Sunshine

A beautiful image!

Welcome to SGL! enjoy the forum, lots to see and learn here 

Undercuts are nonsense gibberish phoey! i hate them

Sorry to hear about that, I hope whomever took it dropped it on the bridge of their foot and hobbled for a while. A few years ago I sent a 60mm Lunt to Arizona for a pressure tune retrofit, Lunt sent it back priority with

signature required status but it seems the courier delivered it on the steps of my front porch without even ringing the door. It sat there for hours till I got home with a gaping hole on the side of the box, I was livid considering

I had a small bag of driveway salt stolen off my porch in the winter, yes a $3.49 cent half used bag.

Wow that's beautiful! has an otherworldly vibe to it.

Saturn is the crown jewel of our system, seeing it for the first time is special.

My favorite YouTube channel, a wealth of great videos.

Enormous! wonderful capture!

5 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Great report @Sunshine. Good to hear the TSA proved its worth 👍🏻

Yes! i wasn’t sure what to expect with the dob having 4” over the 102 but the Tak wasn’t intimidated by a measly 4” 😂

This one I was looking forward to, having pitted these two against each other on double stars I was eager for a planetary side by side. Both scopes had hours to cool as my test was conducted at the very end of my observing session where I had a great time with both. With a focal length difference of 400mm between them I found that my 5mm XO gave a magnification of 240x for the dob and the 3.5 XO gave 233x for my 102 which provided an identical image scale in both. Before I made any notes I had a great time just looking at Saturn through both scopes, giving my mind and eyeball time to adjust and allow myself to pick up details. Seeing was great tonight, stars in my 102 were wonderful unwavering laser cut discs no matter what power I used. Before training the scopes on Saturn I made sure the dob was collimated and it was, as good as it can get with perfectly centered rings on both ends of focus. As for the 102, well I’d say it is collimated well, yes (I hope Sarah didn’t hear that).😂 kidding aside I dove right in and eagerly put eyeball to eyepiece and began making notes. 
 

Let me begin saying Saturn was a glorious view in both telescopes, razor sharp edges and Saturn’s moons were the most delica little diamonds. Saturn was a fair bit brighter in the 8” than the 102, this I expected but curiously this did not translate to more detail, it’s moons were brighter but going back and forth I would not pick out any more detail in the 8”, apparent details were identical in both. Whatever fine  details the 8” was capable of teasing out may have been lost in it’s significant higher brightness compared the the 102. There was what seemed like a ghostly inner ring visible in the dob which I couldn’t find in the 102 but I have to research Saturns rings to make sure it was not just my eyes. One thing which was obvious was contrast, my 102 presented a darker background and Saturn was set against that darker sky more naturally, as though I was seeing it in 3D on approach while in the dob it had a flatter more cartoon like appearance with colors being more muted. This is where the 102 set itself apart, Saturn looked richer and more natural in my 102, it had a warmer temperature and just seemed more natural, like if I were seeing it in the flesh from a passing ship. This subtle darkening of the sky combined with what seemed to be more natural and inviting color time made Saturn appear more “real” in my 102, more pleasing and inviting. It was like two images of Saturn were taken and the one from the 8” dob was a RAW file versus a processed file seen in the 102. 

Some may be asking why I haven’t directly compared particular details and described their appearance like Saturns obvious equatorial band, Cassini’s division and such, I initially thought I would get into individual detail but these differences mentioned above were so gleaming that I figured it is enough in itself. Maybe if my dob had a perfectly figured Zambuto mirror it would have been different outcome? who can say, I have what I have and make no mistake, both telescopes provided razor sharp images with fine detail but the 102 provided a more inviting and pleasing view, I can only describe it as a finely adjusted view, it was creamier? yes that’s a technical word I would like to use. 😂

6 hours ago, josefk said:

Nice description @Sunshine  I’m in the process of considering the same two scope approach and what you describe you observe is exactly what I would like to see. Nice. 👍🏼

I’m realizing that from a grab and go point of view a 4” refractor and an 8” dob make a great combo, one for those fuzzies and one for more precision type observations like doubles. 

On this night of fantastic seeing (just came in for a snack break) with both scopes out I am practically seeing everything! though I am spending  a lot of time on doubles tonight.

