josefk

Nice one. Tricky target type and tricky anyway without tracking! 🙂

Ditto. Take a look at the rainbow and move on. One night last week (might have been the week before) it was steady and white and I had a good long (but unsuccessful) attempt. The Damian Peach pics you linked on the Tegmine thread are illuminating re. Sirius B.

Off topic but that’s a good representation of Sirius A/B on there (the larger pic without diffraction spikes). I’m encouraged that I was closer than I thought with my little scope the other night. A little semi steady knot of brightness against other scintillating brightness. I still can’t “tick it” but still very encouraging. Thanks.

Brilliant for appreciating the “local” context there. For a visual observer these are very very illuminating.

Hey guys. Do these comments re a D-ERF and it’s benefit in reducing tube currents apply to white light too. I don’t have to use a D-ERF with white light but I do if I go down a rear mounted Etalon route. It being potentially being useful in both cases is something to think about.

this pic shows one on both sides but actually with this scope now I only use the RDF mounted on the offside. Saves me banging my head on a scope mounted finder. 🤣

Lux finder 🙂 Actually more seriously - i bet that was quite a nice combo for two different perspectives. I have the capability to dual mount but i hardly ever do it in reality - it can be a faff to manage two scopes versus the dew for one thing. Roll on spring!

TBF they are very nicely made even if i don't need or use any of them. The Tak 3" extension tube (that came with a scope) makes the TeleVue 2" extension tube i already had look and feel like the cardboard inside bit of a toilet roll by comparison.

Hi @michael.h.f.wilkinson - i have a daft question 🙂 Are those three images of increasing scale and resolution with increasing aperture relatable to what would be seen as "betterness" visually or is the greater capability of the larger apertures most apparent when captured by a camera? I actually like all three BTW and would be over them moon if anything like the LS35THa view was achievable visually with a solar scope at the lower end of the scale for aperture (and cost)...I've never observed H-Alpha and like the OP and like many others i've read in threads like this i'm wondering at what level to "buy-in" to something i have no experience with...

no worries at all - as i say though it looks like only a tiny bit is clamped it does feel quite tight and secure. i would trust straight through and may be i would trust a light diagonal and a 1.25 EP. Now i've measured it i won't be trusting a prism and 2" EP and definitely not binoviewers. That would be an expensive lesson! 🙂

...actually not even as much as the whole 3mm will be clamped - the compression ring in the click lock is slightly deeper than the 10mm i first measured and also has a chamfer so the surfaces that are actually overlapped and in contact with one another may only be 1 or 2mm wide:

Hi @AlcorAlly as per the PM this is a measurement of the scope end of TKP00113: It's 10mm from the shoulder of N13 to the start of the raised bit at its scope end. The raised bit is 4mm wide but it's chamfered. The flat non-chamfered part of that raised bit is 3mm wide. I think this whole 3mm bit is clamped by the compression ring of the Baader click lock but as the Baader click lock compression ring is 10mm inside the click lock itself the shoulder of N13 is on the outside edge of the compression ring if that makes sense.

no worries - just to avoid being too pessimistic i've just had another look and it doesn't look like the click lock needs to mate onto much of N13 to really grab it - the beauty of a compression fitting. However i'm still not sure i would trust a kilo of binoviewer and EPs to it where dropping it would be catastrophic.

i took some pictures for you - it fits and feels very secure but... N13 is the most right hand segment inserted into the baader click lock here in this tak eyepiece holder assembly... i'm not swinging my body weight from it but it does feel very secure with the click lock secured. I would use it for straight through viewing now i know it works 🙂: ...on the other hand if i try to insert N13 with the click lock closed as in this pic below you can see that the part of N13 that is being gripped by the click lock above isn't very deep - just the two or three mm you now see as the gap between N13 and rear of the click lock: by contrast this is a "normal" 2inch adapter fully inserted: and inserted with the click lock closed so you can see how much is normally gripped by the click lock above (circa 10mm not two or three): the gripping part of the click lock is 10mm inside the click lock from its rear edge and N13 is 14mm deep from its shoulder on the scope side. Cheers

Thats a really useful post for me @John. I'm not sure i've paid enough attention to the intermediate states between "unresolved" and "split". I certainly don't record a description of the precise "not split" state - only "not split". I must try harder! 🙂

@plyscope i still have a picture - the dew band power source with about 2kg of additional weight is in the Molle bag and there is 1kg hanging off the front and below the pivot as well.

