Trikeflyer

I’m in that area but wasn’t out that night. Now I’m curious 🤔

18 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

Regarding the mount I really like the sound of these I have seen one before. First what is the load capacity and second as I use long fracs A Tal at F10 and a Meade 127 F9.3 I have to use a pier extension on a EQ5 would it be viable to use the mount with these please.

Load capacity is 33 pounds so pretty good.  You will have to get the Ioptron pier extension which I have - long frac will be OK with the ioptron one, there is no mod that I could find for the SW extension to ioptron tripod.  FLO told me I needed the Ioptron one (which they stock).

Hope that helps.  its a great mount 

Steve

Yes what a good night. Had the 80ED set up to look at Jupiter and Saturn.  Nice to see the line up of moons all in a row on Jove.  Good detail too in the small scope.  Saturn was also nice and given its position not bad views. More importantly had the 120 equinox set up on the new ioptron az pro mount.  All I can say is AMAZING. The set up was so easy, switch it on, let it do its set up dance while finding gps data and then it slews to a bright object. Arcturus was dead centre in the 17.5mm Morpheus. Great start so easy! Tried to connect to iPad sky safari vis WiFi, initially couldn’t connect to iPad? Not sure why but after a couple of goes it connected... now I’m in play.  Had a combination of eyepieces, 17.5mm Morpheus, Pentax xw10 and vixen SLV 6mm. All performed exquisitely, not much between them and the Pentax and SLV were almost parfocal. Choosing targets using sky safari is effortless. There are times when finding objects can be fun if you have enough stars visible to navigate with but in my West Midlands light polluted skies, the fun soon fades away so this way of navigating removes a degree of frustration for me.

Highlights of the session for me were the planets. The amazing split of IZAR, best I’ve ever seen, two clear round diamonds separated by a nice clean gap. The same for the double double, best split I’ve seen seen. The equinox is a powerful scope and combined with this mount, it’s a lethal weapon 😂. Other highlights were m15, m11, m3 globs and NGC 457 the beautiful owl cluster. Had many other targets including m57, m56, m71, albireo, m39, m52, the Ste 1 open cluster in Lyra really stood out for me with the Pentax xw10.

if anyone is considering this mount, it will take your observing to another level of effortless (if that is what you want of course). Pull the trigger you won’t regret it. FLO were superb as a supplier and whilst I’ve invested a chunk of cash in this mount and the Morpheus and Pentax eyepieces, I can say for certain that based on last night, which is hopefully the first of many, it has been worth the investment in the hobby.

thanks for reading, hope you were out last night 🤔

Steve 

11 minutes ago, banjaxed said:

Looks like a great mount Steve, I will be interested to see what you think of it.

Can you talk my wife in to buying one for me please. 

Maurice.

Maurice,

I think it will be good, I’ll let you know. The only disappointing thing is that the handset doesn’t have the Sao catalogue it has the hiparcos catalogue instead. That said, I will mainly use it with Skysafari so shouldn’t be an issue. I like double stars and the Cambridge double star atlas has Sao and had numbers not hiparcos. 🤨

If you want to put your wife in touch with me, I’ll  explain why she needs to get you one of these 🤣. For that matter, anyone else who needs to persuade their other half to invest, just put them in touch with me and I’ll see what I can do. 😜

Steve 

Got this for my birthday. I received it about a month ago but wasn’t allowed to open it until today. Ioptron AZ pro. A great mount for my Equinox 120 and possibly the 200mm F6 Newt which I am going to de-dobify 🤔 . Tried it with SkySafari 6 WiFi. Have to wait for dark clear skies to try it out but in daylight it seems to at least get the right part of the sky using the WiFi sky safari so should be ok. It’s as quiet as a mouse and very nifty. Thanks FLO and thanks to my family for letting me have such a great piece of kit.

Thanks for reading

Steve 

Fabulous. What a great session. You have an awesome scope there. Keep us posted on how you get on with it. You might tempt us to invest in something from David and David. 😱

Steve 

Like Stu I have horrible floaters and I use a binoviewer for solar, lunar and planetary as the views for me are better. On solar and lunar I now only use monoviewing if there was no other option i.e I don’t have the binoviewer to hand. On planetary I’m on the fence. I suspect it comes down to comfort - definitely better for me with binoviewing and might also depend on the quality of eyepieces used in binoviewer.

Steve 

Stunning.  You must be delighted. That's a keeper for sure!

Can't wait to hear how it performs.

Steve

Brilliant. Thanks for posting. You hit some of my favourite targets. 

You can buy a spacer to raise the telrad - you probably already know but just in case you don’t it’s xalled a telrad rise base.

