Sunshine

On 13/04/2021 at 20:38, Commanderfish said:

They are really nicely made and finished rings and light too. I don't know.the diameter for the TSA I'm afraid.

I ordered the 114mm rings on Aliexpress, they're on the way!

42 minutes ago, Dark Vader said:

The moon is an amazingly beautiful thing to observe. I've been out for an hour the last 3 nights looking at the moon but tonight I set up a smartphone mount with the 8" Dob. First few attempts with a phone camera...

Fantastic phone shots!

That is one BIG eyepiece! I myself have not used one but, I am curious about such low power wide field views through such a long FL eyepiece. Unfortunately, I do seem to have some astigmatism

which is worse at low powers.

Binoculars are a great way for a beginner to begin exploring the night sky, most of us still use binoculars in tandem with our scopes. Binoculars offer huge field of views and, under dark skies they show an ocean of

stars your eyes cannot see, they serve up a view of the milky way which is breathtaking under dark skies. I would recommend a decent set of binoculars any day. I recall being 12 years old when my whole family would

head out to a dark sky site, mom and dad would lay back in folding chairs and they would both sweep the milky way for ours while I used my scope. Not a moment went by without me hearing them say "oh wow, so beautiful!"

others will weigh in with binocular recommendations if you choose to buy a pair as I have an old pair and I'm sure new ones are better.

Very nice image, I write this during a short break from my session with the moon, fantastic seeing tonight and, earthshine is spectacular.

51 minutes ago, markse68 said:

First time i’ve seen sunspots- 3 of them in a group with swirly bits around them! It wasn’t intentional but the seller gave me a filter when i picked up the Tal so now i have a reason to set up a scope on sunny days- which is nice  

Mark

This is an interesting tripod you have, I have never encountered one.

wonderful moon shot!

Really enjoyed reading that, I know exactly what you are talking about because on nights of good seeing I find myself amazed when looking into a star field and the most

exquisitely faint stars begin to come into view. One, then another, and another seemingly fainter and fainter. Many times I have wondered about just how many I could see if

I allowed myself more time with a particular star field, I think giving our eyes the chance to see is the only way to truly reach the limits of our telescopes. 

6 hours ago, Cleetus said:

Here you go. Note the Dec axis the wrong way around!!!

Now I'm all jealous about that beautiful mount and tripod!

3 hours ago, Commanderfish said:

You're damn right!  I may hate Tak green but the whole scope?  Some things are just sacrilegious.

 

Lol I would never do such a thing.

3 hours ago, paulastro said:

No need to be upset Jeremy.  You could just paint the whole scope white and then the handle will look fine 🙂.

I like the red Primaluce rings, I can spray paint my 102 red to match but, I'm afraid the strongman for Takahashi (Jeremy) will surely hire a hitman to take me out.

The website above Astro  https://www.astrobuysell.com/  is where i would start, don't worry, I'll help you out with that, I am on several classifieds daily looking for that rare scope. 

Don't rush to buy anything new just yet, be patient, a used scope will get you more for your money. You will hear from me again soon with links to scopes which will suit you better

than a Nat Geo scope. Tonight I will have a close look around the classifieds.

On 12/04/2021 at 07:21, Commanderfish said:

I've just changed the Tak Clamshell to some Hercules aluminium tube rings. 

I really like those tube rings, I would love a set for my 102 if they make them, where did you get those from? thanks!

UPDATE

I see they're on AliExpress, there's a 100mm set, does anyone know if these would work for my TSA102? I know 102 refers to the objective but I'm not sure what the 

exact tube size is.

8 hours ago, scotty38 said:

Come on now, surely that's the same as having a Ferrari in anything other than red.... Sooner or later you're going to regret it 🙂🙂

I have to disagree, I really like those shiny, seemingly well fabricated tube rings on that Tak, I would like a set! 

3 hours ago, AbsolutelyN said:

This is my 250-PDS in tracking last night - with star adventurer behind it. Watch for the drop in sky brightness at 39 seconds ... caused by streetlights turning off at 1:15am. 

 

Nice! I just love those tracking time lapses, they really highlight the mechanics of the cosmos (not sure of that makes sense) lol.

Enjoyed that report a lot, welcome back after a long break!

The fact this can be captured by amateurs in their back yards is a testament to both how far the technology has come and, the dogged determination of the average stargazer.

Most impressive!

38 minutes ago, Sky-searcher said:

Turn for the 150p tonight. Misses took the picture at dusk while star testing after collimating. Turned off the garden light pollution as it went dark. Tested the newly acquired ES 24/68 on open clusters, fuzzies & nebula. Impressed with the eyepiece & I had forgotten how good the 150p is as not used for a while. Punches well above its weight.

Can we agree this is the nicest back garden ever! I wouldn’t need the brick house part, give me that area and I’m happy all summer.

Welcome to SGL!

Welcome to SGL! you've picked the best second hobby to go with your coffee hobby, it will help you stay up through the wee hours, a perfect marriage of hobbies!.

On 08/04/2021 at 06:59, Luke said:

“Just seen the new prices on Celestron Edge HD scopes,” said Space Hopper in a recent thread about price increases. “Open mouthed...........the 8" has gone up by a over third !!”

I hope I am not tempted to sell mine! Let me see, how much did I pay. £1100! And about £100 less for the reducer than its current price. Gosh, just look at the date of the order confirmation. I bought the Edge 8 NINE YEARS AGO! But I can’t sell it, can I? Admittedly, I have not been using it much. I did love using it for a bit of lunar imaging, but I don’t image any more. Well I can’t leave this scope just sitting there, especially now it just got more expensive!

