Sunshine

45 minutes ago, Stu said:

Thanks Gerry! Interesting.

So it is hogwash that slower scopes cope with seeing better? I’ve read it so often I assumed it to be true!

I certainly see no reason why an f6 triplet should have a greater focus range than a slower doublet, do you?

Sometimes I wonder about how much we read in forums is actually scientifically accurate, I mean we all read opinions then spread those to newcomers over years and years. There are some things which I always thought were absolute irrefutable facts until, someone explained why said "fact" it is not true. 

52 minutes ago, Starwatcher2001 said:

I was the fortunate person on the other end of a story like this. I came across my Celestron 9.25 Evo on ebay for an excellent price. It came with lots of goodies and was such a good deal that I was quite wary to begin with. I engaged the seller in conversation and it turned out he was a dealer selling it for a customer, whom he said was a "collector of fine things".  Took the plunge and when it arrived it was pristine. The points on the tripod had never seen ground by the look of it. It was probably set up in a drawing room somewhere and never used.

Like finding a gold nugget, few and far apart those are.

great find!

33 minutes ago, LDW1 said:

I think it pertains to specific models of scopes not the type / design of a scope ie you mention an 8" dob but if it is only say 5 yrs. old it sure isn't a classic just because it is an 8" dob that have been around for decades.

Ok, I get what you're getting at, In that case I would say there must be a certain passage of time combined with a reputation of some kind. Since it is unwritten, I'll go ahead and set it at 20 years, its done.

There must be so many things that determine what makes a scope a "classic" I will try my hand at a few.

A telescope with a long history and a reputation for being a favorite, for example, an 8" dobsonian as they are workhorses and introduce so many to the hobby.

A telescope of limited manufacturing run which is rare and sought after for its qualities.

A telescope of a unique design which may now be a novelty of sorts .

A dog of a telescope which was a train wreck when it came to quality control but at the time was seen as a promising telescope, collectors often want these dogs as they are now rare.

A telescope not made by a large, well known manufacturer but a single person or small shop turning out very limited amounts, especially if they are no longer in business (Starmaster)

These may be just a few, I would think some time would have to pass but not exactly 25 years.

Great images! 

Wonderful images! and welcome to SGL!

2 hours ago, F15Rules said:

What a fascinating thread John👍..

Just to offer a very personal perspective? I think that the time of life plays an important role in informing our scope purchase decisions.

For example, many of us got into the hobby as teenagers, back in the 1960s and 70s..in those days, the 60mm long focus achromats were almost always the starting point for scope ownership, as they were relatively affordable, but never what I'd call really cheap for working class families..

My first proper scope, a Prinz 550 60mm F15 refractor from Dixon's Photographic store in Coventry, cost £39.95 in c 1972. At the time that was about a weeks wages for my dad, and my parents bought it for me for Christmas on the basis that they paid £20, and I would pay the balance on credit over 9months from my Saturday job pumping petrol.

I was so chuffed with that scope..it was a decent Circle T lens, and came with eq mount, finder, wooden tripod and several 0.965" eyepieces. It showed me so much, and my first view of Saturn and it's rings is etched forever in my memory.

At that time, I'd never heard of an "apochromatic" scope at all, or "chromatic aberration"..indeed, my then astro books such as the Observer's Book of Astronomy taught me, in the late, great Sir Patrick Moores' own words, that Vega "is a beautiful bluish white star" in Lyra..I had no inkling that my scope (and most other refractors of the time) were actually adding the bluish tinge to the image! Even my then "dream scope", a Vixen SP102m 4" F10 refractor was an achromat, and in the 80s it would have cost around £750 for a complete setup including Super Polaris or Great Polaris mount - simply out of the question for youngsters like me...we could drool over the adverts though!😂

Anyway, I had the scope for about 3 years, and sold it as I began to get interested in rock music (and girls😁), and started to learn to play guitar, and joined a band..after that, I got married, into buying a house, better job etc etc, and didn't really come back to the hobby seriously until my 40s, by which time, although I was earning reasonable wages, I had 3 children under 12, and so not a lot of spare cash for scopes.

