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Those are great, especially the North American. Mighty fine job.

I owned the Vixen 8-24 and Meade 8-24, both were good optically but not cheap. The Baader 8-24 is excellent but really pricey. And as John says, they are compromised at the long end. So i had a Meade 24mm SWA for widefield. All adding to the cost. I really enjoyed my BST's. Had the 8mm, 12mm and 18mm. Good eyepieces for not much money. I personally would go for that over a zoom.

Polar alignment while standing........bliss! Looks just the job for a refractor, especially a long focal length job.

Well the 250P weighs in at 10.2kg tube only and the HEQ5 has a max payload of 13.7kg, so all should be good for visual and maybe some bouncy planetary imaging. Anyway thanks for asking the question as I have now answered the question for myself as well. 👍

Many thanks Mark. I think my rustiness to the whole imaging thing may also not have helped. Dead keen to get out again now. Saturday morning ear marked.

Thanks Alan. Yes feeling the effects right now. More coffee needed! Also worth adding that i had a quick look at Saturn and that looked majestic. Perhaps the seeing had improved. Visual only but very satisfying.

Decided to take my first astro image for 8 years and first planetary image for 12 years. Decided to have another go spurred on by the approaching favourable Mars opposition in late summer / autumn. Despite its incredibly poor viewing angle from the UK, I settled on Jupiter as the first target. I must be nuts, up at 2.45am on a work day to image a badly placed planet. Whole thing was an exercise in frustration. Neighbours trees proving a real problem for starters. The only spot i could see Jupiter was the one spot I couldn't see Polaris. So naturally polar alignment was flakey and Jupiter refused to hang around. Seeing was also poor. But after an hour and half i had a handful of movies to process. The best of which produced the image below. Yes I know, not exactly an illustrious return to imaging.... Kit used: Skywatcher HEQ5, 200P, Explore 3x barlow (thank Craig), QHY5L-II C. Captured with Sharpcap, stacked in AS3, wavelets in Registax 6 and final tweak in Luminar 4.

That is superb. I haven't seen a Comet for the best part of 7 years now. Great image.

That's really nice Ant

I still have my Lidl special Meade 10x50 bought in 2003. But don't use them too much anymore. Picked up some Tokina 10x42's a couple of years ago and they are great for general use. But my son laid claim to those. So now using Helios WP6 8x42, which i enjoy using a lot. Quite compact and great for wildlife. Not used them much for astro. Miss my Celestron 15-70's.

That's stunning. Detail is incredible.

What a great eyepiece set. I loved my Orion Ultrascopics. Always rated them higher than the TV plossls i had at the time.

They are all tempting, even when you already have something. I forgot how additive all this kit is.

I watched that all week on Ebay and then forgot to bid....was totally gutted What a great setup.

I hope so Stu. I guess we'll find out tomorrow when I collect it. Or more precisely, Sunday when I use it. I can't wait. 😁

Ade, that 66SD was such a great scope. I took a mistep initially and bought the WO 66 petzval when it first came out. I'm sure there is some historic posts on here where I wasn't impressed. No better than a Star travel 80. But the SD was a dream scope. Especially on the mini giro. Just need to re-buy one of those now.

oh wow that is stunning. Really makes me realise what we are missing out on at the moment in the UK.

haha i had to be quick. I missed out on a Revelation ED80 on Saturday morning for £110 delivered.... And also missed out on the setup nonlinear bought a few posts up. I had been watching that Starwave 80ED-R on the GTI all week and then forgot to bid lol

That looks epic

Just bought an Astrotech AT66ED for a small and light travel scope that will sit on my Manfrotto geared head. I'm hoping its so small and inconspicuous that my wife won't notice it packed for our camping trips. Also hoping it will make a good scope paired up with the Fujifilm X-A10 for a little imaging too. First light sunday if the forecast holds. I used to have a WO 66SD on a mini Giro some 10 years ago now and loved that. So hoping the AT 66 will be a direct replacement.

My kit now almost mirrors my kit 18 years ago and 18 years previous to that. I have a couple of scopes, couple of mounts and less than a handful of eyepieces. I have a thing about cables, i hate them. I had the briefest play with guided imaging ever in 2008, about 2 weeks and then sold it all. I just love it simple as possible. I don't like the imaging to interfere with the visuals. Happy to have a DSLR (or mirrorless now) doing its own thing away from me, while I trawl the sky with binos or altaz mounted scope. I have no photos of my current kit, so can't do a then and now sort of thing. But here's my 2009 setup. This will be a trip down memory lane for Rob.

In the same boat. Trying to find a cheap (sub £200) little Apo. A 60, 66, 70, 72 or something. Been nothing except one Saturday morning which i missed. A Revelation 80ED for £110......darn it.

What a beast of a scope. I just can't see the AZ4 being happy about carrying that lump.

I would agree. AZ4 and 150P is a nice pairing. I prefer that to a dob. Everything at a nicer to use height and easier to shift about. We love our AZ4.

It was a bit of everything. Physical size (too long), too much weight on that bearing. I tried some low power on Jupiter but it wouldn't settle down. I fully understand you wanting the 150 frac, they just give a purer star image that a newt cannot match. My Startravel 150 was sadly a technicolor dreamcoat of false colour. Tried the Baader Semi-Apo filter to calm things down but it didn't work. The ST80 and ST102 had CA but nothing like the 150. That said it was years ago and before the black diamond models came out. The old sky blue Skywatcher.