michael.h.f.wilkinson

I would certainly go for the 10x50. These would allow quick hand-held sessions much more readily than 12x50s do. Now I can hold my Helios LightQuest 16x80 bins quite well without support, but that is rare. I do have a monopod, and even a P-mount. However, I rarely use them in practice, as they take just that bit longer to set up, and restrict your freedom of movement a bit.

My Celestron GP-C8 has been with me for over 25 years and is wonderfully portable Much more compact than a Dobson, but with the same aperture.

Also a monopod fan. Mine is a Benro with Falconeyes pistol grip

Over the years, I have bagged all of them, and the majority with binoculars (granted, 15x70 bins). I picked up a large number with my old 6" F/8 Newtonian, but often from fairly dark skies. I also use a RACI (right-angle correct-image) finder scope to star hop to targets, rather than relying on setting circles.

Very kind words, but I have much to learn, especially on the DSO front

Made a collage of my best astrophotos of 2020. Not a bad haul, and I learned a lot, in particular on the deep-sky front. The second-hand Meade SN6 6" F/5 Schmidt-Newton has proved a really neat DSO workhorse, and the Sigma 50-100 mm F/1.8 proved a brilliant wide-field and comet catching tool. I also captured my first images of a supernova and of a volcano on another planet. Clear skies and best wishes for 2021!!

I never tire of looking at the Pleiades

Same ISO or exposure is not necessary for flats. Just take dark flats at same ISO and exposure as the flats and you will be fine. Flat panels are the easiest way to get flats.

Your scope should be able to catch it, (I have spotted it wide-field shots of the Sadr region using a short telephoto), but it will need dark skies, or a filter to suppress the sky background

I have a series of SLV EPs and they perform well in all my scopes (APM 80 F/6 triplet, Meade 6"F/5 Schmidt-Newton, Celestron C8). No reflections observed, and neither could I see the reflective metal edge Don Pensack has seen in his EPs. Apparently, there are different series. Apart from field of view, they performn as well as my Pentax XW and Tele-Vue Delos EPs

The Crescent is doable with short exposures, but much depends on sky quality. I have managed to get decent results with a load of 30s exposures, but with a rather larger scope (Meade SN6 6" F/5 Schmidt-Newton), more sensitive chip (using an ASI183MC camera) and an Optolong L-eNhance filter to suppress sky background. This is a total of 3 h 40 min 30 sec exposure

On December 18 I took a couple of shots of M42 with the optolong L-eXtreme filter, but decided to switch to the Horse-Head nebula instead, because I felt the filter was too severe for M42. I decided to stack the results anyway, so here it is, my shortest M42 ever. Very noisy, but at least the core isn't blown out. Note how the Running Man nebula is practically gone. I might blend some of this kind of data in with the older captures of M42

Put all my data on this target (6 h 50 min) together. All captured with my APM 80mm F/6 with Tele-Vue TRF-2008 0.8x reducer and modded Canon EOS 550D. Some 2 h 15 min of data from 2019 were captured with just a CLS-CCD filter in place, the rest was captured on December 18 and 24 with an Optolong L-eXtreme filter. Still a bit noisy, but I am getting more detail. I hope to get more data without Optolog L-eXtreme filter from a darker site, and in particular a bit more above the current frame, so I don't have to clip off the L-eXtreme data.

Just added the older data in a quick and dirty way (hadn't computed a weightmap for these data yet, so edges show up more than they should) so needed to crop out tthe edges a bit more. Pattern noise still showing. Perhaps I should gun for this with the ASI183MC instead (perhaps even with the 0.6x reducer)

Managed to get 2 hours 3.5 minutes of data on the Horse-Head last night with APM 80mm F/6 triplet, 0.8x reducer, Optolong L-eXtreme filter, and Canon EOS 550D (modded). Despite making new darks, and (manually) dithering I got some pattern noise in the inky black background. Combining it with data from December 18 which showed much more pattern noise, for a total of 4 h 25 minutes of data, improved matters Still have to combine this with 2 hours of data without Optolong L-eXtreme filter

I have had pretty good views on Mars this opposition, Jupiter and Saturn were simply too low. I will stick to my Pentax XW, Delos, and Vixen SLV EPs, rather than go back to Plössls, orthos, or achromatic symmetric EPs of short focal length. With my astigmatism, the latter simply don't work

Just stacked the results of yesterday's data on M45, obtained with my APM 80 mm F/6 triplet, Tele-Vue TRF-2008 0.8x reducer, and modded Canon 550D with CLS-CCD filter omn the EQ3-2 mount. All processing in APP. As the mount wasn't tracking ideally I reduced exposure time to 30 seconds, and stacked 200 of them. Still need to crop the shot a bit, but this will do for now. The early stages of the session were plagued by the odd passing veil of thin cloud, so I am pleased enough how this came out.

Here's the Optolong L-eXtreme in the Tele-Vue TRF-2008 0.8x reducer

After getting just six subs on M42 with the Optolong L-eXtreme filter inserted, I decided to switch to the Horse-Head Nebula, because the L-eXtreme filter vuts too much of the reflection component of both M42 and the Running Man. Horse-Head and Flame Nebulae look promising, with inky black backgrounds even from my suburban back garden

Snapping M45 at the moment, will switch to M42 when it clears the trees

Got the pair, using the Canon EOS 80D and 100-400 mm L IS USM zoom I also had a peek with the Helios LightQuest 16x80 binoculars

I have two MaxVision 24 mm 68 deg EPs, and these are optically similar (or even identical, bar possible differences in coatings) to the ES 24 mm 68 deg. Very nice down to F/5, but below they start deteriorate (they are advertised as good down to F/5, so fair enough). Should be great in the 102 Mak and fine in the 6" F/5.

For what it's worth, my (black) Vixen GP mount that came with the Celestron GP-C8 does have the plate in question. I suppose it is not really necessary, but I do rather prefer securing the polar axis with both adjustment bolts tightened, rather than gravity doing the job of the second bolt

I just looked up what a HyperStar conversion plus HyperStar assembly would cost for my old C8 (black tube, bought in 1995), and I think I will simply start saving for the RASA itself

Amazing image. I must say, the RASA 8" looks very tempting indeed