jjohnson3803

Yes, that's it. In my case, moonlight isn't always a bad thing - my house blocks the western sky and I have large trees to the SSW, so the moon is hidden part of the night. The downside is the house blocks the western sky. 😉

You might want to try a refractor sometime. My 72ED f6 is rather short and light and does a decent job on the moon and doubles IMO. But YMMV.

26° F before dawn today and some of yesterday's snow still on the ground, but I wanted to see how low I could go with my 80mm in Puppis. I was able to easily see the 4 brightest stars in Cr 135 which was about 10° above my horizon through some tree branches. I wasn't able to resolve double star Pi Pup though which was disappointing since the separation is listed as 66.5". But the secondary is listed as about magv = +8 and the moon wasn't terribly far away, so I'll have to try again without moonlight. Nonetheless, I'm happy I was able to see anything that low here.

Don't know how much they can handle or if one would suit your needs, but a number of people have made piers out of concrete blocks. I think they call them Tormorden piers. Maybe a possible alternative to pouring a lot of concrete. Good luck!

Try Googling "nautical twilight" and "astronomical twilight". I have the APT dark sky app on my iPhone, but I don't know if it covers your location. You can also try stellarium-web.org. If you adjust the time in the box on the lower right of the screen, it will indicate things like "twilight", "dark night", "moonlight", etc.

Probably not the worst things I've ever purchased, but I tried two different alt-az mounts without slo-mo. They were beautifully machined and worked very smoothly, but well, I like my slo-mo. Sold them both quite easily though.

Agree completely with that. I gave up on galaxies in my light pollution soup quite awhile ago and had been concentrating almost exclusively on open clusters. I started observing some doubles rather recently and it's opened up a whole new realm of observing. Splitting a double is really quite satisfying for whatever reason(s).

May I ask what you put on it? Virtually all the VP-II owners I know of love the thing.

I was able to get about 45 minutes of observing in with my 72ED refractor before dawn today: Split two doubles - Nu1 CMa and HD 49024 in M41. Also had a look at open cluster Cr140 - very sparse and wide. Counted about 8 stars before cloud bands rolled in and ended my session.

Great pic! LRGB shots are gorgeous, but I still like B&W. Might be nostalgia for when I did astrophotography with 103aO/E emulsions on glass plates. 😁

Here's mine - 50mm converted RACI finder with helical focuser, ScopeTech Zero mount, Innorel carbon fiber tripod. I haven't weighed it, but I'll estimate the whole rig is around 2kg. It's certainly an easy one-hand carry. The tripod collapses down quite short, but I can switch to a smaller Benro tripod if need be.

Aside from my Sears 60mm refractors that I sold 50 or so years ago, I've only sold a 90mm Mak. But I do have an ST120 sitting on the shelf gathering dust that eventually has to go. Could probably sell my ST80 too since I have a newer 72ED now. My dark secret is I've been eyeing a 60mm RACI finder to convert to a mini grab-n-go like my 50mm RACI conversion. But then I guess I'd have to sell the 50mm. 😄

I'd buy their kit just for the green! 😄 OTOH, my 72ED has red accents and focuser, so it would probably look like a Christmas decoration.

I wouldn't use Loctite, but I was thinking maybe there's some other kind of goo that could be used on the threads and that wouldn't foul the optics. Or maybe a spot of pipe tape - just enough to hold the objective tube in place.

I had a RACI finder where the lock (inner) ring didn't screw down quite far enough to bring the finder into perfect focus. I think the threads were cut a small bit too short or my eyeglasses prescription was a bit off. Anyway, I just removed the lock ring and focused the objective without locking it down. The downside is you'll have to refocus if the objective rotates at all, but it wasn't necessary to do that very often.

I'm not an imager, but I went with (another brand) 72ED instead of an 80ED. Looking at weights and physical dimensions, I felt the 72ED would be a bit easier to mount, transport, etc. Also the 72 puts less stress on my lightweight mounts. Both have excellent ratings and reviews for photography. I'm not sure that my eye is trained well enough to see much difference - visually anyway - between scopes, so my feeling is that either scope would be fine. And you can always sell the one if you decide you want the other one.

Ummm, yeah... That was on my last FLO order. Note the "Eventually..." at the bottom of the sticker.

Nothing wrong with waiting. Prices will go up and some items will be discontinued, but there will be new, possibly better, gear coming onto the market. I'm actually considering downsizing a bit, although that's not directly related to my weather.

Depends. What are you planning on observing, where, and when? I've been toying with the idea of getting one just to see how it compares to my small binos - easier to carry? Decent field of view? Crisp optics? It might be nice to have something that I can keep in my jacket pocket, although my wee Opticrons are pretty small.

Heh. I was looking at one of those somewhere online and thinking that would be just the thing - I don't want to drag out a laptop, deal with cords, buy an ASIAir, etc. I suspected it might be too good to be true.

Just for reference: concrete-block-platform-observatory

I have some mobility problems with my neck / shoulder when trying to look above 50° or so. Short of lying on my back with bouncy handheld bios or buying a parallelogram mount, I recently found that I can lean back a fair distance in a stiff-backed observing chair when using my 15x70s on a tripod with a fluid head. A key is that my tripod has a center elevator column that I can crank up or down. Sometimes I lean the tripod back toward me on two legs like a bipod so I can lean farther back. I find that to be steadier than my earlier experiences with a monopod.

I've not lost a whole night, but I have wasted observing time trying to decide which scope to use. Makes me wonder at times if I should pick one scope and sell the rest. 🤔 I won't be able to waste time deciding on what to use if there's only one option.

I've have an ongoing interest in elevated obsy's even though my HOA forbids building any kind of outbuilding. Personally, I'd look into a concrete block structure with a poured concrete observing deck. There's a good example on CN of one that somebody built in Mexico. Price could be an issue though. Another option would be using a surplus 20-ft shipping container for the lower level. I'm told the tops of containers are not designed to handle a lot of weight, so it would probably have to be reinforced with some kind of wood decking. It's certainly feasible - I stayed overnight in a 40-foot AirBnB that had a rooftop deck. There are many images on the Net. I have no experience with a wooden structure aside from my back deck that is only a couple feet high and wobbles a good bit when I bounce my foot on it. 😜 Good luck!

I've only seen one SL train, but it was a series of medium bright star-like objects moving one after another in a straight line from NNW to NE. I'd estimate there were around 30 of them, although I lost count somewhere in the teens. They were quite startling for a few moments until I realized what they were. I'd wager you saw a train of them regardless of what the app said.