Stu

Nice report @SwiMatt. Often with globs like M3 it is possible to resolve stars around the edges using averted vision. I often look at the object, then flick my eye away and you see a sparkling mass of stars briefly. Well worth a go. Careful focus also helps of course.

Thank you all for reassuring me it is not just me that does these daft things!! 🤪🤪

@Captain Scarlet has bought a couple from him I believe, but some time ago.

Very short and mixed session for me. I popped the Tak out for a quick look at the Moon, then realised that it was very close to the Pleiades. With a 31mm Nag I got both in the same field of view, but it was much better in the binoculars.

Had a quick look at Orion’s sword in widefield, then, having made some modifications to my scope truck, I wheeled the big dob out. I’ve shaved some wood off the bottom and epoxied the wheel in place now and the steering is much better.

As posted elsewhere, I spent ten minutes trying to find the Moon before realising that the cover was still on the mirror 🤪; with the shroud on it’s no obvious, and you still get a fair amount of light through the eyepiece with it on, that’s my excuse anyway. Had some decent views of the Moon and then packed away as I had broken my TelRad so finding anything else proved very challenging.

……you remove the mirror cover 🤬🤬🤣🤣

I spent about ten minutes trying to find the Moon unsuccessfully before I realised! 🤪🤪

Still got my dob L plates!

One option is a large plastic, sealed contained which you can put the scope into and place outside a few hours before it is needed. I’ve not done this myself but have read that it is effective for similar scopes.

@SuburbanMak what is the lowest power/widest field eyepiece you use? Do you do much widefield observing?

I ask because the T2 versions of the prism or BBHS mirror diagonals from Baader are much lighter and with a shorter light path than the 2” versions, yet still show only limited vignetting even with something like a 31mm Nagler. I found most benefits to be at higher powers, although others may disagree, so the clear aperture is less of an issue in these instances.

2 hours ago, Flame Nebula said:

Hi everyone 

I'm looking for people's experiences with this scope with respect to issues with poor seeing. If I get this scope it would be kept indoors, and I'm concerned it won't provide the performance I'd like unless set up hours before use, which may not be practical. I'm interested in visual and planetary AP, and I understand that seeing won't impact on the latter to any significant degree. So, my question relates to visual. I'm located in the Nottingham area, if that helps. 

Thanks 

Mark

Hi Mark,

I have had a C925 and would say that from a warm house out on a cold night you do probably need an hour or two to get it cooled down. I did always struggle to get mine cooled, especially if the temperature continued dropping.

Have you considered an open design like the StellaLyra 8” Classic Cassegrain? Or the Tak Mewlon 210 depending on budget. These both have secondary supports so will show diffraction spikes but will cool more easily and don’t suffer from dew problems on the corrector.

Do you have a mount already?

1 hour ago, PeterStudz said:

 

My comments below are more along the lines of “why don’t more people observe” but maybe that’s helpful…

When we went on holiday with friends to a place that just happened to be “dark” the topic of light pollution came up over dinner. Our friend’s teenage daughter had zero interests in simply just looking up. It was almost as if she was frightened of something. I had the feeling that she believed doing so is nerdy and she was cool! She also asked the question:

“does it matter if you can’t see the stars anymore? Does anyone really care?”.

Attempting to answer made no difference. Her mind was set. 

When my daughter enthusiastically mentions to my in-laws the enjoyment she gets out of stargazing the response (not said directly but you can tell) is like “errrr… that’s odd… why on earth do you do that?”

Alice is in an after school club called “Space Club” which includes astronomy. I’ve taken a telescope along. This initially had 11 kids (Alice the only girl) but now it’s sadly down to 4. If anymore leave it could be cancelled altogether. When I asked Alice why her answer was “The boys were called nerds by other kids for wanting to go, so they dropped out” - what can you say!

All very true Peter.

My nine year old daughter attends a Science Club after school which is well attended. I took my scope down recently and gave them a talk for an hour and had loads of questions and interaction.

Interestingly my daughter was very embarrassed to start off with, but one of the boys asked her ‘Why are you embarrassed? This is really cool!’ That made her more relaxed.

