JTEC

Having tried most, I’ve settled on the DGM NPB and the Televue (by Astronomik, I think) OIII filters. I concur with @John that the relatively inexpensive Explore Sci ones are comparatively ineffective.

With the sad passing of David Lukehurst, who makes telescopes to order any more? Does anybody know? I’m aware of the available commercial offerings, including those by, for example, OOUK, that allow minor tweaks to an otherwise standard template. I have some projects in mind that I have neither the facilities nor the capability to pursue and that I would have shared with David had he still been with us. With his passing, have we lost not just a nice and genuine bloke but the last of the truly independent, skilled telescope builders?

Hi Louis, sorry to hear that; yes, in all seriousness, I understand that many people genuinely dislike them. Perhaps I’m fortunate in never having had any real problems. It just feels like an issue that attracts a disproportionate amount of attention. That said, fit or lack of it crops up all over the place in astronomy. ATB John

I’ve been observing for decades with dozens of different telescopes and dozens of different eyepieces. Some of the eyepieces had undercuts, some were smooth and some had ‘kerfs’ - which I had to look up for its original meaning. It never occurred to me to bother which. I was and remain primarily interested in things like sharpness, contrast, freedom from scatter, aberrations, etc, and the consequent telescopic view. But, having read and studied some of the vast online body of literature and debate devoted to the subject, including on this forum, I understand now that there were more important things to worry about. As a result, I have gained a fuller appreciation of people’s concerns and reached a better informed conclusion: undercuts, smooth barrels, kerfs - couldn't care less. 🤣

Ouch … what was it I saw on the night of the 18th then? 🙂 I clocked it conclusively using the following kit: TEC 140 apo, Zeiss Baader 2” prism diagonal, Zeiss MkV bino, 1.25 GPC and pair of Tak ortho eyepieces (9mm from memory). All of that is, of course, high quality kit, arguably - unless you’re a Tak owner 🙂 - second to none, and it was all clean and in excellent nick. The mount was an AZ100 on a Berlebach Planet tripod. The seeing was very good. Earlier, views of the Moon had been astonishing. There are plenty of optical components in the above to produce troublesome scatter - but they didn’t. Quality coatings help perhaps, clean optics, ‘simple’ eyepieces and the use of a prism instead of a mirror diagonal? Late last year, I sent the objective back to TEC for a once-over, a clean and a re-oil. They also blackened the edges of the objective which, apparently, they now routinely do - I bought the scope 18 years ago and, back then, they didn’t. Yuri’s advice, incidentally, was to use ‘small and simple’ eyepieces for critical work. I have a 13mm Ethos, a 10 mm Delos and a couple of XWs and I think they’re wonderful, about in that order, but, with my scope, the orthos edge them for critical viewing. I can only report my own experience, of course! So much astronomy boils down to optimising each one of a number of ingredients, maybe this is a case in point - there were no real weak links in the visual chain … at least, until the light got to me! 🤣

From discussions I was involved in a while ago - things may have moved on somewhat - the satellites would be visually around 7 mag when in orbit, which, telescopically speaking, is very bright indeed. Think of the impact on the work of professional instruments like the Vera Rubin wide-field telescope. Musk promised to ensure there would be no impact on astronomy. Needless to say, this promise has not been kept. Some attempts were made to darken the satellites visually but this resulted in them being brighter in the infra-red, which was a big concern for the professional astronomers working in that field. I think orientation was also considered, but presumably that needs to be determined primarily by functional considerations and even if it did offer a solution, there is still the issue of ‘glint’. Bottom line, I think, in the absence of sufficient controls, it’s pretty much a free for all with big money doing the talking.

Sorry, not so fantastic - a real nuisance to professional and serious amateur observing and a visual pollutant that contaminates the beauty of the natural night sky. And all about markets and profit, of course. Discussions are ongoing about controls on this sort of thing but unfortunately while there’s plenty of talk, effective action and legislation is a long way off. Meanwhile the megaconstellations continue to be launched and, unless something is done about it, more will follow.

Thanks for that straightforward outline. The MkV is a wonderful device and, at the risk of starting a bun fight, imv, it or something similar is the only way to get the best views of the Moon and planets (preferably straight through with no diagonal). But although I’ve owned one for years, the combination of movements you describe above has never really felt intuitive.

It’s opposite directions for the locking mechanism. Perhaps this helps wrt focusing: https://www.baader-planetarium.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/mark_v_giant_binocular_user_manual_12_page.pdf

Well done Presteigne! 🏆 We all have to keep on pushing for good practice around night time lighting - the harm caused by artificial light at night is now known to be multiple and not confined to the issue of waste and carbon footprint. The other ‘hard’ effects of unmanaged light at night are at least as scary: harm to human health associated with serious diseases, damage to the natural world including the fellow creatures with whose lives and well-being our own are inseparably entangled. And then there are the ‘soft’ issues, also profoundly important, like the loss of a natural beauty that until recently had always been there to inspire, inform and give context to our lives. We are countering ignorance so our best, perhaps the only, hope for now, imv, is to inform. I’ve tried to summarise the arguments on my website https://www.darkskiesmatter.org.uk/

If, like me, you ever thought that asteroids were maybe a bit uninspiring, this book might change your mind. Courtesy of Santa … a fascinating read 🙂!

You might find this relevant and interesting … interesting site in several ways imv http://www.scopeviews.co.uk/My Favourite Eyepieces.htm

I have an Oklop for a C9.25 and a Geoptik for a 140 apo and am happy with both. If pushed to compare, I’d probably favour the Geoptik materials but really they both do the job well.

Thanks, Louis. Interesting read.

Gasgiant, I sent you a PM. If you hook up with your local Astro Soc - also mine - they have the facilities and the expertise to help you first hand with your questions.

