Littleguy80

M51 in a 10” under dark skies is a special sight as Iain says. Great that you can get it from home now, Paul

Sirius B aka The Pup. It’s one of those that I really feel I should have been able to see by now but never have. I don’t do a great deal of double star observing so maybe it’s just my skills aren’t sufficiently honed for this.

Haha it is indeed. Binoculars steam up pretty quickly in there but it’s good observing with the old Mk. 1 eyeballs in there!

I did try dropping your name in the email to them to aid the cause!

You may well be right, Mike. I sent them a mail just to see what they say I’m sure they’ll say no in a much nicer way than my dear wife would…

For sure. I’d buy a 2.4 without a doubt. I’m lucky enough to have the 3.4. Maybe some emails to Vixen suggesting that might put the idea in their minds

I completely understand those feelings. It’s frustrating when kit sits unused. However, I get such a lot of enjoyment when I do use it that any feelings of wasted money soon disappear. It’s very much a personal thing I think. Most of the kit I have, I intend to have for many years to come.

I had a similar experience yesterday evening too though Venus with a 47 filter was good. Felt fairly confident of was picking up some differences in contrast that may have been clouds. More practice needed for sure.

Which leads to obvious question of what IS your favourite setup now? 😂

The thing I'm enjoying about this thread so far is that there's a real variety of scopes. It seems to me that the scopes we love most are more about the experiences we have with them. My 130M is nowhere near the best scope I've used but I just had the best time learning to use it and finding my way around the constellations for the first time.

They look very impressive!!

I have been going through the same deliberation, Mark 😂 Thanks for the answer @Franklin 😊

Thanks for the heads up on this, Michael. I caught a look at this a little later on. Even now I can see though well detached now. There's now another large prom next to it that almost looks like a Christmas tree! There seems to loads of filaments too.

Exactly right, John. Not at all about performance. This is purely about the scope that gives you the happy feeling 😊 Loving everyone’s posts so far!

The third one. He slept a lot better than the others

Love is blind and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This thread is place to share your most loved scope, not necesarily your best scope. It can be anything from that premium scope you wanted for years and was everything you dreamed it woud be to the scope you had as a kid and loved even though it was terrible. The only rule is for this thread is that all entries are based on love. Any posts that look scientific and well reasoned should be removed by the moderators To gets things going, here's my own entry. Well, actually, my heart is held by two scopes. You never forget your first love and my SkyWatcher 130M stole my heart completely. It was picked on the sole criteria that it could show me Saturn's rings. It was a few weeks before I really got going with it. To start with I though I was supposed to do all navigation with the slow motion controls! Cupid's arrow struck the night that I first saw Jupiter and it's 4 moons. I was completely blown away that I could see the moons!! My obsession rapidly grew and just 3 months later it gave me my first view of the Veil. I've been hooked on astronomy ever since. My second love is my 10" dob, it opened up the sky to me even more. It's shown me shadow transits on Jupiter and even the fabled Horse Head nebula. I still remember walking around the clubhouse at my astro society's dark site with a silly grin on my face after seeing the HH. I couldn't quite believe I'd seen it. Treasured memories from much loved scopes. My enjoyment and passion for astronomy didn't change with the increased aperture. It just increased the possiblities in terms of what I could see.

Nice! Interesting that he’s using a larger Newtonian without a filter. My instinct was that it would be quite bright and hard to make out detail. Definitely planning a go with the 10” dob now

I found the review helpful. For me, the takeaway is that the Tak has the edge in performance but at a cost. How much of a difference we see comes down to a lot of factors and whether that difference is worth the cost is down to the individual. DPAC testing certainly sounds like it could be the answer to giving a quantifiable value to the difference between scopes.

Excellent captures, Michael. I was observing this afternoon and enjoyed the proms in particular. I’m not sure of the correct term but I called them mushroom rooms 😂

Had a quick look through the frac tonight. Nicely defined phase. You can see it in the photo with a bit of zooming!

Awesome photos, Gerry. We’re all the way up to an iPhone 14 now with the 15 coming later this year. I have an 11 which I agree is very good. There are some great captures from some members using an iPhone 14 Pro on here. Apple seem to add improvements to the cameras every year.

😂 A VX12 appeared in the classifieds today. I did present a brief case on why it would make a good upgrade to the 10” for a relatively meagre investment. I won’t repeat the response I received in polite company but it seems I won’t be buying the VX12!

Hehe I’m sure I would. Might need up a little for that one. I’ve never had a 14mm eyepiece. Closest was the 13mm APM HDC which went in favour of the Docter. The APM was good but nowhere near the Docter

It’s like a who’s who of great eyepieces there 😁

Yep, Piero made the suggestion on that one I also use a Baader 2” nosepiece rather than eyepiece holder to screw the VIP Barlow element into. Reduces the weight quite noticeably