When I finally did get into a position to buy another scope, I went for another achromat, as that was what I knew, but over time as I read more magazines and later the early internet, I discovered ED "semi apos" and full apos, which were at mind boggling costs (I recall the Vixen Atlux 6" ED refractor was around £4000-5000 all in, and bigger Televue scopes were if anything even dearer).

It was when Celestron and Synta began to offer their ED100 4" F9 scopes at far more affordable prices that I began to really take notice, and over the early 2000s onwards I owned several of these great scopes..the build quality was not in the same league as the Vixen SP102 etc...but the ED glass was excellent, and you could now get a relatively short F9 4" visually virtually colour free scope at a far lower price than ever before.

As my family circumstances and finances improved, I was able to aspire to scopes like the wonderful Vixen ED and FL ranges (always bought used), and I also began to crave a bit more aperture..

I had a very nice Meade AR 127 F9 achromat, which was excellent for the cost, and I came to feel that a 5" refractor, for me, would be all I could ever want. But the introduction to ED glass also made me want colour free 5" viewing.

I did buy a wonderful 5" D&G F15 refractor, which I significantly upgraded, and it was the first scope I ever spent over £1000 on, including all the mods (done superbly by Mark Turner at Moonraker). This scope, now quite familiar to some members here on SGL, "Andromeda" was and is a superb performer, very nearly visually colour free, at F15 (1905mm!!), and could have been my lifetime scope.

Sadly, however, I had to let her go due to the physical difficulty of mounting her properly (almost 2m long), and the fact that I was diagnosed with 2 hernias (not the scope's fault!). 

So Andromeda found a great new home with Steve (@saganite) here on SGL, and I began to look for a more manageable high quality 5" refractor (once you've looked through a good 5", it is HARD to go back to a 4"!😊).

And so it was that, having read everything I could about Takahashi's legendary FS Fluorite range, I decided to set my sights on one. After quite some time (there aren't that many in the UK so far as I know,), a beautiful, mint example became available in summer 2016, complete with Takahashi EM2s mount and tripod and accessories. 

I never dreamed I could buy this wonderful set up, but thanks to the owner's willingness to hold the scope for me for as long as I needed to raise the funds, my dream scope become mine in April 2017. It took me a full 9 months to raise the funds, and involved selling most of my other astro equipment, but I have never once regretted the purchase, and, sad old git that I am, I too still pop into the storage room where "Trinity" lives (yes, I named her too!🤣) to have a quick peek and a touch..

Thanks for staying with me..my real point is, that 30-40 years ago, the pinnacle of my astro dreams was a Vixen 4" F10 achromat..scopes like the FS 128 either didn't exist in my universe, or if they did, were only found in observatories belonging to super rich people or organisations.

Since that time, financial means and availability of superbly performing scopes has pushed our aspirations upwards: I have friends who, having owned a 125cc motorbike in the 70s/80s, have now, in their 50s and 60s, returned to biking, spending £15k-£20k on a brand new Ducati, Triumph, etc - simply because they now have the means to..and be side they are now within their financial reach - families grown up, mortgages paid off, perhaps a legacy received (I wish!!) etc..

People will always aspire to the best they can afford if their means allow it.

I feel so blessed to now own my dream scope. If I never own another scope but this one, I will be quite content..it took almost 50 years from my first scope, but was so worth the wait!🤗😊

Dave

Is this ever a dream scope! don’t get me wrong I absolutely love my 4” but I yearn for a Tak mount and a dark stained wood tripod, exactly like what you have in this image. Your combo looks like the poster child for the refractor telescope, a beautiful matching ensemble which screams quality.

43 minutes ago, Concordia000 said:

Hey, if he didn’t ask for a refund then it’s mission accomplished — he got the bragging rights and you got the commission.

Yes! He still has it collecting dust I assume, I made commission and the entire store quota for the month. He proudly walked off with 7 TV eyepieces if memory serves me well.

