michael.h.f.wilkinson

Same here! Anyway, putting a Nagler 31T5 "Panzerfaust" in your pocket isn't the most comfortable (or safe) thing to do,

Love that TMB Paragon. Superb EP. Never looked through the others, but I am sure they are excellent

That is pretty good for such a low cost set-up. Nice work

The very designation Sakura "30x260x160" is meaningless. Is it a 30x (high but possible)? is it 30-260x (from high to ludicrous)? It certainly isn't 160mm (unless they count 2 80mm objectives as one 160mm). If I ever got one I might take it apart, throw away the zoom EPs, and make two finder scopes out of the objectives. That is the only way I can see these BSOs bein useful in astronomy

Some lovely Delos EPs and other goodies there. I focus on the Delos because I have the 8 and 14mm. Superb EPs.

Awesome case of goodies!

Very nice set. I was tempted by them, but the specified eye relief sis to short for me with my glasses. Curious how they perform, nonetheless.

As others have said, aligning on Polaris is inadequate. I have used the true NCP alignment available in my Great Polaris EQ mount, and whilst very accurate, longer exposures with FR still required guiding, I found, even at the slightly shorter focal length of the C8. Drift aligning might be able to improve the result

Very nice collection. I also have the 14mm Delos. Really awesome EP I feel.

Lovely collection of fine glass, John!

Lovely set of EPs! I wouldn't say the 28 UWA is too much for a frac. I use the Nagler 31T5 (a.k.a. "Panzerfaust") in my 80mm F/6 a lot. It provides a 5.3 deg true FOV at 15.5x. Lovely for strolling along the milky way.

And there still is some financially hazardous empty space

Slight change, as I added a 2" dielectric diagonal. I already had a 2" Amici prism, and the Denkmeier Filter-Switch diagonal, but the latter doesn't reach focus with the APM 80mm triplet, and the former does work that well at high magnification. The EPs (top to bottom, left to right) are: A Vixen LVW 42mm, TV Nagler 31T5, 22T4, and 17T4, TV Delos 14mm, TV Nagler 12T4, Pentax XW10, TV Delos 8mm, and Pentax XW7 and XW5.

The key question I always say is not whether there is some dust in the optics, but whether the images you are getting are good. If so, don't touch the optics is my motto (or maybe that is just an excuse for laziness ).

Your C8N is a Newtonian (hence the 'N'), a very different beast from the C8, which is an SCT. The C8N is open at the front, so much more dust accumulates. The C8 has a closed tube (the Schmidt corrector plate is mounted up front, keeping almost all dust out), so the mirrors are not very accessible

My C8 is 20 years old, and I have not seen any significant build up of dust on the mirror. I have only ever cleaned the corrector plate. If I ever feel the mirror needs a clean, I would probably try to find a professional to do it for me (and perhaps even recoat the mirrors).

Actually, I tend to take all panes at the same exposure settings, and process them identically. This means that panes towards the edge of the sun are darker than those in the centre. With good flats, the panes end up pretty consistent. Automatic gain correction in AutoStitch and MS-ICE generally handles the rest well. Sometimes I do have to fiddle around with the brightness levels a bit, but rarely very much. Differences in sharpness due to varying seeing are far more difficult to deal with.

Very nice indeed!

Superb scope and great first-light report.

I use my H-beta filter only for visual, and indeed for the Horse-Head nebula (got it in my C8). H-alpha is much brighter in nebulae, but the dark adapted eye can hardly see that. By contrast, the dark adapted eye does see H-beta. I cannot recall seeing an H-beta filter for imaging, most are sold for visual, and as such may pass quite a bit of IR (to which we are blind, anyway, but a CCD isn't!).

A slightly older configuration The more current set-up:

If you cannot find a space, I still have some room left

Uh-oh, I had steered clear of these newfangled hyper-wides. If they add eye relief i have no excuses left. RESISTANCE IS USELESS!!

Lovely set Gavin, some real class glass in there. I have the Delos 14mm and it is absolutely superb cannot fault it.

Nice case with a good set of EPs