skyhog

Read this review before I realised it was 4 years old! That's a great review olly and I found myself nodding away as I read it. I have an obsy mounted 12gps that's been in there 17 years now. I must admit when I first bought it I fully intended to wheel it out each session, I managed that a handful of times before I realised I had two options, sell it or build a permanent home for it. These scopes really are beasts, and its not just the weight, they are incredibly awkward to handle in my opinion. So I got myself a milburn wedge and plonked it on that. Its sat there ever since. The advantage of the setup is that I rarely do an alignment. I park it after each session then initialise it and away I go. If there are any issues with goto I simply synch and that's it. I would certainly agree these are not AP scopes, but there is a caveat to that in that you can produce pleasing astrophotos with them if you know their limitations, particularly with todays sensitive cameras and the ability of stacking. I have a little wo 66 I piggyback that I use occasionally. Certainly better than my efforts many years ago trying to keep a star on the crosshairs of an OAG!! I have also had some great planetary sessions over the years, sometimes seeing comes along that surprises you with these scopes. So nice to hear the old LX200 getting a good review.

Those of us of a certain age would know where that was going.... Good old Mr Dawson.... 😊😊😊

Yes truly terrible the last week or so and the forecast for the week ahead doesn't look a great deal better. The central heating is still coming on which really annoys me... 😒

Nice image. Clouds add to that shot, unfortunately there were just a few too many up here... 😕

Just noticed you mentioned not available in UK... So you probably have that link already..

You can still buy them, here is a link https://www.astroshop.eu/handcontroller/meade-autostar-ii-handbox/p,49978 May have to wait a while in the present climate mind you

I've spoken to a couple of people in the last few days who run their own businesses. One, a close friend of mine who imports an awful lot from China, and another who retails furniture. They both talk of all the points raised on this thread. What they also say is that they are going to have the best business year that they have probably ever had. There's an awful lot of money out there I suppose.

Sad, I only recently read "carrying the fire".... Always intended to as it was regarded as one of the best first hand accounts of the era. I wasn't disappointed. Well worth a read.

You can't have processed that correctly.... It doesn't appear pink... 🤔😉 Nice shots👍

Because I'm deemed to know such things, I very often get a message from someone asking if I'll be out looking at x moon tonight. It's certainly an irony that full moons are something I've probably never turned a telescope onto...

So this month's moon is the "pink" moon.... Don't remember them having names when I was a child. Still today's headlines imploring everyone not to miss tonight's pink offering... 🙄

Interesting read, thanks for posting. I'm surprised there isn't a larger aperture scope operating in the UK than that but I suppose our skies are more to do with that.

That's a great shot. I was going to take a look at this the other night but I'd imagine it's a very difficult object visually.

Great attempt Mark. I think the testimonials for spotting this with scopes in the 12 inch range must have all the ticks in the boxes, incredibly dark skies and transparency. I'm pretty sure your scope would nail this with ease in such conditions.

I've just had a little Google search there, (I'm retired, it's what I do😉).... And it would appear the size in the vast majority of cases is sub arc second. Seeing something that small transit in the brief time it would take to cross a half degree object would be a real challenge... To say the least. So balloon it is... 😁

Probably right if I think about it. The angular size of the average satellite must be very small. Not that I know what it would actually be... 🤔

Judging by the number of satellites I routinely see at night that would be my first guess.

I had a look at this last night having seen this post. Relatively easy to locate using NGC4365, only a hint of the host galaxy mind you.

I've observed 3C 273 in an 8 inch sct over the years but it's not ideally placed from where I live. I would imagine if it were high in the sky from a dark site then your 120mm refractor would definitely be in with a chance.

Yes, good article. I think you would need very dark skies and the right transparency to see this in a 12 inch scope.

Might just bag it with that Mark. Good luck.

This particular object has come up before but I thought I would revisit it for those who may not have come across it. I'm talking about the quasar in the constellation of the Lynx, designation APM 08279 +5255. At a distance of over 12 billion light years this will probably be the furthest object you will ever observe. Having read many observing reports , there are several that cite it being doable in a 12 inch. With this in mind I had a go the other night with the 12gps. I would say I wasn't able to confirm spotting it directly. I'm pretty sure the listed magnitude of 15.2 isn't helped by the fact that its a red star. I'm guessing it needs a bigger scope. I would be interested to know if anyone has bagged this. I put a DSLR on the scope to grab an image, which I have included for its location. I'm interested in the visual discussion hence my post here. well worth checking out info on this Quasar, its a very interesting object.

Great, glad you got it sorted... 👍

And one more thing. I couldn't get the meade ascom driver to work under win10 with my lx200gps. In the end I downloaded a generic driver after getting a tip from this forum... It's the meade generic driver written by Colin Dawson. It worked a treat. Might be worth trying that.

Not used Stellarium but I assume the scope has ran through its initialising and pointing at a particular object or star? When you connect, stellarium will show that on the graphic. I'm going on lx200 operation here but imagine it's pretty similar for the lx90. If the scope isnt aligned correctly then stellarium will assume that position. With a bit more info we can help you out.