47 minutes ago, Macavity said:

A Cloudy Nights Newbie once asked for advice on a "No expense spared" Scope.
He didn't want to "waste his time"... with any "second rate" stuff? His tagline:
"I like my cars Fast..  and my Women Faster"! Am I missing out? 🤣

lol, I recall working in a scope shop in my teens when a young, wealthy man came in and insisted on the most expensive scope, I sold him the 12" LX200 we had in stock. With it I sold him every acssesory

we possibly had including several TV eyepieces and a wedge to boot. Even vibration pads, when I say wealthy I mean stinking,  I made commission and he kept asking for whatever we had. When I rolled all of this out to his car on a dolly he quickly realized this would not fit in his Ferarri and had a friend pick it up for him. This scope he explained was for display  and occasional use when he had company to impress at his cottage because he saw a movie where a chap had a beautiful scope on display in his cottage and he liked the idea. One week later he called me at the shop asking if I could remind him where the eyepieces went. 

I really like these starless images of M31, we are so accustomed to seeing past an infinity of stars towards the main target that sometimes the stars rob from the target itself. Seeing M31 this way all to itself really adds to its grandeur, in my opinion.

39 minutes ago, Ludd said:

A brief gap between snow showers was enough to justify hauling out the dobsonian.  

This great image has given me a sudden and uncontrollable urge to have a dob, I will blame you when my wife sees the credit card bill, home free!.

31 minutes ago, John said:

Now that is another  very interesting topic in it's own right

 

 

Ypur first scope to show you wonders up above cannot be topped by another, not from a technical spec POV of course but when it comes to excitement of discovering POV  sees Saturn for the first time only once.

6 hours ago, LDW1 said:

Over time I read so much about the overall quality and performance of the Televue NP101 that I searched high and low for one over a number of years, up here in Canada.  Finally I advertised for one and was offered a 2003 model in excellent shape so I drove 200 mi. south and picked it up personally.  My thoughts didn't let me down, its performance level is beyond question on those dark, clear nites. I wish everyone could experience it.  I guess when you are obsessed your obsessed, lol ?  PS:  Now I have to get rid of several of my refractors, I have too many (10), lol.

That is a beautiful lifetime scope, 200 miles is a breeze considering the pot of gold at the end, enjoy it and ten refractors? if only I had compound eyes.

40 minutes ago, Ian McCallum said:

That's an unexploded hand grenade!🤣

If I'm correct the nickname for the 31 Nagler in fact was the hand grenade.

On 27/11/2021 at 13:20, John said:

It's bloomin cold and windy out there plus the seeing is none to good either. I decided to set my Tak FC100-DL up for wider fields so I was able to give the focuser some work to do with the 2 inch diagonal and this beast !

While the seeing is rather poor the transparency between the scudding cloud patches is excellent. The views of the M31 group and the Perseus double cluster are superb

 

That is one big eyepiece you have there! did it come with an extra counterweight?

I also like wide field images such as this, and I really like the dark background.

Don't be displeased with your result, I think its great, your header "Man vs M31" is brilliant, has me chuckling a good bit. 

Interesting, I'm not an imager so pardon my ignorance but do 10min subs on a speed demon f2.8 scope push the limits when it comes to controlling noise? asking for a friend 😁

Came back to this entertaining thread a few times to read responses, bet you didn't expect 4 pages in under a day, great question.

54 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Here's how I store my 250mm. Standard shed door size for scale.

 

Bit of an optical illusion of sorts going on here, my mind kept telling me i was looking at a Heritage 130P tabletop 😂

This is a beautiful image, we’ll done! I particularly like deep sky images displaying a foreground in them, they are striking.

We are all insane.

8 minutes ago, paulastro said:

Yes Malcolm, Takahashi owners do like to talk about the experiences they have had with their telescopes.

I remember a post about Takahashi telescopes a little while ago which was about the merits of licking the lense of their Takahashi!  I kid you not.  I remember who posted it, but I'm not saying 😇.

I think being a bit barmy helps if you're an astronomer, but Takahashi owners do seem to take barmyness to a new level 🤪.

 

 

There is nothing wrong with going into the room where I keep my scope, turning on the light and glancing lovingly once in a while...is there? 🥴 have I just revealed too much? oh boy🤐

This same question can be posed of shoes, cars, golf clubs, televisions, computers, kitchen knives, cell phones, and on and on. It is human nature to want the best we can have given what our budgets allow, once one spends many years in a hobby one wishes to gravitate towards the best they can afford. Regardless of how similar said object is to a less expensive brand, it becomes a right of passage to ones self.

Beautiful images like this make me feel like a coward for not getting into AP 😪🤣