Stu

Wells is lovely, not so familiar with Shepton Mallet as haven’t been there for years but sure it is nice.

Actually the opposite is true. As aperture increases, airy disk size decreases so stars appear smaller and finer detail can be resolved. This does however assume excellent seeing. You can see this effect in reverse when observing double stars through a small apo refractor. The small aperture gives large airy disk sizes which are easily seen even in average seeing and at more modest powers, so the effect is a very beautiful ‘bullseyes on velvet’ which is very aesthetically pleasing. With a large scope, the airy disks are much smaller and require higher power/better seeing to reveal themselves; often they are masked by poorer seeing so you end up just seeing scruffy stars which aren’t as nice to view, unless the seeing is excellent.

Don’t let one idiot put you off! 👍

Very nice! I caught it looking similar to your 20.40 sketch.

Someone being daft near Yeovil, not far from me. Reiterates that care is needed when using these devices anywhere with planes nearby though this person was obviously particularly stupid/malicious. Somerset man jailed after shining laser at passenger plane https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-68838349

Astronomia postulat adlatum as per the WAG motto 👍👍

Nice shots Mike, you caught the light ray across Hesiodus crater, did you spot it?

Excellent! Wish I had a bigger scope with me but glad I shoved the FC-76DCU in so I could have a chance of seeing it

Excellent, better views than me by the sounds, nice one.

Remarkably I managed to see this through the little 76mm. Not the clearest view as I was cloud dodging, but clear enough for me to be certain. Just had to drag a wet scope in from an unexpected shower, fortunately scope and eyepiece was capped although the finder is a little damp!

Don’t forget to have a look at Hesiodus as per this thread, should still be visible.

Trying here, but waiting for some cloud to pass. Hope I haven’t missed it all.

Clear skies here too. Seeing was bad earlier but seems to have settled down now. Solar earlier, with a very busy Sun but it wasn’t a ‘wow’ because of the poor seeing. Later on I switched to Astro mode and had a look at the Moon. Looking good, Hyginus Rille and Treisnecker Rilles particularly of note.

Finally got some clear skies and got the Vixen GP out for its first ‘light’ for me. Great to have simple tracking back for both solar and lunar observing.

I had forgotten what observing was like somehow, especially solar! Quite gusty out there, and the seeing isn’t great but nice to be out. I finally got a chance to use the Vixen GP mount, very good to have simple tracking with minimal setup back in my life 😊. The mutt has a habit of dropping her ball against the tripod leg so I don’t forget she is there 🤪🤣

Yep, nice shot. Good focus and exposure 👍

Working fine here, on my phone.

I think with an SCT that makes sense. Bob’s Knobs make collimating easier but you are likely to have to do it more often. If you get it accurate, and nice and tight with bolts then it should hold better.

Please stop it! We seem to have fairly constant cloud, or when it’s sunny I’m doing DiY!! 🤪☹️🤣

If you mean this green artefact at 1:16 then that is a ghost image of the partially eclipsed Sun, not a real image. Of course there are brief moments when it seems you can actually see the partially eclipse Sun with silhouetted Moon visible, when the cloud cuts the exposure down so it is not over exposed, as here: None of that takes away from the fact that all you are seeing is a partial solar eclipse behind slowly drifting cloud, taken by someone who can’t control exposure nor keep his camera steady. End of. Now, I have better things to do with my life, like going to play with the traffic so I shall lock the thread to prevent any more nonsense.

With due respect, you have joined our forum to ask a question, have been given correct opinion and are now rejecting that, rather bluntly. The video is clearly a hand held shot of the Sun behind slow moving cloud and the whole image is moving around because the camera is not being held steady. It does look like some form of stabilisation is in use due to the slow ‘swimming’ type motion rather than lots of jiggles. The view is then jumping between various zoom levels so that at times you see the Sun appearing to move more rapidly but it is just a more highly magnified view of the clouds moving past the Sun. I don’t see the Moon anywhere, but I do see a ghost image of the partially eclipsed Sun moving around at one point. Actually the person filming is not being very sensible as they are likely looking at the Sun and it is not totally eclipse so I hope they are wearing eclipse glasses.

As I recall, the 925 uses an f2.5 primary vs f2 for the rest of the range, that’s why it is so much longer than you expect it should be.

@Richard_ just wanted to say a big thank you for writing all this up for the benefit of others. Not sure why you didn’t get any responses, perhaps there aren’t too many out there, but I do hope it has been useful for some. It is not relevant for me as I don’t own this scope but I still found it an interesting read 👍

See this thread:

Absolutely agree John. I do think the Jetstream forecast is useful for planetary observing, but if it is overhead and clear then obviously it’s still worth getting out and looking at different, lower power targets. I find Sat24 a much more useful tool than any forecast so tend to ignore anything else; just looking out of the window also works 🤣 Theory is all very well, but as I think I’ve tried to put across to @Flame Nebula in previous posts, there is no substitute for putting in the hard yards to build up experience of what works for you and your observing site.