The icing on the cake though, was when I used my phone to ask the AZ100 Goto mount to point the FS-128 towards Jupiter (despite us being in the classroom). Lorna had not seen this before and nearly fell over in surprise. The whole concept of controlling the mount with my phone caught their imagination, something I had hoped would be the case.

We did manage a quick look at Jupiter through my FC100DC in the playground later, and as expected they all just had a 3 to 5 second look before rushing off. A few stayed for a while and got a little more benefit, so the challenge is to get them to spend more time and start to observe, rather than just look quickly.

The main issue I suspect, is that the children will never have been under a properly dark sky, or if they have, no one has taken the time to get them to get dark adapted and look up so they  just don’t know how amazing it can be. As a divorced father of two, lack of cash meant that I used to take my two youngsters away camping for 10 days every year in Dorset or Devon. We used to sit around the camp fire, toasting marsh mallows and drinking hot chocolate whilst watching satellites, shooting stars and seeing the Milky Way. That was from when they were very young, up to about 10. I did think that they had forgotten about all this (they are now 22 and 19), but after their holiday in Italy with their mum last year, my boy told me that they really enjoyed sitting outside at night doing exactly what we used to do all those years back so the experience really did sink in and stay with them.

11 hours ago, JTEC said:

we are slipping into a creeping acceptance of the mediocre and rebranding it as good. 

I agree! I recall as a teenager on holiday down in Cornwall, walking back home from dinner in a pub say, and not being able to see my hand in front of my face it was so dark at times. I can’t remember the last time this happened, there always seems to be some light around, even with my much less sensitive eyes.

47 minutes ago, Alan White said:

This is great to see the AZ75 being so well used with such a variety of scopes.

And to think the noise made to me and @Stu over no slow motions etc.

I still love my AZ75 and it’s the mount of choice for me.

Please no. My counselling has recently finished and the twitch has gone, so I would rather not reopen this topic 🤪

🤬🤬🤬 was going to put the 150mm out, but had to fix a radiator this morning and went for a drive this afternoon instead! Would have looked amazing no doubt.

9 hours ago, John said:

Nice report @Stu 🙂

E & F Trapezium were pretty straightforward with my 12 inch dob under any sort of decent seeing. The Ethos 8mm (198x) seemed to be a "goldilocks" eyepiece for that task with that scope.

These two fainter members of the Theta 1 Orionis group present a number of visual challenges I think, not least because they are set against a nebulous background. F of course has the added difficulty caused by the proximity of the brightest star of the "big four" in the group, C.

Onwards to G & H now then ? 😁

 

 

 

Yes, it’s been a while since I used a larger scope, 8” is my normal max, and when I had a 12” I was back near London with poorer seeing and transparency. I was genuinely surprised to see them so easily. I’m sure G and H are beyond me, my skies and my eyes though!

4 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

I think it should be i'n'n'it, just to be safe!

That’s what I thought too!! 🤣🤣

15 minutes ago, Nik271 said:

4 inch secondary, as big as my refractor for tonight!

I was also looking at the trapezium at about 8pm and got a hint of E at x185. I find F quite hard even in my largest scope a 7 inch mak.

I know, it’s a bit crazy. Need to sort a smaller one at some point.

12 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Great result @Stu. I wonder what colour(s) so saw in the nebula.

Don’t worry about an apostrophe in innit. There is none. Yet it is a question, so there should be a question mark at the end of the title. 😊

Better?

Not much colour, just hints of green really. I wasn’t dark adapted but not sure if that is a benefit for colour perception or not?

Never quite sure where to put the apostrophe in ‘innit’ 🤣🤣

Anyway, having made the scope truck for my 16”, I decided to wheel it out tonight for a quick play while Mrs Stu was on a call.

Collimation took a while to sort out and the secondary is still not right, but the stars looked ok with it as it is, so I just got on with it.

Main reason for the report was, unsurprisingly given the title of the post, M42. I looked at it with the 31mm Nagler first, mainly as a finder. Views as you would imagine, but only really the main four stars on view in the Trap, perhaps hints of E. in went a 17mm Nagler and E became obvious, with hints of F.

