Les Ewan

Sorry I meant to type ...'unlike yours'...😵

These are wonderful telescopes ,I have a TAL 2 f8 6" also known as a Siberia which I bought new for £600 in 1992. It has a spherical mirror and 3 eyepieces which are larger than standard 1.25. It has a mains driven equatorial mount and is also issued with a wide array of accessories that would these days be classed as optional extras . Unfortunately lack of space means that its been packed away and is in my sisters house for a few years now (she uses one of the pine storage boxes as a coffee table)! I'm planning to use it soon when I get another shed to store it in, but like yours the mirrors will need recoated. .

I don't think I would risk any modern refractor with projection with so much plastics being used these days. I used solar projection with my Prinz 60mm refractor in the 70's with no problems and the cheap suppied 0.95" Huygen eyepieces which were pretty awful for night time use were a advantage for Solar projection. I have a Siberia 150 TAL 6" Newtonian which was issued with a projection screen in the kit. I did use it for projection often in the 90's without a problem but it must be said these scopes were all metal and had metal bodied Huygen and Ramsden eyepieces. I don't do projection these days my Skywatcher 90mm refractor and Baader filters do most of my solar work.

Cant have too many eclipses shots.😎

A lot of cloud about but still got some good views. These were taken at 10:15,10:35 and 11:45 BST using a undriven Canon 1100D EOS 1/800th sec at 100ISO. The lens was a old 500mm fl M42 thread Centon mirror lens and Baadar filter film.

MY favourite astronomy book is The Amateur Astronomer by Patrick Moore which ran into many additions. I already have the 7th edition (1971) and the 9th edition(1978). I've been after the first edition(1957) for some time and I managed to get hold of one from Ebay. It was a bit pricey but having this lovely book now in my collection is a great delight.😎 It came with the dust cover which is showing 64 years worth of dog ears! The spine and pages show signs the book has been read but not excessively so. The text is fascinating because Patrick wrote it even before Sputnik so information we take for granted now lay in the future. In the text's Mars section Patrick mentions how hostile the red planet surface is,but though sceptical does not absolutely rule out moss and lichen like plant life. The middle section plates are way better than the later editions ,the 1957 Mars map is far clearer and superior artistically than the dot maps of the 1970's editions (which were by then transferred to the appendix. The last image shows how the 1st and the 9th edition Mars charts compare.

Your image is very similar to the one I submitted a few days ago. I was brought down to Earth when Kirkster 501 suggested that it's probably not the jet but 2 distant galaxies in the background. I didn't know about these galaxies up till then but they are there. The orientation of the appendage on your and my images resemble a favourite picture of mine from a old book that I've had for nearly 50 years- Dr HC Kings Book Of Astronomy. I am confused now whether I really did image the jet.

OOPs I seemed have put this in the wrong section ,sorry. Thanks for the likes.

Using a 16" Newt I was able to faintly discern the spiral nature of The Pinwheel visually.😎 Using this scope(driven) I took this image with a Nikon 3200 SLR. Exposure was 30 seconds at 6400ISO it came out quite well (for a SLR at least)with not much trouble but had to darken the background using Fastone

It may have something to do with your X3 barlow, X2 barlows are the usual norm for small scopes. Newts can have a narrow focus profile, your X3 may be mainly designed for refractors or a Cat which have a far wider focus range. I admit I don't really know its just a thought.

Lovely galaxy viewing last night. When upgrading to a driven16" Dob Newt three years ago I had high hopes of seeing the M87 jet visually. I've not been able to do so disappointingly. However using the Skywatcher 400P I manage to image the jet with a 2X barlow attached to my Nikon D3200 SLR and at the very limits of the set up. The exposure was 30 seconds at 6400ISO and a little tweaking using Faststone. I know the image is far from perfect but its amazing what ordinary equipment can do these days.😃

Don't worry such a wonderful collection of eyepieces is worth repeating.😎

I'm very lucky only about 15 metres from my back door.😎 Having said that even that short journey is not without hazard three weeks ago tonight I tripped and fell returning after a observing session and bruised my ribs and done in my kneecap😡. The force of the fall winded me and I spent almost a full minute rolling about the ground at half two in the morning! I don't bounce so well in my old age and the ribs still give me gyp.

You may just need a short extension tube. I have a similar problem with my 400P Dob, Plossls work fine but my Kellners have to be partially extended out from the drawtube to reach focus.