17 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

All set up ready to go tonight. This is at 9.30pm

I’m right behind you! though I have four hours till sunset 🥲

4 hours ago, RobertI said:

most of the time of the time these days I just use the frac as it’s so quick and simple. 

Interesting point as I find it even easier to carry and set up my 8” dob than my 4” refractor. With its conveniently placed handles the dobs two parts can be carried each with one hand and they’re relatively light when compared to my vixen mount/tripod. The well balanced handles on the dob make it a breeze to carry.

Welcome to SGL! a great entrance with a wonderful image!

9 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

Great report those $2 refractors do pull their weight.

Yes! they’re on sale now, two for $3 😂

Tonight I decided to take out my only two telescopes (most here have many)  for looking at fuzzies and doubles. Going from scope to scope was a lot of fun and made me feel like I was carrying out some sort of scientific experiment which called for the use of a lab coat while out there in my back yard. 🤣  A lab coat will be my next Amazon purchase, my neighbors will think I’ve lost it which is fine with me. My 4” refractor was for the doubles and my 8” dob for those fuzzies, it was a good time. At one point I had the crazy idea of pointing both telescopes at the same target, Al Fawaris (Delta Cygni) a variable triple 165ly away with about five times our suns diameter. Delta Cygni can be challenging as they are tight with drastic differences in size and magnitude between primary and components.  Seeing was good and because I have limited eyepieces I wa swapping them around in order to find similar magnification in both scopes considering the 400mm difference in FL between the two. 
 

Let me say that my observation is mine alone giving the countless  variables to consider when comparing instruments, I cannot speak for those with finer mirrors/lenses and varying bortle skies. What I did find after observing this double for a good while was that my 8” dob will be my scope of choice for fuzzies and my 4” refractor will continue to be my choice for doubles, no questions or doubts here. One can speak of the importance of aperture but my dob simply could not present this double with the clinical precision of my 4” refractor. When examining through my dob the image was indeed brighter as I expected, but not nearly as clean, I found it was affected by seeing more and I spent more time finding focus which i could never be satisfied with, I found. Splitting them with my dob was more of a challenge as the individual stars were fuzzier, spikier, or troubled if you will, finding the gap was harder but I could see it indeed but just not as easy. 
 

When moving to my refractor I was a bit shocked, actually, here was the image of a double I had been searching for in my dob. Two wonderful pinpoints set against a sky which was visibly darker than the dob and with an unmistakable gap between them, they were not as bright as they appeared in my dob but they certainly compensated with their laser like outlines and seemingly steadier appearance. After this comparison I stopped aiming the two at the same targets, I shouldn’t have set them against each other in an unfair match for my amusement. They each have their strengths. This is not to say I won’t ever point my dob at a double again because at lower powers it does present stars brightly and with wonderful diffraction spikes but when it comes to higher powers and those tight doubles my refractor remains a scalpel. I will no doubt continue putting them against each other in pointless competition but that’s part of the fun. 

Doubles bonanza tonight!

4 minutes ago, ED Splitter said:

Looks like something the colonial marines use. 
 

Love Aliens references!

4 minutes ago, Vroobel said:

Finally my heavy ATM fork mount in action. All, excluding the 10" Bresser OTA, made from scratch at home/garden. A big harmonic drive is a heart of the mount. 70+ kg load capacity. 😁 The OnStep firmware @ FYSETC S6 board and the Astroberry @ Raspberry Pi 4 8GB do the job for me. It's not easy, but now I have 0.1 arcsec precision. Yesterday I checked its 1270mm focal length with the M57, tonight I'm going to beat it with 2x Barlow ED. Canon 6D + IDAS LPS-D2. 

Fingers crossed... 🤞

 

That is one serious looking piece of gear you have there, like something out of an Austin Powers movie! i hope it works as planned.

Beautiful image! so contrasty and your post processing is wonderful, very sharp!

All are amazing but Mars surprises me as I wasn't aware that much detail was possible at this point in time, bravo!

That's a wonderful capture!

On 04/08/2022 at 05:35, powerlord said:

ha! that's what I thought when I first got a 200p.. then the 300p arrived!

from left to right - 150p, 200p, 300p.

would save a lot of space if they'd store inside each other like russian dolls! 😀

 

That's totally tubular!

You're just working your way through the entire solar system! nice.