Franklin

Just wondering what others opinions are of screw on dust caps? Up until now all my scopes have had push on dust caps but I recently got a SW72ED which has the screw on type. The black paint has started to come away from the thread inside the dew shield revealing a shiny thread, which not only is bad for light scatter but is it depositing microscopic flakes of paint on the lens? I've taken to removing the whole dew shield before unscrewing the dust cap and then replacing the dew shield back to front on the tube so the shiny thread is not in the light path. Do others do this? Seems like a bad design to me. Wish it had a push on dust cap!

I've been looking up at the night sky for over 40 years now, equipment nothing special, but never tire of the amazement of it all. There is definitely a trend towards imaging these days and I'm sure it's all related to digital technology. Back in the day with 35mm film, manually guiding for hours on end, no thanks. But today with all the techno gadgets and fancy GOTO mounts, imaging must be very rewarding for many. I think also that advances in Professional Astronomy has turned many to imaging because the modern Astro Imager can today capture things which only the Pros could do with analogue and the worlds largest telescopes not that long ago. All of the older books on Amateur Astronomy depict a hobby which still had avenues for doing actual science, which is what sparked my interest as a kid, whereas the more modern literature depicts the hobby as Stargazing for fun and amazement. Just take a look at Sidgwick's Amateur Astronomers Handbook and compare it to Dickinson & Dyer's Backyard Astronomers Guide. I love all the old books and a part of me still wants to believe that it's still possible to do real science in your own back garden with a small telescope. I think in vain. I wonder how many of the Astro Imagers use all this new technology they have at hand to do real science, rather than just taking amazing pictures? Using digital image capture to hunt down new comets or discovering new Nova in distant galaxies for example. I wouldn't think that many. To that end......... Does the World need yet another picture of M42 or M31? Of course it does! Astro imaging capabilities today are astonishing and hats off to all who give it a go. But for me I'll stick with my 4" refractor, a pair of binoculars and my battered old copy of Norton's.

BST is short for Barsta which is the name of the eyepiece manufacturer in China.

I used to have a Revelation 42mm Superview and used it in an f10 refractor. It was great as a finder eyepiece but the outer parts of the field were not the best and the field edge was not very well defined. I also tried a William Optics 40mm Swan which was a lot better but still showed some field distortion at the edges. I now use a Baader 36mm Aspheric which I am very pleased with, though the scope I use it with is at f11. I think for faster instruments you have either got to put up with a little edge distortion or save up the pennies and invest in one of the high end widefield eyepieces.

Thousand Oaks are a reputable solar filter supplier, so yes this would be ideal. If DIY your own filter be sure to follow the instructions carefully and don't stretch the film too tight.

I stripped down, cleaned up and re-greased an old CG5 head a few years back with the aid of some very helpful info/videos online, but THIS is something else! Thanks Alan, can't wait for the rebuild, as I definitely struggled to set up the worms properly and remove all that pesky backlash! 👍

Thanks Dave. I took your advice and got a 10mm Nylon M4 Thumbscrew for the Q barlow, works a treat.

Oh good. I was thinking of just using the optical element from the Q barlow for x1.3 but was not sure if the BHZ 1.25" nosepiece would have enough in space to accomadate it. I guess I'll just wait till I get it and have play. Thanks.

Hi, just ordered a BHZ MkIV and was wondering from those of you who have used it, will it work ok with any barlow(I have the Q barlow) or is it better to pair it with the dedicated Baader 2.25x zoom barlow? Thanks.

Fantastic scope if you can get a good one. Some of them are around 30 years old and may have spent a lot of that time stuck in the corner of a damp garden shed! They are still in production now, called the Vixen A105M II, retail about £800. Considering what you can get in the ED doublet department for that money I would say nay. But a decent secondhand one usually sells over here for around the £150-£200 mark.

The curse of Mankind. Not content with polluting the enviroment of our precious little planet Earth, they are now polluting outer space! Whatever next?

I was watching ED TINGS excellent telescope reviews on Youtube the other day and I became annoyed when his videos where being constantly interrupted by advertisments for a super-duper spotting scope built with new technology that only the military where privy to. Fair play to Mr Ting as he reviewed said spotting scope in the next video. Needless to say it was a useless piece of plastic tat!

ADVICE FOR NEWBIES. If you are thinking of buying a telescope or any kind of astronomical equipment don't even look on Amazon/Ebay and their kind. Stick with proper astronomical equipment suppliers such as the sponsers on this site and many more reputable astro dealers who don't just sell stuff but offer sound advice and excellent service.

Knowing when the next asteroid is going to hit planet Earth maybe?