Just a personal experience, but the Baader Neodymium Moon and Skyglow is the only filter I’ve found to add anything useful to visual observation of Jupiter and Mars - including all the reds, oranges, blues, etc that some observers recommend. I think the Baader adds a smidgeon of contrast that might be construed as increased available detail, but it’s slight. Perhaps I’m missing something, but I’ve given the coloured visual filters lots of tries over the years and can’t honestly say that I’ve seen anything with a red, blue, etc filter that couldn’t be seen without. As for Moon filters, yes brightness is an issue but, without exception, they appear to me to reduce perception of detail and degrade image quality. Binoviewers are a different story, I think. I’ll be gently provocative here and say that, imv, binoviewing is simply the best, arguably the only way to see the planetary detail your telescope can offer you. There, I said it 🤣 https://www.darkskiesmatter.org.uk

24, including 4 pairs for binoviewing. I'd love to be able to 'rationalise' the collection and reduce the number if I could only figure out how to do it without feeling that I was losing a finger or a toe. I find that I spend most time within the extremes. My bright suburban skies don't encourage wide exit pupils and I don't find I gain much by going smaller than a 1mm exit pupil except with the binoviewer - in that case, the on board 'glass path compensator' means that super short eyepieces aren't required. With the bino, I find that the most rewarding views of the gas giants with the 140mm TEC refractor are likely to be with the 9mm Tak orthos with the x1.5 (effective) GPC, so around x160 and an exit pupil around 0.9. I don't see any more detail by increasing the power. I did use the 5mm Pentax XW mono on Mars and thought it superb on that target, though it didn't show more than the 6mm Tak ortho. I have a 4mm Tak TOE and a 3.4mm Vixen HR but, although they're both extraordinary eyepieces, they hardly ever get used. Then, it's mostly out of curiosity rather than serious intent - I've even Barlowed them on the Moon to 'see what they did' - they held up incredibly well. I'm not a dedicated double star observer. When it comes to how much meaningful use one gets out of high powers in the UK and how frequently they can be used, I think there is a kind of inescapable Sequence of Doom. 1) For starters, obviously, there's your personal availability to observe on a given night 2) Then there has to be some clear sky that coincides with those nights - opportunities for any kind of observing are already shrinking fast ... 3) the target has to be accessible on those nights and not behind a chimney 4) the equipment has to be thermally settled, collimated and tracking well enough to justify and facilitate the use of high powers 5) ... often the coup de grace ... the seeing has to be good enough to justify the use of high powers. So, depending on how you like to populate the Drake Equation, perhaps there are more or many fewer high-power-viable nights in the UK per year than civilisations flourishing in the Cosmos. 😊 https://www.darkskiesmatter.org.uk/

+1 for the Morpheus. There are the Tak orthos, of course, though no longer available new - I have a pair for binoviewing and they are very good. The Tak ‘Starbase’ series, available from FLO, also includes a reportedly good value 6mm. Not tried it though. https://www.darkskiesmatter.org.uk/

I think you’ll enjoy it @Stu 🙂 The mount is so good in almost every respect but I miss being able to nudge easily and precisely to centre or reposition objects in the eyepiece. Most ‘ordinary’ mounts just offer this routinely, of course, via a handset. With something as high quality as the AZ it feels odd not to have it to hand. Sunday night was a case in point, observing Saturn with the TEC140, the Tak 4 mm and the 3.4 Vixen HR, giving around x245 and x290 in a small field of view, needed something more precise and responsive than tugging around on a pan handle. Am I missing something?

Could anyone advise on how best to do this, please? Derek confirms that, pending the possible arrival of a handset for the AZ100, a simple Bluetooth controller can be used to steer the scope. The issue I have is that of how to nudge the scope accurately, for example, to centre an object while looking through the eyepiece. I’ve not had much success with the onscreen joystick or the buttons in Sky Safari. At high powers, despite the general excellence of the mount, physically shifting it with or without the pan handle isn’t delicate or precise enough. Has anyone a solution to this please?

Perhaps you mean these lines from Tennyson’s poem Locksley Hall, written, acc to Wiki, in 1835: ‘Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro’ the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.’ Those were the days …

Welcome 🙂 Guildford AS has many members from Dorking. If you want to join a society and would like to PM me, I can send you some info.

Thank you very much for the information and insights Malc and C Brush. Our investigations and discussions are still ‘ongoing’ - I’ll post again when we have something useful to pass on. ATB John

Many thanks, Malc. That’s very useful and interesting. The scope has been housed in a dome for maybe 30 years, but the structure is beyond repair and needs to be replaced. Disuse during lockdown didn’t help. A new dome is not affordable, so for that and other reasons, we’ve been looking at run-off options. We have a smaller run-off on the site that accommodates an imaging facility, based around a small refractor, and that we built ourselves. A 4m square roof, though, is a different proposition, structurally and in terms of mass, etc. The walls are not hard to source from good local shed suppliers but nobody wants to do a rolling roof. We’ve looked at buying the walls and building the roof ourselves and have considered various materials for it: wood, aluminium, plastic, etc. Ideally - to save time and working around exposure of the instrument, electrics, etc, during a drawn out build (which, given the kinds of availability issues you mention, it would be!) we’d like to have it all done and dusted for us by a single provider. We’re looking at a few. Outsideology, who, judging from testimonials, seem to provide a decent product, quoted us ‘about 30K’, which is way beyond our resources. We’re waiting for other quotes and will then have to see what approach is most practical and affordable for us. Thanks again - anything interesting I’ll share. 👍🏻 John

Many thanks both! Yes, it is quite big with consequences for roof design, manageability, etc. Depending on outcomes, I’ll be sure to report anything of general interest. Thanks again 👍🏻