Sunshine

Those are awesome! 

A big welcome and some great images you've captured! have a great time here on SGL.

Deep sky with an aperture of 24mm on an alt az movement, doesn't sound too reassuring, to me. 

It certainly is ghostly, wonderful image!

Welcome to SGL! you picked a great scope to start with, be sure to let us in on your experience with it as we are here to help you with any questions.

For the same reason golfers have several sets of golf sticks, there are many different kinds for different purposes. One for fuzzies, for planets and moon, for astrophotography, grab and go etc.

Which begs the question, why do golfers have so many sticks ( I like calling them sticks as a club is something cave men used) 😆 if they all hit the ball? you can tell I'm not a golfer. 😂

Unfortunately the clouds came on so suddenly I managed to look at Jupiter for a whole 30 seconds 😥

Given it was boiling you’ve still managed a great image with detail, bravo!

Welcome to SGL!

Is this the star pointer pro? if so I had it before and gave it up as it would shake like a tuning fork and the slightest touch would sent it out of alignment.

Aww I got all excited thinking it was a mosaic of the Terminator 😂 

really nice work! 

12 hours ago, powerlord said:

All setup for tonight. And a few weeks with the big boy. Just had it stripped down, mirror cleaned,  recollimated, and ready for some dsos. 🙂

 

Wow that's a big canon of a scope! and I didn't know that palm trees grew in Suffolk 😂

On 01/11/2022 at 07:18, JeremyS said:

Yup, F15 rules 😊

If something dreadful happened and I had to shift my larger Tak scopes, I think I could be very happy with my FOA 60Q. Especially when I look at these drawings: https://www.fzu.cz/~kupco/astro/equipment/FOA60.html

perfect, I'll take your TSA120! I mean not if something dreadful happens, of course but if you'd be happy with the 60 I could find a use for the 120 🤣

Amazing images!

2 minutes ago, josefk said:

...its a hard life 🤣

Yes but some of you just had to mention smaller Tak’s, I was hoping to get away with inexpensive but it seems I will end up dodging flying dinner plates again when the credit card bill comes in. 😂

3 hours ago, josefk said:

...it could be a mount thread - it may be counter intuitive but i wonder @Sunshine if you could make the TSA-102 you already have GnG by looking at a second lighter mount only? Maybe sacrifice high mag steadiness of a heavy mount for GnG possibility (one handed carry)? I've never handled a TS-102 - is it one of the lighter Tak scopes?

Unfortunately the TSA102 is pretty heavy for a 4” refractor, I have handled 115mm refractors which seem lighter if that makes any sense. As for sacrificing steadiness for a lighter mount, most of what I do with the TSA is exactly high power like tough doubles and lunar/planetary so a steady mount is necessary. It seems a smaller scope on a smaller mount is the road to happiness.

19 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

I thought the same as you @Sunshine

Until I got a Tak FOA 60Q….

That just sounds irresistible, the way you put that.

Does anyone else feel as though they need a smaller grab and go scope but find you just can’t as you’re spoiled with the larger scope you use? I certainly feel this way. My 4” refractor on my alt/az mount is my goto scope for those short sessions but, just because a 4” refractor sounds like it is light and airy I can attest they are not all so small and light. This combined with my high capacity alt az mount makes for a hefty duo but I cannot imagine using anything smaller as it will leave me yearning for my 4” and the views it provides. It would be nice to have something I could carry out in one piece and plunk down on the ground ready to look through but at the same time all I would be thinking about is what an object would look like in the larger scope. Am I getting this all wrong? maybe i should get a decent 80mm and see what happens. 

On 04/09/2022 at 10:41, L8-Nite said:

Here are a couple more.  " Story Of The Heavens " and " Story Of The Sun "  both by Sir Robert Ball - 1901 editions.

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Two thumbs up for that awesome coffee mug!

Great topic! 
 

My latest few which are not in boxes in the basement.

12 hours ago, Steve Ward said:

Another take on the "Pillars" image with an overlay showing the immense scale involved relative to us here  ... 😯

If you were ever in doubt as to our significance in the universe here is confirmation .

Credit to NASA and Will Gater.

 

Thanks for posting this, it's funny because as I was looking at this image on the NASA webpage I thought about how big these features are, it's like you read my mind.

Haunting image of pillars of creation, the detail is jaw dropping! for some reason I cannot see the image posted by tomato, I hope I didn't just post the same one.

These are wonderful! I'm so torn between starry and starless, theres something about the starless I can't pry my eyes from. Ah I know why, the starless seems to draw more attention to those wonderfully rendered dust lanes

which seem to show through more in starless version. It seems my eyes capture more detail in the starless version, beautiful work.

Great images!

Clear as a bell out here, just had some memorable views of Jupiter big as life through the wee 4" with GRS front and centre.