Sunshine

I love double stars when the moon is full or any other time for that matter, try them out they're wonderful to search out and observe.

This is wonderful, I love doubles and will surely want a copy of this book, I love the format and charts. This would be great if it were available in some sort of weatherproof paper maybe laminate? so the pages could withstand dew.

In any case, please let us know when this goes to print and where to buy, I will definitely be buying a copy, it is wonderfully presented.

On 03/06/2020 at 03:24, Stu said:

I’ve been wanting to put these two side by side since getting the Vixen, and after sorting out my observing area and getting the Rowan AZ100 in a better place, I finally did it last night. The AZ100 performed beautifully on the Planet tripod once balanced correctly, which involved bring the Tak back quite a long way in its rings because of the lightweight prism and orthos. The slo mo controls are actually much quicker and easier to use than the handset on the Vixen GP, more intuitive to get the direction right and quicker skews. This more than offsets the loss of motorised tracking I think so I will use this setup for solar white light and Ha in future too. I’ve popped a couple of pictures of the solar setup in here for reference.

To try to keep things as fair as possible, I just used Baader Genuine Orthos, and rather handily a 5mm and 6mm gives x148 and x150 respectively (Tak then Vixen).

Originally I was going to use the Baader Zeiss T2 prism in the Vixen, and the Baader BBHS T2 Mirror in the Tak, but after an initial look and swap between scopes, I could see a definite benefit in the prism, a little sharper and more contrasty. What to do? I then tried my Tak Prism, which despite some recent comments to the contrary I find very good, and it levelled things up nicely so I felt it was now a fair fight. That in itself was a surprising finding, the mirror in the BBHS has recently been replaced so should be at top performance.

Initially I viewed with a 12.5mm and 9mm, but felt like the mag difference was too much for meaningful results, so switched to the shorter focal lengths and set to work.

I observed many different features, trying for threshold craters and rilles which I thought might separate the two. I looked at Plato craterlets, the Copernicus craterlets, detail on the sides of smaller crater walls, Messier and Messier A and domes. I wasn’t so worried about knowing the names of what I was looking at, just comparing the views.

The result? Under the fairly steady conditions I had last night, and at x150 mag, I was unable to separate them. On occasion I would switch from one to the other and think that the second one gave a worse view, but it was only ever down to seeing variations. When the seeing was the same, the views were the same.

My old favourite Izar showed identical, and beautiful views in both scopes. Perfect airy disks and diffraction ring, clear separation and colour difference between the two components.

The Double Double initially looked a fair bit better in the Vixen, and the faint star nearby did not show in the Tak. Curious? Yes, but problem solved by a quick defocus which showed the leaves of the hedge cutting into the Tak view! Once clear of this, the views were the same again.

I will try again with some tighter doubles when I get the chance to see if I can tease any differences out.

So, I have one old and one new scope, both 4” and both giving excellent performance. What to do? My only decision is to keep both! I love the look and character of the Vixen, and the portability of the Tak. The Vixen has the longer focal ratio and gets to x300 with the Nag Zoom vs x246 for the Tak which is useful on occasion. The Tak binoviews easily, the Vixen doesn’t seem to have the inwards focus, although it may with the Tak prism.

I often leave the Tak setup for Solar white light, but the Vixen won’t reach focus with my Baader CoolWedge, so knowing I’m not missing anything with the Vixen I can keep the Tak for Solar during the summer and use the Vixen for Astro.

So, a rather dull, but still interesting score draw I think.

Please forgive the old loo seat in the pictures.... being kept for firewood at some stage!! 🤪🤪

 

These two refractors side by side just about made my eyes water a bit, this is refractor nirvana.

This is a great image, so nicely detailed and contrasted.

Lucky you managed to snag that Bresser 102! a look at the sun is a perfect way to keep sane when clouds dominate.

Welcome to SGL! 

14 minutes ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

Probably more common than you think... Will us ED and achro owners be allowed in? 😉

3 minutes ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

John has settled it. Call the thread the something like, "The 4 inch Club" to keep it busy. 😀

Lol my wife can never hear about the 4” club because I’ll never hear the end of it. Having said that YAY WE HAVE A CLUB!

22 minutes ago, RobertI said:

Yes that’s the scope. Tecnosky and TS also do the same scope with their own branding. It’s made by Kunming United Optics and seems to be very popular scope with glowing reports  from owners. It’s a quality scope and I can’t really think of single bad thing to say about it! A 102 owner’s thread seems like a nice idea! 

We may be the only two in the thread as I’m willing to bet 102 is not a common aperture 😂

Nice report, your description of Jupiter behind the eyepiece makes me envious as I will be clouded over all weekend.  Looking up your scope online (I did not recognize the model number) I see it is a Starwave, a really nice looking scope it is and it sounds like it performs as well as it looks. Maybe its time to start a 102 owners club here on SGL, that has a nice ring to it!.

This must be thorn in every amateurs side, we all want to reassure ourselves that our scope which we paid hard earned money for is doing what it should. There’s no avoiding it, now that you have seen the elusive airy disc just remember that not every night will you be able to. Enjoy your scope, if the views look great then rest assured your scope is working.

1 hour ago, Alan White said:

Nice review, thank you.
Typical in that it tempts me to spend some cash on one, while busy saving for a new mount.
That does truly look well made.

It would not be keeping with amateur astronomy if we were to save for just one item at a time.

33 minutes ago, Captain Magenta said:

Close. Yes the telrads live on my two newts (not dobs but similar enough) each with its own 4” riser; and the SSVs each sit on a Mak. My frac has a weird APM/LZOS finder-boss which only takes its native set of rings, and I haven’t dared drill new holes yet, so I don’t have any 1x finder for that.

