michael.h.f.wilkinson

I had the Paragon, and sold it, regretted that, and got the LVW 42mm instead. The latter shows a bit more sky, as is perhaps a shade sharper at the edge, but the Paragon (or Aero) wins in terms of lack of pincushion distortion, and is very, very comfortable, showing little or no kidney beaning. The Vixen LVW 42 isn't particularly bad in that respect, but it is not as comfy as the Paragon

Very nice indeed, especially for a first narrowband

I have the Nagler 31 T5, and if I need a bit more FOV, I switch to the Vixen LVW 42mm. A lot less hefty than the Panoptic 41, by all accounts (I never looked through the latter), but very sharp indeed in both my F/10 SCT and my F/6 frac.

I have seen several misprints of OTA weights in catalogues of many manufacturers, including Celestron. I tend to trust my scales more.

Indeed. Got me the gold medal in the SGL Eclipse challenge in 2017

Nicely astro-themed, and a nice memento of the 2017 eclipse

Here is my APM 80 mm F/6 triplet, with Canon EOS 550D on my EQ3-2 mount, with ST80 guide scope and LVI SmartGuider 2 in action

My Vixen Great Polaris mount doesn't have those issues. Should I get a Dobson, or use the Mini-Giro mount, then balance becomes more critical.

Both my C8 and my APM 80 mm triplet handle the Nagler 31T5 "Panzerfaust" without issues, so the ES92s should be OK

The ES-92s are also on my radar

Very interesting. I have had my sights on these Nikons for a while. My TV Nagler 17T4 might be worried

My handiwork from some years back

Very nice shot indeed

But bins are brilliant at sweeping large swathes of sky.

I would guess the thermometers could be used to help correct for thermal expansion in some way.

Looks brilliant!

Just a quick question: Do my mammoth mosaics count as lunar close-ups (they have a resolution on the moon of about 400m per pixel), or do they have to be detail shots of a region?

Latest family portrait, now with the Helios LightQuest HR 16x80 replacing the Opticron 16x80 Observation binoculars. Also shown are the TS 15x70 (BA-1), old Yashica-built CombiFOTO 7x50, Vixen New Foresta 10x56 roof prism bins, my old Bresser 10x50s and the little Lunt 8x32 SUNoculars.

On second inspection, I spotted the ones on the M81 image as well. There also seem to be some CA issues with blue smeared out in one direction preferentially in the M42 crop. Pinched optics problem?

Maybe I didn't look properly. BTW, the M42 image I posted was my first attempt with an autoguider on an EQ3-2. I think it shows better stars than the images posted on the Vaonis site

The stars on both the M81-M82 and M42 image show signs of guiding or tracking errors, I would think. The M81-M82 image shows no sign of diffraction spikes. Maybe they added some in post-processing of the M42 image? Some people like them. The camera seems to have roughly the resolution of an ASI178MC, i.e. 6 Mpixel, which isn't bad. Istill think I get better results with an 80 mm scope both on M42 and the moon

The lack of flexibility irks me most. What you get is an 80mm frac. Assuming the quality is good, that should give a decent start for wide-field viewing, and for DSO imaging. The question is whether the chip is big enough to make the most of the wide-field option, and for imaging you only have the option of one-shot-colour, and no hope of inserting filters of any kind. One of my most memorable deep sky views was with the 80mm, with Vixen LVW 42mm, and UHC filter from a dark location in France (close to Olly's place). I got both NA nebula and Pelican in one FOV. Likewise, the view of M33 through the 22 Nagler, without filters was amazing. I doubt the camera in this scope will be big enough to cover such large FOVs (47mm diameter chip in the case of the LVW 42?). For planetary and lunar it is a bit small, and for solar it won't work except in white light with a front-mounted filter. A front-mounted etalon won't work because you cannot add a blocking filter at the rear end. My 80mm is my stalwart solar scope, but only because I can add Ca-K and H-alpha filters does it keep me happy. By buying a proper scope, with a proper (goto) mount, I have a far more flexible instrument, for less dosh. Conclusion: there is a reason that telescopes have (standardised) rear ends! You can swap kit in and out of the optical path, to tune the system to the current needs.