michael.h.f.wilkinson

Moved!

Most likely a satellite, which could be spinning slowly with light reflecting off some solar panels or the like

There is actually another active area (not officially an AR perhaps) on the northern hemisphere, east of the the meridian. There is a distinct plage area with a little dark filament visible.

Just had a short solar H-alpha session during my morning tea break, and was treated to a nice detailed view of the big AR just below the centre of the disk, showing a big sunspot and some trailing curling swirls of bright plage on band, and a series of smaller sunspots off band. More surprisingly, I spotted another AR, which looks even bigger on the south-eastern limb, with a sizeable sunspot leading the charge, and an even bigger one just on the limb. Dark filaments and bright plage surround them. I also spotted a few small proms on the southern limb. Pity I don't have any imaging gear at work, but still a very ice visual session with the Coronado SolarMax-II 60

Glad you found it! Did clouds follow you home?

Nice shots. No luck here, alas

Very nice indeed. Very natural processing

That is weird. Have you contacted UPS?

Very sad news indeed. The FAST telescope must now fill the void left by Arecibo

That is magnificent

I have just managed to grab a gap in the clouds to have a quick look at the Pleiades, the Double Cluster, and Mars with the new Explore Scientific 12 mm 92° eyepiece, using my APM 80 mm F/6 triplet. At 40x, and with the full 2.3° true field of view, the Pleiades were nicely framed, and the stars were really sharp across the field. Finding the correct eye position was a bit tricky at first, but I found that folding the rubber eye cup up helped a lot, and kept out stray light well. The Double Cluster also looked great, again with pin sharp stars across the field. On Mars, little detail could be seen on the disc at 40x, but the main aim was to spot glare and internal reflections. None were found. I had to cut the session short, but I am very pleased with the first impressions.

Regarding the weight of the EP, I just weighed my main EP case, and it is 12.7 kg, or about 28 lbs. That's well over twice the weight of my heaviest OTA

I don't think I will be using a Barlow of any kind with this eyepiece, especially not with the Meade SN6 Schmidt-Newton. I need a 2" extension tube for EPs to come to focus, so it sticks out quite a bit already sticking in a Barlow will matters a lot worse

Just a C8, so not really large

Cloudy here as well

I think these binoculars only differ in the eyepieces used, and apparently the coating of the 10x50 EPs looks better. I personally prefer 10x50s over 7x50s, because I prefer a smaller exit pupil, but some feel the 10x magnification is difficult to hold steady. I would simply have a look through them and see which you prefer

I haven't used the ALccd5L-IIc, but I do know the ASI224MC is a great performer

On the subject of adapters, TS have a large range of M68 adapters. They do not seem to be that expensive https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/index.php/cat/c205_M68-Zeiss-Thread-Adapter.html

The weight is considerable, but all my focusers handle the Nagler 31T5 well, so this one shouldn't be a problem (it is a whole 2 g heavier than the 31T5 "Panzerfaust")

Slight update, with the ES 12mm 92° replacing the Nagler 12T4 It currently holds a Vixen LVW 42 mm, Naglers 31T5, 22T4, and 17T4, Delos 14 mm, ES 12 mm 92°, Pentax XW 10, Delos 8 mm, XW 7 mm, Delos 6 mm, XW 5 mm. To the right we have some filters, an Orion 2" 90° Amici prism, SkyWatcher 2" dielectric diagonal, and finally the Denkmeier 2" Filter-Switch diagonal

Absolutely, My Nagler 17T4 might be the next to go

Just had a look with the APM 80 mm F/6 triplet, in daylight, and the view is brilliant. Very sharp, very comfortable views, with pincushion distortion, but no worse than the Nagler 12T4. Very pleased indeed

I have just received an Explore Scientific 12 mm 92° eyepiece, and it looks amazing. The Nagler 12T4 it replaces isn't exactly small, but this dwarfs it. First light will have to wait until next week, most likely. In the meantime I might use it with the APM 80 mm F/6 triplet as a 40x80mm birding scope.

I have rather stronger astigmatism (-3.00) so just use glasses while observing, regardless of exit pupil. The Nagler 22T4 would be a good bet, I suppose, because it is a super EP with enough eye relief to use glasses if you choose to do that after all

For what its worth, I have used my XW10 in a Meade 2x TeleXtender (telecentric lens like the powermate), and that works very well. However, I since got an XW5 second hand, and it really makes life a lot easier. Switching between the XW10, XW7 and XW5 (and even Delos 6 and 8 mm EPs with parfocaliser rings) is so much easier than having to refocus seriously when inserting a Barlow or telecentric lens. I really use the telecentrics mainly for planetary, lunar and solar imaging