FLO

One iOptron HEM27 Hybrid Harmonic Drive Equatorial GoTo Mount. Ex Demo Ex demo and used at a show. Good condition, complete with case. Some general marks from usage otherwise A-OK. Open box. Full manufacturers warranty. £1,759.00 £1,583.00 (saving £176.00)

One ZWO ASI 2600MM-Pro USB 3.0 Cooled Mono Camera. Customer Return Developed a fault during the warranty period so was replaced. Subsequently repaired by ZWO and in excellent condition with new cables / accessories. Open box. Full manufacturers warranty. £2,589.00 £2,330.00 (saving £259.00)

One Sharpstar Z4 Sextuplet APO Astrograph. Ex Demo Ex demo - used for review / demo purposes. Good condition, complete. Open box. Full manufacturers warranty. £2,259.00 £2,033.00 (saving £226.00)

One iOptron CEM70 Center Balanced Equatorial GoTo Mount. Customer Return Developed a fault during the warranty period, subsequently repaired and then used as a demo unit at a show. Overall good condition but some markings especially on the dovetail saddle from usage. Open box - scruffy packaging. Full manufacturers warranty. £2,698.00 £2,428.00 (saving £270.00)

We have a lot of people requesting an ETA for the Sky-Watcher EQ6R-PRO mount. They have left Synta's factory in China, so are en route. Sky-Watcher's UK importer expects them to reach the UK early-mid March. We did, however, recently receive a small number. They were auto-allocated to existing customer orders. There was not enough to fulfil all our customer orders, but the March delivery is much larger, so the remaining backorders will be cleared then. We appreciate your patience 🙂 Steve

One Pegasus NYX-101 Harmonic Gear Mount. Customer Return Customer didn't get on with it. Good condition, complete with cables / PSU. Open box. Full manufacturers warranty. £3,095.00 £2,785.00 (saving £310.00)

One Sharpstar SCA260 Aspherical Cassegrain Astrograph V1. Ex Demo Ex-demo, used for review and demo purposes. Has been bench tested and collimated and is all good to go. This is the earlier v1 model without the handles. Open box, signs of use. Full manufacturers warranty. £4,289.00 £3,645.65 (saving £643.35)

One Unistellar eVscope 2 Digital Telescope eVscope 2 with Back Pack. Ex Demo Ex demo - used by us here at FLO. Good condition, open box. Full manufacturers warranty. £4,298.00 £3,959.00 (saving £339.00)

One Paramount MX+ Robotic Telescope Mount Paramount MX+. Open Box This is an open box / factory second mount with some significant marks / blemishes / discolouration on the red anodising on the sides of the mount. These are purely cosmetic and the mount is otherwise in excellent condition and working fully as you would expect. It comes complete with the hand paddle, power pack and accessories as well as counterweight. Grab a bargain! Full manufacturers warranty. £9,895.00 £7,916.00 (saving £1,979.00)

Hawke Endurance ED binoculars need no introduction. They are highly regarded, and the 10x50 and 12x50 models are popular choices for astronomy. Hawke has, however, recently introduced a new 7x50 Endurance ED 'Marine' binocular that is noteworthy. The blue colour won't appeal to birders. But for astronomy... Well, I like it 💙 Steve Hawke Endurance ED Marine 7x50 Binoculars

Hi 🙂 There isn't much we can add to what has already been said. Others in this discussion have correctly explained the colour fringing you see is only the usual 'blue bloat' associated with fast, compact, affordable ED doublet telescopes. (True apochromats have different specifications and/or cost considerably more). The solutions suggested by others - filtration and post-processing - are also good. We agree. To be fair. All things considered. Evolux telescopes are popular and perform well. HTH, Steve

As requested 🙂 The Duplex Moon Atlas with: Two separate sections for users of refractors with star diagonal and reflectors Based on a high-resolution digital model rather than photos or drawings 38 charts of the whole lunar nearside with consistent shadow setting Eight additional charts of areas of the lunar farside which earthbound observers can see in favourable libration conditions 1261 named main features, including all named craters, mountains, valleys, hills, and rilles of the lunar nearside About 6000 secondary craters to 10° of the nearside‘s rim All impact and landing sites of human spacecraft ever to touch the lunar surface Alphabetical index of all features and sites