Steve

Nice report.

Steve 

Yes me too. A night of Cygnus Doubles, M11, M27, M57 and M29. Saturn completed the 2 hour session. It was warm and the seeing was pretty good where I was last night. Had a good night. That’s 3 in a row now 😱

Steve 

Yes. I went to Les Granges, Olly Penrice’s place near Orpierre in France a few weeks ago. The sky’s are stunningly dark, the weather was warm and his Meade 14 inch SCT with Ethos and Nagler eyepieces gave amazing views of all objects. That area of the alps is known for biking. The only downside really is the time to get there, but then it’s dark skies and it is going to be a journey to get to anything like that. Was it worth it - no doubt in my mind but it I th8nk to make the journey etc worth while you’d have to go for a week. 

Hope that helps

Steve 

OK enough talk of retirement. I’m jealous of all you early retirees. Spare a thought for us folk who have to go to work. 😩

Steve 

Enjoy your leisure time. No more worries about late nights. Despite the cut in income, you will be rich in observing hours available. 

Steve 

There was 15mm for sale on here for £30 recently, not sure if it’s still available?

i have the 15mm and it’s pretty good for all round stuff. 

Steve 

That ES eyepiece is as heavy as my 80mm Altair  scope!!

Steve

1 hour ago, chiltonstar said:

You were lucky to get out Doug - no luck here. I have my ED80 and Vixen Porta2 waiting as a grab 'n go in this kind of weather, as it is ready to go in a minute or so unlike my maks, and can give some glorious views.

This kind of weather is dangerous, as we all end up window shopping supplier websites!

Chris

Some of end up doing more than window shopping Chris (me especially) - if I was a conspiracy theorist I'd be sure that the UK astro-gear suppliers had some kind of high agreement with the weather gods to boost sales. Perhaps the weather gods are on commission or something.  Imagine the state of the UK astro kit world without bad weather!  I for one, get my astrofix by gear shopping.

Steve

Whilst we’re on eyepieces I received this new to me Pentax xw10 (thanks Mark). This has been a grail eyepiece for me for a while now and I’m so pleased to have it in the collection. My top end eyepieces now are Baader Morpheus 17.5, ES 82 24mm, Pentax XW10, Vixen SLV 6mm. Others in the collection include 20mm Meade Plössl, 15mm Starguider, 40mm and 32mm Meade 4000 Plössl and 20mm williams Optics pair for the binoviewer. Dare I say, I think my collections complete (for now anyway 🤣).

if anyone has any ideas about what else I need, suggestions are most welcome. No green and Black suggestions though as I’d never get the wife and kids to miss the family holiday for a couple of years to fund it 🤨.

Steve 

This is a great idea. I might well do this myself. Steve Tonkin might have some suggestions about Targets? 

Steve 

34 minutes ago, Paz said:

A dog would be good, but I have 2 meddling cats, they are nowhere to be seen a lot of the time and then sneak up on me when I'm not expecting it.

It’s not just me then 🐈. Glad someone else has been caught out by the sneaky feline devils. We have 2 cats and mostly when I’m engrossed in observing I feel something brushing against my leg and it gives me the shock of my life. Cats .... gotta love em 🤨

steve

Any camping pitches in your back garden 🤔. Nothing but solid grey could and torrential rain here for the last 4-5 days. 😡

Steve

12 hours ago, Captain Magenta said:

Like many of us I suspect, I have accumulated a selection of finders, mostly that came with various scopes. In ascending quality-order: a SW 6x30 straight-through (never used); a SW 9x50 straight-through (never used) that came with my 300p newt I bought around a year ago; a right-angle SW 8x50 (never used) and a TS-Optic 9x50 RACI which I bought off a fellow SGL-ite. This last I have used mainly because it's RACI. But they're all, even the TS-Optic, obviously very cheaply made and a bit, well, nasty. So I caved in and ordered an APM 50mm erect-image finder, and I have to say the difference in quality between it and the others is immense, not least the fact that it'll take any 1.25" eyepieces...

 

I’m interested how you get on with this as I might consider investing in one

Great. Well done on the sketch, what a super session you had. I love lunar observing and it’s especially nice with binoviewers if ever you get chance to try some.

keep up the good work.

Steve

Nice report and sounds like a fun challenge. I’ll give it a go.

thanks for posting

steve 

Nice report. I’m only near Walsall and did pretty much the same as you. Sadly when I went back out, it was 90% cloudy so I came straight back in. Sounds like I had a night like the previous ones you’ve had. Glad you got to see something though.

Steve