M

An APM/LZOS frac, oooh nice! I would love to have a peek through one, I hear they are top notch.

51 minutes ago, Captain Magenta said:

I agree about both the telrads and the baaders. I now have 2 Telrads and 2 SkySurfer Vs, each mated to a particular scope. As far as pure RDFs go, the SkySurfer V is in a class all its own. Very military.

M

I’m going out on a limb saying your telrads are on dobs and or SCT’s and your Skysurfers on fracs? It’s what I would do as telrads don’t look right on fracs.

5 minutes ago, Vroobel said:

Hi, 

This is a fork mount based on a heavy 101:1 harmonic gear. 

It's not in action yet, just finished enough to test it, but unfortunately there is cloudy sky, like usually when you want to test a new stuff... 

Here is link to a live story of my fork mount: 

I hope to show it in action very soon. 😊

Somewhere there is an astronomer looking into the observatory saying "our scope is missing!"

This is a wonderful wide field image!

 Having used the Skysurfer V for three straight nights I thought I would review this red dot finder. Let me start by saying that over the years I have used just about every single red dot finder under the sun with the Telrad being the most loved and functional finder, especially in the dark where making adjustments can be more challenging. In this regard I still do believe the Telrad is the ugly king of the RDF’s it’s ease of use and reliability is about as intuitive as one can ask for. Having said this, it has found its match in the Skysurfer V, opening the box for the Skysurfer one immediately notices it’s build quality and, Baader’s attention to detail. Packed nicely with one battery  in the unit and an extra in a little ziplock baggy, manual,  and a microfiber cleaning cloth, one immediately gets the impression their money was well spent.

Mounting hardware includes a dovetail bracket, dovetail fitting and riser which screws onto the dovetail fitting. Let me say one thing about each and every part (excluding the caps which are plastic and rubber) there is no plastic to be seen on this finder, not even the riser which is a common plastic part on every other RDF I have seen. This RDF feels like it could just as well be fine on a  rocket launcher.  There was one challenge I encountered while mounting the dovetail base on my Tak, this is an issue I can almost guarantee will not repeat itself on other scopes. The mounting base has a slight curve on the bottom while the area on my Tak where the bracket would mount was designed flat to accept a Tak bracket, this is devious of Tak as it can only be meant to force one to buy their own finders. As a result, the entire bottom of the Baader base does not make contact with the flat area where the tak bracket would fit, not an issue as there are two bolts which hold it Uber tight anyway.

Once mounted I couldn’t help but to notice how solid the whole thing is, it is on there and I mean SOLID! I realized just how big it is. When assembled in its full form it measures 8.5 inches, by full form I mean with the dew shields on both ends on. this is where it gets interesting, you have the option of using it with both dew shields one on either end or just one on the front as I use it or, if you don’t want dew shield on at all you can simply unscrew them and the u it can be shortened to just 5.5 inches. One neat thing about this is regardless of how you use it the rubber caps can be removed from the shields and reattached to the main body as images below show. For daytime and solar use Baader was thoughtful enough to include a pinhole on the front cap and a transparent rear cap with a target making it a great solar finder. Once mounted, adjusting it is easy but this is where my only real gripe come in. This is a finder where the dot itself is adjusted within the finder and not the finder itself moved in any way just like the Telrad where the target is moved and not the Telrad itself. Adjusting the dot requires a slot screwdriver or a coin as the manual states, I’m sorry! Say what? this could have been done better with a thumbscrew or something just like the Telrad, easy to adjust. Having said that, once adjusted I cannot see how it would get knocked out of kilter, it is that solid!.

Both up and down red dot adjusting  screws are under protective metal caps which I guess are to keep moisture out. As for the red dot itself which is the most important of all (if the dot is too bright at night then all the build quality and esthetics goes to heck) it is simply a red dot but, it is adjustable 10 times. There are some online whom have said the dot is too bright, I feel they may not have known about the wheel on top which on its lowest setting is such that one would strain to the point of myopia to see the red dot. It is so dim on its Lowest setting that although I could see it, it required me to use my hand to completely block out the background sky. Number 3 on the wheel is perfect, the faintest of naked eye stars are not overwhelmed yet just bright enough to see comfortably. 

Once aligned I had a great time using this finder, it just feels and works like it should for the price, it is versatile in its ability to be changed in length according to ones needs and as mentioned before, it is Uber solid and might I say cool looking. Austin powers would like the Telrad, James Bond would like the Skysurfer type cool. As much as I love the Telrad and all it’s ease of use, I feel it has been toped by a finder which I wish did not require a screwdriver or coin to adjust but if that is the only gripe then the Baader has much more going for it. Forgot to mention, the battery is a CR2032 which fits in the brightness adjustment wheel on top, it also requires a coin or such to open.

Yes, maybe you were too quick to judge as this is a great capture.

This sounds like the best problem to have, and with enough beers you can literally look up and see star trails sans camera and other imaging kit!

50K! WOW congratulations on this awesome milestone, it may be a few more weeks before i get there 🤣

While observing the sublime double cluster Friday night I couldn’t help but wonder, where are the images of this beautiful target? I cannot recall seeing any here on SGL, if I have them I totally forgot. Are there examples which I may have missed? post links if so, thanks.

A first image to be proud of!

This is a Dobsonian which I have never seen before, I like it! do they have a website? 

Is this even a question? no amateur astronomer has uttered those words in the form of a question.

Welcome to SGL, you have zeroed in on the ideal scope to come back with as it is an amazingly versatile telescope, the vast majority of us have had one and many never let them go. Have fun with it, the more you use it the stronger it’s gravitational pull will become, it is addicting to say the least.

This image is astounding for lack of a more deserving word, just phenomenal.