Sunshine

Sounds like an awesome solar session, Hmmm, is a solar wedge next on my list? I'll have to entice my wife to buy herself something pricey first.

Wonderful capture!

1 hour ago, HollyHound said:

I think it would be fair to say I've pretty much got what I need for the rest of my lifetime across the range of scopes I have.... the combination of Mewlon 180 and FC-100 is particularly compelling in use 👍

However, there is still a small itch that will at some point need to be scratched I'm sure, and that's a refractor in the 5" range... will it be better than the Mewlon, not sure, but I would still like to find out one day 😁

This is a magnificent looking setup you have, berlebach tripod to boot, worthy of a beauty contest!

54 minutes ago, johninderby said:

An Officina Stellare scope on one of their OS mounts certainly qualifies as a dream scope. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

 

It certainly does! but in my case a dream scope would be one which doesn’t require a small crane to assemble.

9 hours ago, John said:

This scope has fired my imagination for many years - Sir Patrick Moore's 5 inch F/12 Cooke achromat:

And I also dreamed of one of these - the Vixen FL102M which I often drooled over (metaphorically speaking) during visits to Telescope House in Farringdon Road, London:

5 years ago I was able to purchase instruments that were of similar form and quality in the shape of a Takahashi FC100-DL and a TMB/LZOS 130mm (5.1 inch) F/9.2 triplet:

The above scopes seem to have satisfied my refractor dreams

My remaining dream would be to own a really large (18-20 inch) quality dobsonian AND to have a property suitable to use it from. The scope I can afford, the property, probably not currently . This is the sort of scope I mean (the location looks nice too !):

The largest aperture scope that it is practical for me to own and operate from home currently is my 12 inch dobsonian which acts as quite a capable alternative to the larger light bucket of my dreams:

This thread is about aspirations and dreams of course so there are no "wrong" answers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seems you have taken all the dream scopes, nothing  left for us!.

1 hour ago, johninderby said:

Sorry but the Technosky 125 has superb optics and build quality and a great focuser. Best solar white views I have ever had and no slouch on lunar / planetary either. Takes high magnification as well. A real best buy. 👍🏻

That setup looks awesome, love the screen so handy mounted there.

31 minutes ago, jetstream said:

Do reflectors qualify?

No discriminating against any telescopes here, we love them all equally.

On 13/12/2021 at 09:34, markse68 said:

most people go the other way with an asiair or a raspii. This just arrived- only 8kg 🤣 It’s my new dedicated astrocomputer

 

Interesting computer, great thing about it is when it finally stops working you can use it to knock walls down.

Do you have all the telescopes you want? Is there one which is outside the budget or no longer made that occupies your thoughts all too often? will we ever be happy? I think the one scope I daydream about too often is the TOA-130. About three years ago I read a short review from a gentleman who used his friends TOA-130 for a few days under dark skies, his description of the trapezium through this scope was enthralling to say the least. It was so well written and bordering on poetic that it had me occasionally looking away from my screen and daydreaming, trying to imagine what he was describing. 
 

Do you have that one scope which is your holy grail and why? 

I find that even though I may be able to go higher on a particular double there’s always that sweet spot where they look just right. Take the double double in Lyra for example, I can just make them out as doubles at around 90x. Even though I can pile on the power we’ll past 200 I find they just look sweet at around 180, I tend to stop and enjoy doubles when they wow me rather than just pushing it for the sake of it.

Welcome to SGL!

Wonderful captures!

That is a nice scope, and the name "starfield"  just sounds cool.

6 minutes ago, Philip R said:

I have one of the 'DwarfStar' mounts, (imaage below), that I purchased from fellow SGL-er @heliumstar. 

It is the perfect travel mount when I am away from home and travelling light. It is so small, that can fit into the palm of an adult hand. 

Wow! that is small, it looks to be the perfect travel mount indeed!

Left home before sunrise  on a 5hr round trip to pick up this beautiful mount, made by Universal Astronomics which was a one man operation in the US, gentleman by the name of Larry really liked doing things with pride as this mount is testament to. It is built like a tank but weighs like a Toyota which is what we want in astro gear. Upon first inspection I was so impressed at the silky smoothness of its motions with no stiction to speak of, no slack in joints or wobble of any kind, just rock solid smooth motion. 
 

It will allow for 40lbs on one side and 30lbs on the other for a total load of…you guessed it, 70lbs which is more telescope mass than I will ever have, for now my 102 is all it will see but in my future there is a larger frac and I sleep easy knowing I’m prepared. It has another neat feature which honestly I’m not sure if all tandem mounts have but, both scopes on either side can be precisely aligned so they are on target at the eyepiece, one side allows for adjustments with lock screws just like one would align a primary in a dob then lock in place. This would make it so both scopes would be dead on at the eyepiece. 
 

From the Universal Astronomics website which is still up after Larry (founder) retired, I gather he made a few other models, the doublestar tandem which I have is the largest and only tandem model and he only made 40 as they are intricate and difficult to make which made them pricey. This is really neat, it is beautiful, functional to the highest degree and rare to boot, I love rare. Mounting my 102 on it and slewing it around is like turning the wheel on a well tuned car, just smooth as silk and easy as can be. There are knobs which adjust friction on both axis and the slightest turn affects friction accordingly. 
 

All I need now are some clear skies!

Welcome to SGL, lots to see and learn here.

Well I would certainly say you have put it to good use with this beautiful image!

A great report on a target rich night, with a dob large enough to double as a human canon! 😂 

Great capture!

🤣🤩 That was awesome, I have never thought of a counterweight this way but now I can never see mine as just a counterweight ever again.

Nice comparison of two great scopes, I can imagine it would be loads of fun comparing two refractors side by side.

A warm welcome to SGL!

A wonderful Image of Andromeda!

Hello and welcome to SGL! quite an arsenal you have.

11 minutes ago, John said:

From the Ohara website:

"In the course of Ohara’s long history, many types of optical glasses have been developed. In this catalog, you will find over 130 glasses which we have selected as our “recommended glass types”. Each optical glass has its own properties which are closely connected with the key chemical element it contains.

With this in mind, we have developed a new glass type designation system and the new names are used in this catalog. On the nd/vd diagram, located on the Optical Catalog webpage, you will see we have divided our glasses into groups. For each glass type, we have selected on or two chemical elements contained which are considered the most important and have used the atomic symbols of these for the first two letters of the glass type designation. The third letter of the glass type designation refers to the refractive index of each glass type within its glass group: H, M, or L for high, middle, or low. Lastly we assign a one or two digit number to each glass type within a given glass family. Thus each glass type is represented by the above-mentioned three letters plus a one or two digit number.

We are also adding the prefix “S-“ to indicate which of the glass types are ECO optical glasses and environmentally “Safe”. These glass types do not contain any lead or arsenic.

For example, the glass type designation for S-BSL7 is composed as follows:

S- stands for environmentally Safe
B represents Boron, one of the key compositional elements
S represents Silicon, one of the key compositional elements
L indicates a Low index within the BS group
7 indicates this is the 7th glass within this glass family

Along with Ohara’s glass type designation, the technical data sheets will show the six-digit code for each glass type. In the six-digit code the first three digits represent the refractive index at the helium line (nd) and the last three digits represent the Abbe number (vd). These six-digit codes are internationally recognized within the optical community.

So we just need to work out what the F and P stand for.

Quite technical, actually, it seems the first two letters refer to the chemical elements of the particular glass. This  leaves us with FP, so to what chemical elements do FP refer to? I regret asking this question lol 

I know, phosphate and Plutonium!