read that you had a good view and enjoyed yourself Vin, I too was out and enjoyed similar views and conditions. I was using my fine ED103s Vixen, which I highly rate, it’s a stonking scope and a bargain used. Mars is truly giving this time round, not a dust storm in sight......thank goodness.

Me not seen either its not in StellaMira scopes drop down?

You were lucky with the weather, its grim down south. I try with my older iPhone 6s, but its struggles a lot, even on Lunar. Perhaps when it needs replacing, which may be soon due to battery life, then I might take a step in the right direction. You carry on doing what you are doing, its looking a good start with a phone. Some in my club use phones for images and turned some quite decent results.

How did you see through the cloud and rain one asks.... or were you a lucky soul and had a gap. That is quite something from a phone camera.

Nice find, I truly am in love with my 3.4 HR.

Astronomy can be quite the tonic, it is and has been for me. Welcome back, good luck with the Astro Photography.

There you go feeding the want monster list, A prism diagonal may just have slipped onto the list now.

Interesting comparison between the two scopes. I truly enjoy my 10" OOUK and use it a lot, but it needs time to cool and of course then comes on song, but often the seeing is the issue with the larger aperture. In steps the ED103 Vixen and a smaller lower magnification view just pops out and sings. A case of horses for courses and prevailing conditions for sure.

Funny enough Mike, I did the same thing on the same night. It was damp, misty and a smeared sky but had some good on/off seeing. Sat for an hour with the Vixen on Mars and what an hour it was. did a terrible sketch myself, nothing like your fine rendering. Also sat at 7mm with the 7 XW, tried more, but was over doing it for the conditions.

Does anyone here use the Pentax range of fine cameras and run the Astrotracer function inbuilt? If yes on the first count, then how successful is this function? Presently just pondering my Digital camera direction as a keen Mirror-less user (Olympus), but Pentax is on my list, so when the Astrotracer function was noted, it piqued my interest.

I think I need another Frac so I can post up something new, Does that sound reasonable excuse for Mrs W? Hmmmmm.......

16mm Masuyama, when did that sneak in Mike? Missed that one.

Not the kerfs, love them, hate undercuts with a vengence. It was the field stop, but I still wanted a 12.5mm and don't get that in Pentax XW. The field stop is near sharp, much like others, I was being unfair in my initial rejection. Just need a some cloud free to give it a test run. if only the postie had turned up at 1am before I viewed Mars this morning 😉

I like your thinking Mr S, very devious The problem is that I blab to Mrs W on pending purchases and worse still, it would get her DIY jobs hopes up if said training were attempted!

Postie Pete has been with a grin and a comment of 'More Telescope Bits then'... he knows me too well. The awaited new 12.5 Morpheus, the one I was not going to buy, then did. Of course its clouded out and grim.

Pentax + Vixen = another marriage made in heaven, @JeremyS

Ah TakaSmiffy make fine scopes 🤣

I never will, we were lucky, just had a smoulder with our one.

Chris, Great Name. My only concern would be that it will suddenly catch 🔥, just like all those tumble driers did!

So Takahashi is very common..... not starting an argument on scopes here, I must add.

Thanks, I was curious about the name and potential links. I did wonder if it was Mr Smith in UK Parlance?

Or Significant Other of course.

I watched a Pentax vision presentation (cameras) this weekend, it was raining hard and I was sat in the camper. Anyways, Pentax is lead by Mr Takahashi, who speaks very good English by the way. Anyway made me ponder, is Takahashi a common Japanese family name or are the companies linked somehow? Anyone know at all? Dear Google was not much help when I looked.

Nice to see it, thanks for the link Jeremy, made me look at the BAA site for an answer on changing to paper based membership from electronic one.

Guess what, I have decided on neither in my initial list of this post, does sound familiar? Going for the Morpheus 12.5 for glasses friendly and sits better in my steps of magnification on both of my scopes. Funnily I tried one as a loaner a while back and bought the 10XW, but knew I needed a 12.5mm. Final call made, placed an order with the forum sponsor 😁