Sunshine

Totally agree the Telrad is a hulking ugly brute of a finder but, it does the job and the reticle is perfect, I wish they would finally redesign it to be smaller and more aerodynamic.

I cannot produce a family portrait but, I do have a sweet image of the business end of mine, lol. Now we are just indulging in Tak porn.

10 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

I think this might be a TSA thing? Perhaps they use it to differentiate TSA's a bit, like with the green letter instead of blue? I note that my TSA 120 is slightly creamy in colour compared to some of her brethren:

Now that you have them lined up like marching soldiers, notice the rather striking difference in colour between the focusers.

21 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Now, this is the sort of detail I love when we get into deep Tak discussions 👍🏻😊

Lol, I couldn't scribble down one equation describing the propagation of light through anything, like some here can but, my eyes work well so I'll run with that 😆

This is all very interesting, the tube color on your Tak Floutite seems to be a brighter white, comparing to my 102 which is slightly more or a cream tone.

Back on topic, has anyone snapped up the 102 from the OP? doubt it is still available.

Here our $1 and $2 coins are always referred to as the Loonie and twoonie, because of the loon bird present on the one dollar coin. There is no loon on the two dollar coin but we still call it the “twoonie” lol, the twoonie is a pretty coin, I think so. When introduced many years ago the middle would occasionally pop out as the metal alloys had different expansion rates but it was fixed.

Great image!

1 hour ago, jetstream said:

Mike I respect your opinion greatly.

But its a different ball game over here. Bringing that scope inside from -20c etc will cause moisture problems.

To be clear, the forecast was -11 but feels like minus 21. Having said that, I did follow what Mike said and thankfully had no issues, not a molecule of H2O formed on the lens, I checked for moisture before bringing it in, there was none. Before bringing it in I capped the objective with shield extended in order to trap cold air and once inside it did not fog up at all after peeking inside the cap even after 20 min. Maybe if it truly was -20 ambient temp it may have fogged up? I was actually quite taken aback when it didn’t fog up at all. What surprised me most was I skipped the step of bringing it into my cold storage straight away, I brought it into my +23 degree home. How it didn’t fog up the least bit is beyond me. My 115 Eon would fog up in slightly warmer temps. I’ll leave that up to the dewologists here on SGL to figure out.

This is beautiful indeed, the Trapezium is so well exposed, it is easy to blow out I suppose but, you've done a wonderful job of preserving it!

Well the stars have not aligned for me, in the time I left the scope out to cool, maybe an hour or so, when I eagerly stepped outside, the sky went from clear to clouded!!. I saw [removed word] ALL!! as my British friends here would say, except for one star, a 5 min look at Polaris as it was in somewhat of a clearing. Twas still hazy but i did manage a couple of minutes on this one star, doing a quick star test with my 5mm XW revealed beautiful concentric defocused rings, a beautiful snap focused Polaris and, a cool blue beautiful colour. Otherwise, I was back inside in only 10 min as the sky completely clouded.

Scratch this attempt, better luck next time.

17 minutes ago, jetstream said:

The wife made me a "scope coat" out of an old quilt years ago and with a velcro'd opening. I used this for my 10" for years. I would wrap the TSA102 up really well to slow the warm up down and maybe leave in a cool basement or somewhere like it.

What I have done in the past when rarely out in the cold, I would move scope from outside quickly into my cold storage in basement to allow for a gradual warm up. This should be ok, I guess, I just

wasn't sure if refractors with spaced elements were higher risk of water droplets forming between elements.

thank you!

Having said that and, having little experience with refractors, I will ask what may be a silly question. When bringing my scope in from the cold, can dew form between the triplet elements and cause issues? 

That's it! all this Tak talk has me turning myself inside out for first light. It will be -11,  feeling like -20 but, I am now getting ready to take my scope out, wish me luck!

Nice images, all in one night? a productive night!

Oh my gosh, we say same here I just didn’t make the connection as it made no sense to me, I thought $5 or five thousand. One is preposterous and one is too high so I thought maybe it meant something else lol.

I must ask, what is a “fiver”?

I say YES IT IS! (haven't had so much as a peek through mine yet) but I'm Bias lol.

Welcome to SGL!

16 minutes ago, dweller25 said:

The “S” has a sliding dew shield, the “N” does not.

I see, I guess that makes mine an S then, i wasn't aware there were two  types.

Thanks! carry on, Jeremy, I know your fangs are out 🤣

Interesting! what is the "S" designation mean? aside from "super" which I'm aware of.

14 minutes ago, Andy350 said:

Thanks Brown Dwarf, I'm not sure if it makes a difference but, my scope only has 6", very inadequate 🙄

 

Absolutely not inadequate,  a 6" dob will provide beautiful views of such an object, even in my previous 4.5" refractor, on a night of good seeing it is beautiful and contrasty. 

Yes you are correct, M13 is best enjoyed in summer in the constellation Hercules, I can't recall what magnification i enjoy this object most with. When referring to M13, i was just picking one object of many which one can go back to 

every season for a lifetime and enjoy just as well. Your dob is well suited for such an object as M13 as it is faint and your 8" has good light grasp for a fine view of it.

On 05/02/2021 at 10:55, Bongo said:

This is very true. I've only had my first (half-decent) scope since late last year and still, every time out I get a bit better at using it, see a bit more and enjoy it a bit more too. I assume this will plateau at some stage, but stick with it and have fun improving!

You will find that there won’t be a “plateau” as in your enjoyment of the hobby will begin to diminish afterwards. Just like every one of us you’ll find it just as enjoyable spending a night under the stars in ten years as it is now, that is the wonderful draw of this hobby, the beauty of the night sky never gets dull. M13 will be just as breathtaking on your thousandth time seeing it.

Pardon my meddling with your photo, especially not being an imager but, as a photographer I had give it a shot. You've done an impressive job considering the scope definitely not designed for taking such an image!