josefk

10 hours ago, MalcolmSt said:

Thanks for the welcome, Jim. Yes, when it's clear the sky's can be awesome. No astronomical darkness at this time of year, struggling now to see even the Aurora. Still, having owned my trusty EQ2/Explorer 130 for ten or so years, this summer is my big upgrade year, so plenty to do on these light summer nights. Those nice folks at FLO have delivered my new HEQ5 Pro, now getting it all set up, aligned and playing around with EQMOD/ASCOM. All exciting stuff.

Clear & dark skies,

Malcolm.

Hi Malcolm - welcome.

We had a great week on the Isle of Lewis last week and drove over the highlands in both directions. You live in a superb area of the country.

I packed the scope to come with me then unpacked it at the last minute due the weather forecast (no clear outlook) and lack of astro darkness. I was shocked actually what a difference "just" 500 miles make.

Cheers

Well what a relief to be out again after what has felt like weeks of cloud. Totally rubbish sketches but hey oh. (In my defence i am waiting for some new glasses to be made up).

This is an observation in NE Northamptonshire in twilight (20:55 to something like 21:40 BST). I was set up quite a bit earlier but could not for the life of me find Venus in the bright blue sky on this occasion and failed on a single star align on the sun because it beat me into the tree line. TBF the sky was very pale, graduating from hazy white near the horizon to pale china blue higher up. When i have found Venus before in the daylight it has been against a clearer and truer blue sky.

Seeing wasn't great - there was the odd shimmy and 'jump' in the view. Really it it barely supported the x200 i was trying to use but x125 was too small to observe well and i don't have an in-between without faffing with a powermate which i wasn't in the mood for:

1st the 'real' sketch - nothing to see except a lovely phase and brighter poles (if they're not optical artefacts). I don't think the brighter poles are illusory as they stood out in several filters. The #82A light blue filter used here was superb. Extremely naturalistic in the blue sky.

This next card is not really a sketch - just an aide memoir. The right hand side view is why i bought a refractor (again)! Trying (bright) planetary again with the Cassegrain brought a satisfied smile to my face (honestly the ADC was visible in the refractor unfiltered but the horrible diffraction 'beams' and glare were not!). 🙂

The filters were not stacked BTW - but red and dark yellow behaved similarly to brighten the poles (red particularly) and dark blue and violet behaved similarly to shrink the apparent size of Venus and to a considerable degree. Neither dark blue nor violet revealed further variation in brightness. #82A was king this night.

Thanks for posting those two charts @John lot's of their content beyond any aperture i have but interesting nonetheless. 

Another great breakfast read @Captain Scarlet - i think you would do a good turn of business offering astro bed and breakfast with tales of SQM 21.95 and steady seeing like that!

Hi Malcolm - not sure if its helpful for you but you can see i have a been in my bonnet about ergonomics of the powermate and these pics would have helped me when considering a powermate vs. Q extender some months ago. 

Nice ergonomics and optically unreal - this may be your primary use case in which case ignore everything else 🙂

Not nice ergonomics which is a shame because this type of combo was my primary use case - i wanted to avoid getting into eyepieces <5mm and leverage existing WA eyepieces down into the lower focal lengths:

This combo works nicely but the extender before the powermate was an unpleasant surprise for me. I still don't understand how it is essentially par focal after the diagonal but so impactful before it (this is a 75mm extension - a 50mm didn't work):

Though it works ok I don't really like this combo it feels long and unwieldy. Again this a shame because i was basically hoping to have two ranges of operation from one set of eyepieces ending at 8mm but now i'm buying <5mm eyepieces to avoid the powermate (strictly speaking to avoid the extender in fact)...

Cheers

8 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

The attached pic shows an extender Q on my DZ with barlowed binoviewer. It adds quite a chunk to the back end!

 

A similar level of overhang on my kit means I will probably try the Baader 2.6 GPC at some point to see if it’s possible to avoid using anything at all before the BV.  

A fantastic read this morning. Great list of objects and approach. I’ve never tried that Nexus tour feature but it sounds interesting. BTW I’m extremely jealous of your lovely location!

1 hour ago, Deadlake said:

One question I have has anybody here used either the Extender or PowerMate in combination with a BV, with he telemetric lens ahead of the BV?

i use a 2x 2" TV powermate ahead of MaxB II BV (with GPC and Baader T2 diagonal) on occasion. It all works fine. The TV PM has the same effect on focus position of the BV/EPs as it does with mono EPs so in my set-up also needs the same additional spacer before the powermate.

i have the 2x 2" TV powermate Malcolm and agree with others that optically it's fantastic (invisible). Ergonomically i don't love it though.