Parcelforce are the best. I've sent stuff all over the world with zero problems. I used to use Hermes and others and had no problems and they are cheaper. BUT since covid lockdown there seems to have been an avalanche of online shopping and the smaller firms just can't handle it. They used to send their own vans and lorries round but now anyone and everyone are becoming delivery drivers and the quality of service has consequently suffered. Not turning up, lost parcels, wrong addresses. In the end I gave up on the budget firms and now just use Royal Mail and Parcelforce.

Maybe my IQ is suspect but I think I've had a eureka moment. Baader Classic Q set can be used as follows. 1. All 4 eyepieces in Turret to be used at their native focal lengths. 2. Q Barlow lens element unscrewed from Barlow body and fitted to the Turret nose-piece will allow all 4 eyepieces to be used with 2.25x factor. 3. Q Barlow complete, used with a single eyepiece for 2.25x factor. 4. Q Barlow lens element unscrewed and fitted to the nose-piece of a single eyepiece for 1.3x factor. I was hoping to be able to use the 1.3x factor of the Q Barlow and still be able to switch eyepieces with the Turret but that is not possible.

Thanks John, that's kind of what I thought. If I unthread the barlow lens from its barrel and put it on the turret nosepiece it should give about 1.3x hopefully when used with the BCO's and BCP. I just ordered the Q set to use with a long focus refractor. Should be good for lunar I reckon.

According to their website the Baader Q Barlow has a dual power factor of 2.25x and 1.3x when used with barlow barrel and without barlow barrel respectively. My question is are these figures for when used with an eyepiece directly or when used on the nosepiece of the Baader Q Turret? Is there any difference where you place it? When used on the Q Turret nosepiece the barlow would be slightly further up the optical path a bit like when a barlow is placed before a diagonal rather than after it and then yields a different power factor. Some of what I've been reading on this seems to be in conflict. Does anyone know? Thanks.

I second the Evostar120 as an all rounder over the Startravel120 having owned both. AZ4 would carry it but no slo-motions. Put it on an EQ5 which you can get used for about the same as an AZ4. If you have to have an Alt-az the Skytee would be better. More money but it would be capable of handling more scopes in the future, which you might get if you catch the astro bug proper.

Back in the 80's, as a teenager, I bought a secondhand Vixen 4" refractor. It was an excellent scope and I regretted selling it on ever since. However, it was not the 102M. It was called the Vixen Sensor102 and had a shorter focal length of 900mm. The tube had four lugs, two on each side, which sat in a cradle attached to a large yoke/fork style altazimuth mount with slow motion controls. All on a lovely tall Vixen wooden tripod with white trim. Since it went I have neither seen nor heard of another like it. There is a line drawing picture of the Sensor102 in an old Vixen catalogue from the 70's that I found online but that was where my search ended. Do any of you old-timer frac-afficiandos remember this model, it would be great to see a picture of it. There must be at least one around because someone bought it from me in South Yorkshire 30 years ago!

Well done Dave! I'm glad you managed to do something with the Vixen after all. Looks great on the old GP and wooden tripod. So glad it went to someone who knows what they're doing, I wouldn't have dared mess with the lens. Nice one.👍 Did you manage to clean up those LV's? I was going to bin those! Lol.

Thanks for the reply and for putting my mind at rest. I just want to be able to set my latitude on the mount, point the thing North and get observing. Nice one thanks.

The central laser indicates that the focuser is square on but the cheshire and your drawing seem to suggest that the objective is tilted. Not sure if the TAL 100RS has a colimatable cell but if not you can try loosening the lens retaining ring and gently tapping around the cell whilst ota is in an upright postion. This can help settle the lens back into the correct postion. I had an Evo150 without the collimatable cell and this tube slapping technique actually worked well. Before, the cheshire revealed two overlapping reflections, almost a figure of eight but after doing the above the collimation was bang on and still is to this day. Don't overtighten the retaining ring too much or you might pinch the optics. Hope this helps.

Hi all, looking for advice from HEQ5 owners please. I am visual only and presently have a Vixen GP2 with a synta RA drive and DEC slow-mo which is used for centering and tracking only. I am very pleased with this set up. However, having suffered from aperture fever for some time I have found myself with a scope which really needs a heavier duty mount and am looking at the HEQ5 as a beefier alternative. In the past these where available as a non-goto set up which would have been ideal. My question is, can the present goto version of the HEQ5 be used simply for centering and tracking, bypassing the goto function all together? Thanks.

BTW, great article "Planetary Filter Shootout". Bought a Baader CB filter based on your findings and do not regret it. Best MV filter in my opinion, especially in the 6" f8 synta.