That looks great Andy - i saw those K-Astec rings of yours in the other thread and they look lovely. I also use an AZ100 with a heavy refractor. I got balance dialled in following the route you have with weights on the offside on their own losmandy plate. I also moved my finder to the offside and have a power source for a dew band that side too. I can't remember how much weight it comes too but its a few kg and can be moved for and aft for eye piece/binoviewer balancing and its also below the pivot of the mount. Works a treat.

There is probably an actual medical diagnosis for this: … … TBH I don’t find putting lists together very difficult. It is the actual making of progress observing them that eludes me 🥴

Just one astro session in February and just five for 2024 so far - it is quite frankly driving me round the twist. I enjoyed Venus in the daytime immensely last year (and it compensated a run of poor nights at one point) so i'm pondering adding solar to the hobby too for similar reasons. Probably white light to start with while i work out how much i want to spend and how to spend it on H-Alpha... Here's my homework in the meanwhile:

I would also vote for the LZOS Steve. Like you I have an 8”CC on an AZ100 and BB planet. a brilliant set-up. I also have a 130mm APO and it competes with the CC. It also beats it on certain targets TBH but in raw capability rather than aesthetic pleasure the APO doesn’t take me into new territory. On the other hand I have an 85mm APO and that does things for me the other two can’t do because it can be out and in use at just a few minutes notice and can travel with me. I could mount it on the AZ200 but I can also mount it much more lightly for shorter sessions and do. In short IME/IMHO the smaller APO is a better compliment to my CC than the larger one. PS. I should qualify I don’t know the respective weights and mounting needs of the 100/800 LZOS and SM125. Possibly my experience of the option for lightly mounting for a fully different way to use the smaller scope doesn’t apply.

...and i've promoted these 'really useful boxes' on here before as well as both a handy portable desk and a way to keep dew off kit not in use at that moment:

hi @PatrickO - here's a prompt i keep at the back of my sketch box for white on black: The Sakura Gelly Roll pens are good for stars, the Pitt pastel is good for fuzzies, the Derwent charcoal and harder Derwent pencil are good for the moon but i freely mix and match all media. The Faber Artist Brush is more useful than it looks here, I use it for putting in faint stars and for putting underneath the gelly roll pens for brighter stars. For paper i like black index cards because then i can bin my mistakes 🙂 and not too much paper is getting soggy in the field at one time (its amazing how damp paper gets outside at the scope) Pastels (even pastels in a pencil format) also get soggy outside in my experience. So i have one that goes outside and gets soggy and others kept inside for nicer work at home. Sketching in my experience is THE biggest teacher of good observation skills. I didn't do it at all till 2022 and now i do it for something like 60% of my obs and i'm a better observer because of it across all target types. My method is for scruffy thumbnail sketches with notes in the field transferred to tidier index cards the next day except for Luna where typically i sketch it once straight to card. This also helps with the "soggy paper problem". Enjoy.

All sorted now Richard but thanks for commenting anyway. I went ahead with the Tak 1.5 Ext-ED and it behaves as I hoped giving a 1.5 multiplication used before the diagonal and not asking for any extra spacers before or after to reach focus. May be not quite as invisible in use as the power mate (Tak heresy and virtually impossible to state with confidence!). Perfectly satisfying and super useful with the FSQ.

IIRC that dipotrx is 0.25 too strong nominally for my actual eye prescription (the exact match dipotrx value for me is discontinued), nevertheless it works well - like a final fine tune focus. Not 100% perfect but much much much better than without. 👍

Unfortunately sometimes eventually needs a helping hand to maintain perfection 😔