No need for concern. All is in hand 🙂

Sky-Watcher has released a new price list, effective today. The percentage increase varies from product to product but averages around 7-8%. We want to assure you: Existing customer backorders are unaffected. We will absorb the increase. We will compare our prices (at least weekly) and then reduce them where appropriate. If you notice a price lower than ours (and the retailer has stock), you are welcome to request a price-match. Thank you for your understanding. Steve

Stuart is both emailing and posting, so to avoid confusion, I'll also post our latest response and position here. We like to help, but currently, we do not check the specification of the filters we sell (I am not aware of any retailer that does). We trust manufacturers to QC their filters. This is a popular filter, and Stuart is still the only customer to have expressed concern. He is happy with his filter's real-world results. His concern is based only on a negative report posted by someone on a US forum. We monitor all product returns. If we notice a problem requiring us to equip our workshop for onsite testing, then we will. I.e. we installed an optical-bench back when we noticed problems with some triplet telescopes. But, all indications (positive feedback and zero customer returns) suggest the filter performs well. Customers, including Stuart, are pleased with the results obtained using this filter. We have already offered to accept Stuart's filter back for a full refund. We can also replace the filter, if he wishes, for his peace of mind. HTH, Steve

The Askar ColourMagic 6nm OIII/SII Duo Band D2 is a popular filter. Until today, none of our customers has expressed concern of any kind. And, so far, nobody has returned one. So, speaking as a retailer, all looks good. Currently, we don't feel it is necessary for us to check a manufacturer's specification using a spectrometer. If that changes, then we will 🙂 We will follow this discussion with interest. HTH, Steve

Yes. It is a good choice for imaging 🙂

Maybe. We have the 1.25" Antlia 3nm CaK Herschel Solar Wedge with 35mm Prism & CaK 3nm Solar Filter, but that is designed for imaging. Not visual. We also have the 1.25" Lunt White Light Herschel Solar Wedge. HTH, Steve

This Starfield Herschel Solar Wedge has all the features and performance associated with a modern Herschel wedge: Herschel optical system Suitable for visual and imaging Fully multicoated optics CNC-machined chassis Adjustable brightness Ceramic heat tile Twist-lock accessory holder Translucent diffuser for centring Sun And an attractive price 🙂 Starfield 2" Herschel Solar Wedge V2

They can be removed, but only because what is assembled can be disassembled. Removal of the focuser and dew shield for travelling isn't a feature. HTH, Steve

@Whistlin Bob, @bomberbaz is right. The 45mm eyepiece (any 45mm eyepiece) is too long for your Newtonian telescopes. The resulting exit-pupil is too large - this is why it didn't perform well. A 30mm eyepiece is a much better match. HTH, Steve

This month. If you are thinking of the Alt-Az mount, then you probably already know it. Alan white mentioned the version, already on the market, branded SkyTee. The tripod looked familiar when I set it up to be photographed. It is like the William Optics wooden tripod sold (years ago) for their now-discontinued EZtouch Alt-Az mount. I wouldn't be surprised to find it is the same tripod. The parallelogram binocular mount, however, is an all-new product. HTH, Steve

I just remembered, I should mention our new parallelogram binocular mount (shown on the right of photo 1). Designed entirely in-house, with help from some beta-testers. Not on our website yet, but it will be soon. I'll start a separate discussion when it is added.

Stubbed toe? 😁

Strictly speaking, 'orthoscopic' means to produce an image with correct and normal proportions. Back in the 1880's Ernst Abbe was asked by Zeiss to design an eyepiece for microscopy that would provide maximum brightness and not distort the view so accurate, reliable measurements could be made of a specimen. He designed the 4-element Abbe orthoscopic eyepiece. Traditional Abbe orthoscopics are some of the brightest, sharpest eyepieces, with excellent colour correction. Especially when made with modern glass and optical coatings. But they have a narrow field of view, around 44°. KITAKARU designed their RPL series to have a wider 62º field of view (65º in the 40mm) whilst retaining orthoscopic characteristics (freedom of distortion, very high contrast, flat fields and excellent colour correction). They achieve this when used with telescope f-ratios around f6-7 and longer. Even when used with an f5 Newtonian, performance is maintained almost to the very edge of the field. Whether they are modified Abbe orthoscopics or modified Plossls is moot. This is not a secret. We name the manufacturer and country on our product pages. HTH, Steve