Finally, the Docter 12.5mm. BAM, both E & F clear as day, just right there without trying. I guess the additional resolution and brightness just makes them that much easier. This scope has a huge secondary (4”!) so I don’t expect much from it at high powers necessarily and I’m sure it compromises the contrast but tonight it exceeded my expectations and gave a really great view of the Trap.

Refractor stars still trounce it, but I’ll take this gratefully.

EDIT I do wonder how much of not seeing these is just down to less sensitive eyes not picking up the faint stars, so the extra aperture just makes them that much easier for old geysers.

Well, it works! Not without a few design challenges to be sorted but it is perfectly useable, and takes the 16” no problem. Just the job for a little stargazing…. 😉

The main issues are around the front wheel pair and steering. I should have built a little more clearance into it as they catch on the underside of the truck. Gentle turns are fine, but more extreme manoeuvring is trickier. I will use it as is for now, and think about a Mark II version. Just need some clear sky to point it at Orion before it clears off.

I know one thing is for sure, my reports are full of highly non scientific language such as ‘nice’, or when I need to be a bit more specific ‘really nice’, with the occasional ‘lovely’ thrown in 🤪. Not sure what that makes me!

7 hours ago, paulastro said:

With respect to all those who have contributed to this thread, does it all really matter?

It matters not one iota Paul, but the conversation passes the time while these clouds are around!

9 hours ago, JeremyS said:

too ineffectual and distracted.

Probably sums up most of my sessions Jeremy 🤣.

You are a proper ‘stronomer though so I understand why you don’t associate with stargazing!

I often describe myself as a stargazer, although based on this page on Wiki, I am comfortable with being at the bottom end of amateur astronomy; I don’t contribute anything scientific though actively observe a range of objects, keep patchy records and do some outreach to encourage others to consider the hobby.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_astronomy#:~:text=Collectively%2C amateur astronomers observe a,clusters%2C galaxies%2C and nebulae.

Regrets? I’ve had a few, but then again….

I bought a new Orion Optics OMC200 and despite having some good views with it, I never felt it delivered what it should. I eventually worked out that the primary was clipped in the view when trying to collimate it, and drove it four hours up to OO for them to service it. Unfortunately I was fobbed off with a quick tweak of the secondary and was too naive to question it.

Just before I sold the scope, I took the back plate off and discovered that the primary was loose and tilted because a grub screw had fallen out. I refitted it, tightened the mirror in its correct position and hey presto, all looked good. Trouble is, I never got the benefit of it being properly collimated 🤬🤬

Other regrets; buying a Tak Sky 90 which I thought was not very good, even more annoying because I had sold a lovely FC-76DC to fund it. Eventually re-bought the 76DC.

That’s about it I think. I sometimes wish I hadn’t sold my Sumerian 14” Alkaid which was an amazingly compact scope for taking to dark sites.

I’ve done a bit more tinkering tonight. I removed the tyres and have ordered four new inner tubes so I can get those sorted.

I’ve also added a length of threaded rod between the handle and the wheel support so that the front wheels now turn with the handle, should make it much easier to control. Pics tomorrow once it is back together again. Will stain it over the weekend if I get the chance.

2 hours ago, PeterStudz said:

This does remind me of my youth. Me and s school friend made a relatively straightforward and standard go-kart. It was fun how it was but his brother (who thought he was a mechanic) decided to pimp-it-up. This included adding the engine from an old Dennis lawnmower. After that it was lethal, especially as the only way of braking was with your feet and it was full power or nothing.

Mind, I do love these projects like @Stu has done. Eg I have a shed of old bits (some from my late father) that I’ve kept for future projects. However, I often can’t find or remember where in my shed I’ve put them

 

Don’t get me started; I have an old lawn mower in the shed which still runs but has other problems…….. perhaps…. 🤣

1 hour ago, John said:

Nice job 🙂

I'll look forward to seeing it in action when the Red Bull Soapbox challenge comes to Somerset 😁

We do have a Soapbox race on New Year’s Day up and down Crewkerne High Street, perhaps I should enter 🤣