• After the diagonal it turns delos/ethos eyepieces into huge baseball bats (not soooo bad with smaller orthos admittedly). Maybe more a perceived ergonomic issue (worry about leverage) than a real one.  
• Before the diagonal (which is always how i intended to use it) it pushes focus out by 50...60mm so needs an additional spacer of that length before it. That makes for a long extended train after the focuser which is not so nice somehow re. balance.

The big drawback of the tak extender (IMHO and never having used one 🙂) is it uses screws rather than a compression clamp (so far as i can tell) - i'm too OCD to burr my shiny eyepiece barrels! 
 

edit - of course this should read …too OCD to burr my diagonal nosepieces. Not eyepieces. 

...sounds brilliant Neil, great targets and great site.

Thanks @Sunshine. i do love it. in the pic above it was delivering views of Venus cloud variations i had never seen before ever. Frustratingly it doesn't have as many hours on it as i would like so far because since the end of February it has been more or less wall to wall cloud (at every observing opportunity of mine at least) here in my area of the UK. Never mind it's mine for the long game... 🙂

Sadly (and frustratingly) not a recent picture (cloud, cloud, cloud at every turn). Here viewing Venus in the daytime sky at Easter.

This location is in a nature (bird) reserve so i probably made quite a strange sight sat behind this with a blanket over my head (to cut out reflections at the eyepiece). What's he looking at?

I absolutely love that - excellent!

I would add my thumbs up for the baader counterweight. This is the Losmandy version on the 8" CC but it works a treat even counterbalancing binoviewers when its pushed along the rail towards the front. I agree all the weight of these scopes is in the mirror plane.

16 hours ago, Sunshine said:

Beautiful setup, beautiful image!

Thank you. It might even make it outside of the house tonight 🤣. Clear Outside forecasts clear outside for the first time in what feels like weeks and weeks...

5 hours ago, SamAndrew said:

Well, it has happened, having had many different scopes over the years, I have finally joined the Tak owners club 😁

Picked up this FSQ-106ED over the weeked. Now a waiting game for some clear skies!

Superb - for visual and the joy of a wide FOV without field curvature or for imaging? In either case a lovely scope!

Engaging observation notes Magnus. Really enjoyed reading that. 👍

Lovely again Mike. Did you have a preferred view vis a vis filters?  I’ve gone all in on that FLO offer 5 for 4 but I haven’t had a daylight opportunity for their use since they arrived. 😔

Enjoyed that read this morning @dobbyisbest sounds like a brilliant experience!

That sounds like a nice and rewarding session Rob. The past 6 weeks or more have just been rubbish haven't they!

3 hours ago, IB20 said:

This thread is really making me want a 3.3mm TOE.

i'm in the same head space - out of stock at FLO at the moment - i'm using the FLO advised waiting time as a "cooling off period" because 3.3mm is 300x for me and so perhaps a bit "occasional" as a focal length. Not sure.

Definitely try Venus that way @Ratlet  I’ve always been aware to get on Venus as soon as I could see it in twilight but finding it before it’s showing was fantastic. Be careful obvs while the sun is still up. I didn’t sit in the shade (naughty boy) but I was careful. 

Thanks @JeremyS  I really have you and @mikeDnight to thank for triggering me to get out in full daylight rather than only twilight - You with the BAA links and Mike with his sketches this week and recommendations to use a filter. Honestly game changing for me on this planet.  Plus it it was fab to be out in the sun doing it. 

There’s an element of exaggeration in this sketch (poor control over the pastel) but not dishonesty. 
 

Sketched  just now 18:00 to 18:30 in the middle of a 2 hour daylight session just on Venus. Observing Venus in full daylight not just early twilight is completely new to me and a total game changer.

The limb did seem harder and brighter than the terminator which seamed quite soft  (contrast effect?) and the upper end of the terminator did seem a hint darker than the lower. There was a brighter smudge inside that darker mark. Ignore the north arrow above. Typing this I realise I have mis-marked my drawing. West is correct. North will be clockwise from there so the hint of a darker area with a brighter smudge was in the south. 
 

A #47 violet filter steadied the view quite a bit but I enjoyed the unfiltered hard marble effect more from an aesthetic POV. 

With Venus riding high I think there has been a run on #80A filters (at least Baader 2" ones and i want a Baader 2" so it can go in front of my BV).

Here i'm dipping my toe in the water with a #47 Violet in a 1.25". though quite breezy today there is the possibility for an early twilight go at Venus today and again tomorrow according to CO.