josefk

It is a bit irritating @magnahrl but I think it’s more irritating in theory than in practise if you know what I mean. I have the CO calculated at 38% after measurements in the flashlight test but in any event I get nice dark skies and good contrast for eg something like M97 or M57 or M27. I mean really nice so I don’t think it’s impacting the view really. Around the new moon mine “competes” with a nice 5” refractor and I never feel disappointed in the aesthetic comparison between them (apart from diffraction on planets - sorry to mention that again). Ergonomically it is lovely. You’ve used it so you know. Though I occasionally add a DIY dew shield (belt and braces) I don’t think I’ve ever had a real dew “event” with the CC8 with or without it (and frequently the outside of the OTA would be dripping wet on nights with high RH). Even though I will buy more aperture I would keep the CC8 for this quality alone. I’ve never looked through a Mewlon. I guess (purely from reading the experiences of others) the Mewlon will be better than the CC8 on axis but the DK prescription of the Mewlon would be worse than the classical cassegrain prescription of the CC8 off axis. Off axis is important to me. I use the field stop quite a bit so I like things tidy fully across the FOV. all the best Magnus. Cheers Joe.

Very nice @JeremyS - sometimes i love my one and only Ethos (an 8mm) and other times i'm not sure (about the 100-degree FOV) and find my Delos more comfortable and somehow "lazier" to use - the to and fro is preventing me buying any more of either to fill in the gaps at lower focal lengths (i could do with a 6mm of one or the other definitely and possibly one other medium focal length) so its a good cost saving bit of paralysis to prolong on my part 😉 Do you like them unreservedly? Even in the longer focal lengths that may engender larger exist pupils?

i have this scope @magnahrl and i really rate it. It has brought and does bring me a lot of pleasure. That said in your family of scopes i'm not sure it brings any new capability versus the 6" Mak, 8" SCT and 8" newt you have??? In my family of scopes i would swap you my CC8 for your 6" Intes 🙂 The CC8 is a bit undersized (using the flashlight test) at 185mm ish and that makes the secondary a bit chunky in percentage terms and also using the flashlight test the secondary is anyway a bit bigger than specified. Still, I really enjoy it's contrast and general capability (in a compact package) at medium magnifications on DSO (including planetary nebula) and collimation holds really well (i drive down a rough track to my viewing spot and it doesn't care). For planets the diffraction spikes are a big distraction (for me) and i think the quite thick secondary support (that makes collimation so robust) contribute to those spikes being fairly prominent on the brighter planets even while the details on the face of Jupiter in particular have at times been excellent.

Good tip on airing everything out @bosun21 - i'm exceptionally fussy about that myself. Keeping EPs under cover while using them in a session but they're not the one in the scope at that moment is also important (IMHO) to prevent them getting too damp in the first place. Sounds like a good run out @LondonNeil - like you one of my regualr observing spots is a few hundred meters from my home and i walk up to it - my tip - keep it simple. Simple gear (not everything out all at once and not everything at every session) and everything organised (sounds like you have already cracked that with the tool box and ruck sack). If your gear is a bit unwieldy/heavy you could resort to a small sack truck available in DIY super stores. I personally wouldn't jolt my scope around on one but you could bungee your tripod, a stool, and maybe a boxed or bagged mount to one and take the weight out of your hands. 🙂

Nice. I recognise those stars 🙂. The beauty of this game is it does feel like these wonderful things are committed to memory better.

Thanks for the kind words @AlcorAlly i aim to attempt it for certain closely grouped galaxy groups even where all my original sketches for a certain group may not be from the same night (or even the same season). The approach may not scale for M37 though and it was M37 that originally started the thought process in chain 🤣

Thanks @JeremyS - harder than i expected it to be TBH. It was the kind of exercise that would really benefit from dual mounted scopes to keep a wider view to hand...it was too damp last night to even attempt that.

The sky wasn't thrilling last night but this is a relaxing way to spend the time nonetheless - sitting comfortably capturing PA and separations for double stars and multi-star systems in M44. Now i'm sitting comfortably at the scope adjusting a chair to achieve the right height instead of sitting at a fixed height and rotating my diagonal to get comfy (which is what i was doing till recently); West is consistently placed - a brilliant side effect of the BB chair - it makes it much easier to achieve consistent sketches in a series when West is always pointing off in the same direction...

A rather hazy, milky and bright moonlit night last night but i still managed a couple of hours just on M44 trying to sketch double stars within it. Transparency was awful and seeing was pretty bad - an early session attempt on Tegmine had it hopping, skipping, and jumping across the FOV. No chance. Still another night grabbed against the odds. Sketch over here: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/421375-messier-44-with-double-and-multi-star-systems-21042024/#comment-4480381

I'm quite pleased with this this morning... 🙂 I've had the intention for a while to get after a few double stars within Messier objects [open clusters]. i have a list for M44 and a list for M37. M37 is incredibly daunting (dozens and dozens of groups within groups) but M44 is a bit simpler so i started with it last night. The sketch below is a tidied up composite of four field thumbnails for the star groups plus one larger "map" done at the eyepiece for M44 itself. By the time i came to make the map for M44 (at lower magnification than i'd been using for the groups) the sky had turned really milky with high haze and only the very brightest stars of M44 were breaking through - in some ways this made laying out the open cluster simple (fewer stars) but on the other hand sort of spoilt the point of the exercise which was to appreciate the parts in close up the step back and wonder at the whole of them together. Still - good fun and surprising hard to keep track in the field of what star is related to what - i've checked Stella Doppie this morning and my thumbnail sketches are actually more useful than my field notes to piece it all together: BTW i've just realised my sketch as photographed omits West and North. West is pretty much directly towards the lower left corner and North to the upper left corner. Painstaking thumbnails below:

A very effective technique @IB20 . Super.

Very very nice @SwiMatt. Travelling pretty quick at x200 was it? 🙂 Just teasing...

Not the postman and not new - not even new to me - but returned to my care at the weekend. 29 years ago this year "my" first scope was a 4.5in Newtonian i bought my wife on an early anniversary. About 15 years ago "my" second scope was this 120mm achro we bought our son for good exam results. Spot the theme 🤣 It's returned to me while he does some house renovations and generally makes a mess for a bit. I have permission to spend money on it and repurpose it as a white light solar scope if the fancy takes me... This scope saw quite a bit of use so when my son fully reclaimed it after finishing uni I finally did have to buy my very own scope for the first time. I found the Celestron Omni a and GEM mount a bit tedious to carry up to the local park so i "downsized" to the ~9kgs of Cassegrain and ~11ks of Berlebach Planet i still use now. I'm not sure i thought that through properly.

I don't know what it is but nevermind the actual utility of it - a big finder is aesthetically very very appealing to me. Weird (or weirdo maybe). Two finders screams SERIOUS intent! 🙂 That bracket is exactly to fit an accessory ring snuggled around the OTA - a nice concept because it means you can get the finder quite far forward and out of the way easily. The rings also take a handle so quite useful even if a bit pricey.

Not to answer facetiously but have you seen John Boorman's film Excalibur? There is a pivotal scene where Arthur "escalates" a circle of victorious knights stood on hill to Camelot in about three steps...( i will build a round table for you my knights to sit around (yay) and a hall around the table (yay) and a castle around the hall (yay) and take a bride to join me in my castle (yay)!!! 🤣 The analogy would be escalation of pencil and pad with simple alt az mounted small scope to 36" dob in a 5m dome under an SQM22 sky - you need to see the film to get the joke. So far i have resisted! I understand the driven mount though - that has crossed my mind a few times too (sp. for Lunar).