Red Dwarfer

William Optics Alt-Az mount from ENS Optical 

Waited ages to get one of this type of mount . 

Looks like it was made for the AZ4 tripod too ?

My new lens from @Paul73 Thanks , Paul 

Will hopefully get first light in the Sagittarius star cloud tonight ?

8 hours ago, chiltonstar said:

Nowadays, I get the best of both worlds - I put both my 180 Mak and my little ED80 on a SkyTee2.

An underrated little scope - I seen the Cassini division in my ED80 last night with a 4.8 Nagler ?

My first foray into Televue lenses :

20mm Plossl and 4.8mm Nagler 

57 minutes ago, Alan White said:

Red Dwarfer, wow, that is quite some scope.
Relieved when the last image was NOT of your Niece headless after the tube dropped and shut onto her, thank goodness.

Nice step up from your 200p, do you get the conditions to use a 350mm scope much or is this a once in a while use to go with the 200mm?
 

It was well tightened , but that iPic made me think of a guillotine too .

As far as I know the sky at this semi rural location is semi to reasonably dark ; going by the Little Dipper and Milky Way visibility test , so I do hope it becomes my main scope for galaxies , doubles , planetary nebulae and planets - the extra aperture also starts to show the fainter NGC stuff too . The 200P will definitely stay as it was my first big scope and still a favourite .

3 minutes ago, 25585 said:

Does the OTA fit through a door frame easily?

Yes , no problem when collapsed - but the base plate needs to come off the stand in order to be able to carry it and reassemble the whole set up in 3 parts : base plate , stand then OTA 

That is Ellie my niece , a veteran astronomer , as she has seen the Moon a couple of times through a scope 

I was worried on two fronts while waiting for this new SW 350P flextube to arrive yesterday - the weight and having to install the primary mirror myself - the instruction manual goes up to 12” and stops there , so you need to go to google images and look at the assembled set up ... 

Thankfully , I had an expert on hand to help with the build : Ellie , my niece , aged 3 ... and instead of the standard baked beans tin for scale , I have used a 3 year old in the pics for scale ...

Forecast is clear spells tonight , so hopefully I will get a chance to use it ...

Trying to get used to this EQ3-2 mount that came bundled with the Mak - the slow Mo controls works a treat once set up - but it can be a bit of a kerfuffle to make the bigger adjustments / change targets 

Here's the set up from last night taken while on M13 

The set up from a couple of nights ago - trying out Baader Binoviewers on the Moon in the 200P for the first time 

In short , my jaw hit the ground at the 3D , HD Moonwalk experience - these things really should be renamed " Moonwalkers " 

Using a couple of lightweight MA eps because it was on an ST80 beforehand 

Had to use a 1.5 x lens cell from a Celestron Barlow to get focus 

1 hour ago, britto765 said:

No it's that I already have a celestron travel scope 70 and was wondering how much better will the views be out of the 130ps telescope before I buy one? 

I have a travelscope and 130P . While I have a soft spot for short tube refractors on the one hand , the 130P is a much better telescope with good light gathering ability .

2 hours ago, britto765 said:

The 130ps on AZ pronto mount I've just seen online for £175 looks a good choice which was mentioned earlier. What sort of view will I get out of it looking at planets? 

Good choice - my 130P was the first scope I got and is still in my top three favourites .

Should see the Bands of Jupiter and the Four Galilean Moons no problem and Saturn`s rings too .

Warm beanie hat is best ?

1 hour ago, Dave In Vermont said:

John - are Revelation Plössls not actually GSO's? I ask as GSO has been making some very nice optical gear lately. And from their prices - you'd not be likely to guess this. Many different outfits are using GSO equipment, but with their brand-names on them. This can be confusing to newcomers in the world of astronomy and the gear used by us people.

My point to you, Edward, is that if you run across some nice looking, but quite inexpensive (compared to other things like TeleVue® Plössls for example) gear bearing the GSO brand - it's likely very good and you're looking at a true bargain. And this of course also is true for the branded GSO goods out there. As I think the Revelation's are.

GSO is the abbreviation for Guan Sheng Optics located in Taiwan - the Republic of China.

Have fun -

Dave

 

According to the guy who runs Astroboot , Revelation Astro are made by GSO and he rates the brand as very good quality ...