Quite right you can see more with a 3" scope that is easy to use and used often than a 16"scope that's big and bulky and spends most of the time gathering dust!😆

Nice to here such support for smaller scopes.Although I now own a large Dob I don't think I can be precluded from this discussion because for nearly half of my astronomical life I've only used small telescopes.Most of my most vivid memories were with a 60mm refractor. Everyone should start with a small scope,serve their apprenticeship if you like.As long as the optics and mount are of good quality of course and that the user is fully aware of the telescopes limitations. Recently I tried to discourage someone who didn't have a permanent site from purchasing a Skywatcher 16" Flextube Dobsonian despite what the catalogues say this instrument is NOT portable,and if someone struggles to lug it about for long enough disaster is bond to ensue. I suggested the 10" version instead.I don't know if he took my advice,but I think I was right. The trouble is as scopes get larger,bulkier and more awkward you are dealing with diminishing returns. The difference between the 10" and the 16" is only about 0.8 magnitude and 0.2 arc seconds resolution and the difference of 800X and 500X. Not only that sub arc second resolution is very much a rarity and because of seeing conditions 300X-350X is a rarity also so if a scope is capable of comfortably giving 300X that's the main thing. Obviously this doesn't include observers using starter scopes which although much better now than in the past should be practicing on lower powers anyway.

Yes its sometimes nice to just take a few moments to admire the colours and count how many you can see.I like the occasional green flashes.😎 Sirius is actually pure white and appears so when high in the sky in tropical regions.

Its a out of focus star (probably Sirius)and atmospheric turbulence.

Gassendi was prominent rising into the sunlight yesterday evening. A thin layer of cloud but the seeing was fairly steady. Taken through a Skywatcher 400P and Canon 1100D,200 ISO exposure 1/125sec.

Hi Phillip, Oooops! I didn't know that this OTA was non collimateable😩. That kinda sends alarm bell to me also. There must be people out there with these scopes any complaints I wonder.

Yes the set up I meant was the 500mm fl. Incidentally with this scope being such a short focal length it would be greatly enhanced with a X2 barlow for the Moon and planets and perhaps a plossl around the 15mm mark. Its a pity a X2 barlow isn't supplied with all low power instruments like this one.

The scope set up I would suggest is the Skyhawk 114 Newt on the Pronto mount. The main reason for saying this is that when I first saw it I said to myself I wish I had that when I started out. Not only does it look simple and easy to use it looks great. It is a altaz but it has slow motion hand controls. I know many will disagree with this but I would not recommend a refractor especially for a beginner as they are unwieldy and awkward to use . Small dobs have the problem of being a bit too low to the ground. Regular telescopic observations are more encouraged by a comfortable observer and a Newt with its higher viewing profile offers that especially on a decent sized mount. The 114 Pronto is offered by FLO for £180 roughly just over 200 Euro so any money left over can be used for 10X50 bins and a star atlas.

Another star that seems to have changed its name over years is Alkaid I knew it as Benetnasch in the 70's. Regarding the Observers books I have two editions the 4th issued in 1973 which I inscribed 20th April 1974. I have also have the 6th edition which I didn't inscribe which is the 1978 revision. The 6th has particularly beautiful plates-drawings of Jupiter and Saturn by LF Ball. Another original book I have is Dr HC King's Book Of Astronomy(1966) which I've had since 1972 (which is now more than a little bit dog eared). As far as I know no further editions of this book were printed .

The sky cleared for a couple of hours between 1am and 3am,and the seeing was quite good.With my 400mm Newt the Whirlpool galaxy's spiral structure was easily discernible using a 20mm Kellner giving a power of 90X.Other galaxies stood out well too but as the clouds approached I ramped up to a 144X with a 12.5mm Orthoscopic and took in couple of binaries, first Porrima (anyone else old enough to remember when it was called Arich😆1?),and then Izar(which also used to be called something else) Both binaries were well seen Izar the slightly clearer of the two. The temperature was around 4C with a light breeze,this is not that warm but after a few sessions since Christmas in sub zero conditions it felt positively balmy.😎

Cant pretend to know what you done technically I'm chiefly a visual observer, but never ceases to amaze me how often things go wrong in this hobby hardly a session goes by without some sort of irritating mishap. The closest thing to your experience that happened to me is during the Leonid fireballs in 1999(film camera) I discovered later in the darkroom all my shots were hopelessly out of focus.😩