Trikeflyer

You are right. Even I a car they were pretty steep!

Thanks Olly. I did love the Leica’s. I think it’s between the Nikon and the Leica. In the end it might come down to price. New Nikon’s are about £400, cant find many used ones yet. Leica’s are about £100 more used - so far. Thanks for your input though steve

You’d be in your element, cycling is big around there and the skies are to die for Steve

Enjoy your birthday.

It was amazing. Best star gazing I’ve ever done.

Thanks for your input so far folks it’s helped. I think based on research so far it’s between the Leica and the Nikon Monarch 7. Does anyone have a Nikon Monarch 7 who could give an opinion? steve

There are a few versions of the Leica BN or BA which do you have?

We had great time Olly and I’ll remember it for a long time. Steve

Thanks Neil.

Hi I had chance to look through some Leica trinovid 8X42 bins recently for both daytime and astro use(thanks Olly Penrice). I have some Helios Apollo 15X70 which are great for astro but not great for daytime use due to their weight etc. Hence, I want some quality 8 x 42 bins. I'm prepared to spend a decent amount (up to £350 ish) but don't want to spend that if I can get something of trinovid quality views for less. I want them for both daytime and astro use and I'm looking for very crisp views during the day time. I wear glasses while using them so need 16mm eye relief minimum. Looking to develop a short list of options that will not disappoint. Any ideas based on experience of what models I should short list? Thanks Steve

I’ll tell you about it at the next RAG meeting I get to. Steve

Stephan, Nice report. Glad you enjoyed the scope after all this time. I had a similar experience but with a smaller - scope etx 125, my first scope. I fell out of love with it and only recently looked through it again at some double stars. I’m back in love with it now for specific targets. sometimes a break from a scope can be a good thing. steve

I changed the battery in my skywatcher 7 ah with a battery off the web. Works fine now. Just be careful when dismantling so you don’t lose or damage any bits. I think it will be fine. steve

It was awesome

I need of dark skies and good weather I decided last year to book to stay for the whitsun bank holiday week this year at Olly Penrice’s place - Les Granges in France. We were there last week for the week. I took my wife and daughter, although they are not into observing, we thought it’d be a nice family holiday, whilst at the same time, allowing me to get an observing fix. We arrived on Saturday after flying to Marseille from Manchester and driving a couple of hours North into the high alps. as we arrived late ish, as well as needing to find somewhere to eat, we needed to settle in and get oriented so for that night, after settling in etc, I found some 6x30 bins that Olly keeps for guests to use and as the sky was clear, I thought i’d nip out and have a look. The skies weren’t clear as there was a decent amount of cloud to contend with. Despite this, I picked off a few targets, notably M44 which was stunning and sadly just setting so I only got a brief view. Mel 111 in Coma Berenices was exquisite in the bins but was an easy naked eye target in these skies. Spent quite a bit of time on this one and also the famous coat hanger - Col 399 which was just lovely. The cloud defeated me after this and after an hour, i decided to call it a night. The next day Olly introduced me to the 14 inch Alan Longstaff Meade SCT, which was to be the weapon of choice for most of the week. Olly has a range of other scopes including a 10 inch meade SCT and a televue pronto. Olly is known for his imaging and its fair to say that there are some quality imaging rigs there. For me as a visual observer though, the mouth watering kit was the Meade 14 inch. Olly told me that most people who stay at Les Granges are astrophotographers, I would urge any visual observers out there who are looking for nice weather and dark skies to consider a visit to Les Granges, you will not be disappointed, in fact you’ll be awestruck at the quality of the views (Olly measured the SQM of the skies and 21.6 to 22 were true values whilst I was there). Sunday night arrived and the sky was clear. It got dark enough to align the scope by about 10pm so I met Olly at the scope and we proceeded to align. The scope has GPS and as we started to set up, it was clear there were issues with alignment. Several attempts later we couldnt work out what was happening, then we checked the GPS data and found the date was completely out? Then I remembered the post on this forum a few weeks ago about problems with the GPS date rollover. We decided to set the 10inch sct up whilst we worked out how to fix the light bucket 14 inch. It took a while to set up because Olly had to set up a mount as well. Once set up, I was keen to take advantage of the skies and selected targets I couldn’t see from my back garden in suburbia (that’ll be a long list then!). Anyway, the first target was M51, OMG what a view. It surpassed my expectations and I could see lots of structure and the light bridge to the ‘adjoining’ NGC 5195 companion. Next was M97, the owl nebula, wow. it filled the eyepiece! Finally for this night was M108, located very near to M97, it was only a short hop and this galaxy is seen edge on and looks needle like. I could easily separate the core from the extended surrounding. The final target for tonight was M101 and even in these skies it was faint! No wonder I’ve never found it! Going to bed, I was like a cat that got the cream, i was smiling to myself inside and couldn’t believe the views of galaxies and nebula that i’d just experienced. Monday, the weather was a bit rubbish for this region, it was cool and cloudy. We were hoping for clear skies but this didnt happen. Same for Tuesday. My spirits were dampened to say the least and i was starting to wonder if we’d ever get clear skies again! Olly said this weather was untypical for this time of year- surprisingly this didn’t make me feel that much better! Wednesday though and the weather gods were playing ball. Beautiful day. Olly had worked out how to disable the GPS system on the Alan Longstaff and 10pm arrived. Alignment was flawless. OMG we were ready. The skies were clear and the scope was aligned. I saw so many galaxies and globs that night. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, the views were just amazing. I had never experienced skies like this and it was a joy to be here. The standout targets for me were Globs - M4 - the cats eye in Scorpio’s so called as the central line of stars gives the impression that you are looking at a cats eye! So many other globs in orphiucus and Sagittarius. M3 in Canes Venatici is not bad from my back garden - from this site it was just like being there! Of course M13 and M92 were also beautiful. I have never seen so many galaxies in my life - I’m normally glad to see M81 and M82! The standout ones are the ones most off you will have seen, but for me, who has little galaxy observing experience, the Whale - NGC 4631 in Canes Venatici was just standout. Then the sunflower M63, Sombrero, M104 , of course M51. Also went for NGC 5353 - part of the hickson 68 cluster mentioned on this site as the once with a SN. This was great because O could pick out 4 and almost 5 galaxies in the eyepiece all at once! So I’ve gone from struggling to see a galaxy to getting 4 or 5 at a time! Next we’re Nebulae - M27 filled the eyepiece and looked 3d in the 13mm ethos at about 260X mag - unheard of in my part of the world. M20 the Triffid, M8 the lagoon, M57 the ring - again filled the eyepiece wow! The highlight for me though was the swan nebula M17 - I could see the dark dust lanes that formed the swans neck - very black and clearly different to the ‘space’ in other parts of the nebula. The only disappointing objects on this night were Jupiter and Saturn as the seeing at the relatively low altitude made any detail hard to pick out. I’m not complaining though! Ending a session like this - without doubt the best I’ve ever experienced and one that will stay with me forever with relatively poor views of the planets is hardly an issue! The next tw nights were similar weather and Olly assured me that this is how it normally is. Naked eye, the Milky Way dark lanes and nebulae popped. With bins they were amazing - Olly lent me his Leica trinovid 8 x 42 and now I want some!! The stand out objects on subsequent nights were the veil nebulae which is enormous and I could follow its path by moving the scope . NGC 4490 the cocoon galaxy - two galaxies nestled next to each other - easy to see why they are called this. NGC 4565 the needle galaxy, NGC 4631 the whale NGC 5907 the cat scratch galaxy. The faint intergalactic wanderer NGC2419 which was setting when it got dark but we could clearly see it as an object. If anyone has chance to visit Les granges, I can assure you, you are in for a treat. It was like a feast of intergalactic wonder. My eyes and memories are so full now I can’t begin to tell you. Now back to the UK and suburbia. Well they say you need the bad times to make the good times feel even better! Thanks Olly for being such a great host and for looking after us so well. Steve

