Littleguy80

I have mine permanently setup like that and mostly use it with the Docter. Works brilliantly!

Without the VIP I had to use a 1.25” diagonal to get enough in focus. With the VIP it was fine with one 15mm T2. It got too dark and cloudy by the time I added the other two 15mm extension tubes. Will check on focussing with those tomorrow

A few pictures from my playing this evening. Not sure if I’d be better off with the 2” APM Adapter as shown in photo with the various options. Which adapter do you use, Gerry?

Awesome. Thanks Gerry! I have that adapter after a discussion with Piero on converting the VIP to 2” mode. I’ll have a play with that and Leica zoom tonight

Thanks John. Super helpful Thanks Stu! I saw it mentioned in quite a few of your reports which helped with the decision to buy it

I’m now the very lucky owner of this Leica Zoom. I sold my Baader zoom and Pentax XF zoom to help fund it. Can’t wait to try it out. I suspect it’s going to be best friends with my Baader VIP Barlow too.

This Atlas has been getting some love on here for containing Atlas views as seen through a refractor as well as section with Newtonian orientation.

Thanks Stephan! Managed to catch this tonight. A first for me with my 80mm frac and Nagler zoom. Really neat to see this. Enjoyed the straight wall feature too. Has always been a favourite.

Funnily enough that was what went through my mind too. I find with premium eyepieces, it’s those nights of excellent transparency and/or seeing where they really show their worth. Excellent comparison, Michael. Would love to hear if the Tak pulls ahead more significantly when conditions allow it to be pushed to its limits.

Awesome. Thanks Mike, great tips! I bought a 47 Violet filter a few years back. I’m fairly certain this was to aid seeing the clouds of Venus. I didn’t have any success back then but my observing skills, and maybe even my patience, have improved a little since then. I’ll be sure to post my cloud hunting adventures… Not something you’ll hear from an astronomer often 😂

Great to hear how well this scope is working for you now, Gerry. Does this mean no need for a 100mm Tak for you now?

Excellent Mike. One of my observing goals for this year is to see some cloud detail on Venus. Sketches like this are a great guide on what to look for, thank you

This was mentioned on the BBC News this afternoon and skies are clear so I got my trusty 10x50s out. Venus was bright and obvious. I felt like I could detect its phase but wasn’t 100% that 10x would be enough to see this? The bright crescent Moon, showing some nice Earthshine, looked fab even with the low magnification of the bins. This led easily onto the small orange Mars. I struggled to find Jupiter and Mercury while scanning the horizon from my garden. I went indoors, to an upstairs bedroom, and managed to spot them just them above the roof tops against the orange sunset sky. They were sitting almost level with each other. At this point the sky was too bright to spot Uranus and my youngest daughter needed tucking into bed. A few short minutes later, Jupiter and Mercury were too low to be seen. The sky had darkened enough that I could now detect Uranus and a few stars in Aries of similar magnitude, all in the same FOV as Venus. My 11 year old son joined me outside as he’d been told about the planetary parade in school. He enjoyed looking through the bins and I was able to direct him to Uranus which all the required school boy humour.

This is more of a shout out to one of my less used eyepices. I bought my copy of the humble 25mm TeleVue Plossl secondhand for something like £60-£70. My one objective for this eyepiece was to observe the Horsehead with my 10" dob. A mission that the three of us (the dob, eyepiece and me) completed successfully with the help of our friend, Astronomik Hb filter. I recently sold my Pentax XF zoom to fund another purchase. The XF zoom has been goto eyepiece for Ha observing with the Daystar Solar Scout. Over lunch today, I selected the 25mm TV to use for some Ha observing and was mightly impressed with the views. Why haven't I been using this more? With so many nice widefield EP's around, it's easy to dismiss or forget about eyepieces like Plossls. I'm 100% guilty of this, though I am partial to an ortho. I decided to write this post as a reminder to myself and others that top quality eyepieces exist without the need to spend large amounts of money. An especially important lesson to remember for those new to the hobby or trying to get the best views on a budget.

Amazing Gerry! Something I’d love to see! Especially sitting in a hot tub

I think this is what you’re looking for https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dovetails-saddles-clamps/more-blue-universal-finder-base-for-tak.html

Another vote for the APM UFF 30mm or equivalent. I replaced my ES82 30mm with this and have no regrets. I originally went for biggest AFOV when first buying premium eyepieces. After awhile, I found that it was worth sacrificing a bit of FOV for better contrast and sharpness. This worked best for my observing preferences.

In my VERY early days, finding targets was challenging. I had a 130mm newt with a a red dot finder. One night, I really wanted to get my first look at Andromeda to clock up my first galaxy observation. Things weren’t going well so I took my smartphone with an astro app in compass mode. With one arm at full length, holding the smartphone in the direction of M31, as guided by the app, I then attempted to point the RDF at the smartphone in the place it showed M31. My plan wasn’t without merit but alas M31 was not observed that night.

Try viewing in landscape mode on your phone. I stumbled across this recently and found signatures appear that way

Great report and interesting results in 2” mode. The moon pic is fab and no doubt doesn’t do justice to the views through the eyepiece

I would think I could upgrade the focuser further down if it came to it. If I look at my usage of the 80mm Equinox, it gets a lot of use with the APM UFF 30MM for widefield. Same idea as the 31mm Nagler that Stu mentioned though a lot lighter. One of the benefits of the Tak is it can replace the 80mm as a travel scope so I’d probably sell the 80mm. I know the Tak will be awesome at high powers. Now just wondering if the DC or DF is the right model to cover widefield alongside that.

I’ve been playing the dangerous game of putting combinations of things into a FLO basket just to see how much it costs. With regards to FC100DC, how good is the focuser if I wanted to use a 2” diagonal with something like the APM HDC 20mm eyepiece or an entry level Canon DSLR? Not sure if I need the more expensive version with the stronger focuser? If the DC is ok with that, I think I need this to use the 2” diagonal? https://www.firstlightoptics.com/takahashi-adapters/takahashi-2-inch-eyepiece-holder-for-fs-60-and-fs-78fc100dc.html I mentioned my hopes and dreams of a Tak to my lovely wife who has made her opening counter offer of some bathroom refurbishment should she agree. We’ll see where the negotiations go from here 😂

Great report. I'm more than a little jealous. I looked at that advert more than once but just didn't have the funds available. Really happy for you though. I'll live vicariously through your reports until I can afford my own

I was wondering the same thing. I read the report and then got an error when trying to like/comment on it.

I’ve had similar experiences though not with astro kit. For selling, I always post here on SGL and leave it a few days before moving onto ABS. There’s always a chance that I can sell to someone who I’ve interacted with on the forum which is nice. ABS can be good too. I sold a book over the weekend to a nice chap who happened to be on holiday a few miles from my house. It was nice to see the book find a new home. I generally shoot for a price I’d be happy with based on a bit of research on recent-ish sales. For me, I just want the kit to go somewhere where it will be well loved and used. Although it can be annoying if it ends up going via trader to find its new home, the main thing is it ends up back under the stars with a grinning astronomer. I’ve no doubt that little Vixen will be loved when it ends where it should be.