So out comes the 8 inch SCT, still in pristine condition. But there’s a problem. I want to use the HEQ5, something I have not done for years! Although the little light bucket goes a treat on my trusty Giro mount, I am dead tired from the previous, spellbinding night with my 10 inch dob. I fancy some help tonight locating things. But can I remember how to set it up?

First challenge is to line the mount up with Polaris. Now, is it this star here, or that one there? Oh, I’ll just pick this one and hope the mount works it out when I align the stars! So off we slew to Arcturus. No wait, mount, you’ve shot past it. And then some. My goodness, you’re a long way off, mount, and I thought I was bad at navigating!!!

And it didn’t help that I’d forgotten to line up the Rigel Quikfinder for the scope – it was clearly some way off for the SCT, perhaps I’d last used it on a frac. I centred what might be Arcturus. I say centred, but my 40mm Tele Vue Plossl was not the ideal precision tool for this task. Might this be Capella? Off to Phad next – this star, maybe?

Well, HEQ5. Are we in business? - “Alignment Failed.”

 

Oh. Now it comes back to me. THIS star is Polaris! How could I forget? Well, I’d forgotten because the pencil markings on the patio had long gone showing me where to place the tripod legs. The handset’s previous date was in 2016! This time I take no prisoners with the alignment (apart from still using the 40mm Plossl). This is definitely Arcturus. And I even take a mo to line up the Quikfinder.

Capella, check! Phad? Most definitely! Done! Well, HEQ5, what say you? - “Alignment may be inaccurate.” I take it as a compliment.

I pop in the 17.3mm Delos and punch in M51. The HEQ5 places the Whirlpool dead centre. WOW! The view is stunning. I think I’m seeing spiral structure! Though I did eat two Curly Whirlys earlier. Through the night, the SCT serves up tasty views of galaxies. The Cigar was fab. That and M51 were better, I felt, than in the dob the previous night! Perhaps it was time to collimate the dob again, not that I’ve ever managed to get it that sharp at higher mag. And I was throwing more power at the galaxies, stepping up to a 12mm Delos I think. The barred spiral NGC633 was nice too.

Good on galaxies, the SCT was glorious on globs! I’d forgotten that we had upgraded the focuser to a Feather Touch and it felt easy to bring things to a sharp focus. The best view of M13 – with an 8mm or 10mm Delos, I think, again tops the dob – the higher mag I am pretty sure is part of it and I find using the goto mount very helpful here. I can leave a higher power eyepiece in and not worry about that making it harder to find stuff.

Lots of stars resolved in M5. M10 a bit faint, but sweet. M12 looks good with averted vision. M3 is impressive. M14 improved later in the night. M107 is tough, but possibly down in the the light pollution a bit. NGC7006 is barely visible. Caldwell 47 in Delphinus (nice to see the dolphin back!) is small and faint with the 12mm Delos, but well worth looking at!

 

 

At some point I suddenly remember that I had been struggling to find the Eskimo Nebula of late. There it is! So it hadn’t gone fishing after all. I check out the Cat’s Eye. Looks to me a bit like Blinking Planetary minus the blinking. M27 the Dumbell Nebula, big ‘n bright – love it!

I figured I’d leave open clusters for another night, possibly with the 0.7 reducer to widen the views. Though I couldn't help myself, I had to check out the beautiful Owl Cluster. It looked splendid, one of my best views of it, I would say! The SCT has a nice sharpness to the views that seems not a million miles away from my refractors.

Enjoying the sharpness and Feather Touch, I fancied trying some double stars. 17 Cygni, I see a large blue and a small yellow or red. 61 Cygni is tighter, both stars look yellow to me. Is one of them whiter or bluer? And I really like 95 Herculis. Close and similar sized. Last up for the doubles: Sigma Cassiopeiae. Now this is a much tighter pair! With the 17.3mm Delos in, it first looks like a star slightly out of focus. With the 10mm Delos, it looked like it was on the brink of splitting. With the 6mm, I had a definite but blurry split.

It had been a fab evening again. But there was one final thing I wanted to try. Howz about the Veil with an OIII filter? I seemed to recall OIII was recommended for larger apertures, but nothing ventured, nothing gained! I wasn’t sure how to punch in the Veil in the handset, so panned around the area. I couldn’t make out anything, alas.

Gosh, I am really tired now! That's three nights out of four. I enjoy finding stuff manually with the dob, but tonight I have really appreciated the goto in my tired state. And the 8 inch SCT had reminded me of what excited me about it in the first place: compact and light for its aperture, it packs a surprising punch. Just like the very first SCT we owned, the unassuming, but very capable C6. I don’t plan on selling the 8 any time soon.

This image is very interesting, it has a soft nebulous effect to it which i really like.

Chiming in from across the pond I'll say that in my several star party outings over the years I do see maybe two or three AP scopes at each star party. On one occasion about two or three years back when the planets were parading across the ecliptic one after another a fellow gave me as much time as I wanted with his Starfire 130. He was imaging with another scope at the time, the view of Jupiter was jaw dropping, I mean just exquisite, I felt like I had to convince myself it was real and not some fine sketch. From then on it sort of became a holy grail scope to me, I'm sure a TOA 130 would put up an equally beautiful image but, I have not had the pleasure of looking through a TOA130. 

Beautiful!

On 04/04/2021 at 09:55, JeremyS said:

According to the Anthology of Visual Double Stars (Argyle, Swan & James) “there is currently no one alive who has seen the companion of Procyon. The last person to do so was Charles Worley 1935 - 1997”

Ok well this is a whole other level of futile, if that's the case then why even mention this double at all? I may as well have been signaling aliens with a flashlight wearing tin foil on my head!

It's a wonderful image!