See the posts after this one. Apologies if I’ve sent you off Track. 😬

Thanks for the correction. Sorry if I’ve thrown the op off track 🤐. Yes now I can see it. The secondary doesn’t look centred in the focuser. As you point out, it’d be easier to obscure primary to sort out secondary. Steve

You see the black rectangles in the picture of the mirror, they all need to be the same size. In your case the one is way bigger than the others meaning that the secondary is not centred on the primary. Thus needs fixing. You should try adjusting the three screws that alter the secondary and see if you can get the primary clips (the black rectangles) equal in size. Then work on the primary alignment. Hope that helps. Steve.

+1 for having a process. One time I put my scope out and was rushing because it was intermittent cloud and I wanted a ‘quick look’ in between the clouds. Focused on getting set up quickly I nearly looked through at the sun without putting the filter on. Luckily I spotted it the missing filter otherwise it could have ended in disaster. That was a lesson learned - don’t rush - have a process to avoid silly errors. Now I go through a stringent mental checklist much like Mark outlines above. It sounds silly that i could forget the filter and if I read about someone else doing it I’d probably think that it was an impossible mistake to make because it’s so obvious, but distractions happen to us all when setting up kit. this one could have had serious consequences. I share so that others may learn. Be careful out there and be safe when solar observing have a checklist, it could save your vision and your embarrassment. Steve

Got mine the other day 😀 Brilliant. Used it the other night when it was clear. Best thing ever is that it’s organised by constellation and has SAO numbers and magnitudes and separations😁. With Goto it Makes finding doubles as easy as shooting fish in a barrel 🤣 If doubles are your thing then this is a must have. Wished I’d found it earlier. I also decided to use the etc 125 mak which I had kind of fallen out of love with a bit. Had a fab night of observing doubles. Back I love with it now. The other great thing about the book is that it has showpiece stars by constellation so you can really hone in on the best ones. Paul, you’ll really love this beautiful book. steve

Looks nice 😋

I have one of these and use it with my ES 24mm 82. I don’t find any draw back tbh. At that price it’s a steal. I’d be biting the sellers had off if I didn’t have one already steve

OMG I just received mine from FLO. Haven’t opened the boxes yet - it’s for my birthday next month. Hope mine doesn’t make grinding noises. 🤔

Received my Ioptron AZ PRO mount, tripod and extension tube today. Have to wait a month to open it though 🙈 it’s for my birthday. Can I wait that long 🤔. Will post pics of the set up when it’s got the scope on. Steve

Thanks for sharing your investment. I Just did a quick tot up I have about 7.5K or more invested. Dread to think about the 'cost per view' based on the number of clear nights available in the UK let alone the light pollution in my garden and I don't even have a quark or Ha scope yet. Steve