Stu

Madness! Should've gone to Specsa.....I'm mean Nichol

Perhaps when you order your 30m mirror you might get a cup of tea and a hello when you pick it up?

I thought it was ready Friday and you asked to delay?????

Thanks Mark. Unfortunately the Leica and Docter have found new homes (very good ones as it happens), so this is me for the moment. I shall 'restock' in future though

Thanks Nick. Yep, what there is left is good stuff

Some really nice images there Gina. Something solid to build upon. I must confess, I'm enjoying the fact that you are able to get some imaging done, it's great to see. Simple is good sometimes

Lovely cases all, quite jealous making having owned many of those eyepieces in the past. Needs must though, and this is my genuinely minimalist eyepiece case It has a full set of BGOs, 7mm and 10.5mm Meade RG Orthos, 24mm Panoptic and a 3 to 6mm Nag zoom. Finally there is a Baader VIP Barlow and a Zeiss Abbe Barlow. Most bases covered really, although obviously the Orthos are only 42 degree afov so I'm out of the wide field game currently. The Orthos do give lovely sharp views though, and I tend to end up barlowing the 12.5mm or 9mm rather than using the shorter focal length eyepieces, although if I need very high power then the 5mm can also be barlowed. Outside this, I have my Baader Mark IV binoviewer, AP Barcon and extenders plus Zeiss 25mm Orthos, mainly for solar white light use. I've yet to find a sharper combination than the Zeiss', even barlowed at x3 or x4 they have been sharper than other options I've tried.

Lovely looking scope

That is a fine combination baggy, I'm sure you have some cracking views between the two

Hurray, an image!! Well done Gina, hope you get some clear sky to put your little rig through its paces. You are definitely not under-mounted are you

The AZ-EQ6 is a great mount for the job, you are right Gaidis. The benefit of having a stable mount with tracking so you don't have to touch the scope so often is really noticeable in reduced vibrations, and of course the eyepiece orientation stays the same unlike an EQ. I had a SteelDrive on my Vixen too which again helped reduce vibrations.

Good stuff. Looks like your finder sold quickly

Is that a Meade? Do you use it on a wedge?

What setup do you use the 8x50 on at the moment Bill?

Astroboot sometimes have them, but not currently. It's weird, I've bought one before but can't see them anywhere now. Try 365 Astronomy too.

Thanks all! Too much? Wont make any permanent changes to the scope as I want it in original condition but this should make life easier.......except it now won't fit in the case. Hmmmm, a large supply of cable ties and some scissors required me thinks

You are right, it is slightly strange but it actually works ok in practice. I tried it in shortened mode last night which was much more comfortable, I just sat on the ground and everything was easy to reach. The seeing was pretty wobbly last night, but I still managed some very nice views of the moon. I pulled the eyepiece and spacer out of the Barlow a bit and was probably getting over x150! Impressive for 65mm!

I managed to spend some time tweaking the collimation on the Alkor this evening. First off I used an artificial star and got it pretty good, but found it needed more adjustment when I did a proper star test in the dark. It wasn't totally trivial, the adjustment was very sensitive and I managed to make it worse before getting it right. I'd say it's pretty good now, perhaps just needs a tiny tweak at high power. The stars in this scope are totally refractor like. I suppose the small aperture means there is just not enough brightness to generate visible diffraction spikes, just a hint of them off Vega for example, but anything dimmer that this and you just get a beautiful airy disk and first diffraction ring. Alberio was beautiful tonight, very strong colours, again perhaps the lower light level stops the colour washing out. Izar was as before, a probable split. The Double Double is gorgeous at x133, cleanly split and beautiful stars. I tried it at x88 and am pretty convinced I split both again so I think the collimation has definitely improved. Polaris' secondary just about showed as a faint point of light, very tight shape again though. I could only view the moon early on in daylight, the scope stand is quite low so I was unable to view it, or Saturn and Mars later on, will have to try another location. The only pain of the scope is the finder, involving grubbing around on the floor and even then not being very easy, I'll have to find an alternative which doesn't involved modifying the scope from its original condition. A lovely little scope, great fun to see what it can do.

I was assuming a 127mm Mak, not the 102mm which has a 20.7mm baffle tube which I guess matches the BCO closely at 45 degree afov.

Having done some more reading on this, it may be because of the change in focal length of the Mak when used with a Binoviewer. The focal length (and therefore magnification) increases when you use a 2" diagonal for instance, and will increase more with binoviewers. This is probably enough to reduce the diameter of the light beam through the BV to avoid vignetting. Does that make any sense?

The TV 32mm Plossls have a 27mm field stop, I guess the BCO's are similar given their similar focal length and afov? My understanding is that the 127 Mak also has a 27mm aperture in terms of its baffle tube. I think the Binoviewers have a prism aperture of 23mm so presumably some vignetting must occur, in fact I've read multiple posts on CN which say they do, although it's not a significant problem. That's unless as you say the longer focal length of the mak reduces the beam of light passing through the BV's but if it has a 27mm baffle tube that shouldn't be the case. I'm sure someone else can advise on this.

If you are using any form of GPC or Barlow then I don't think you will see much vignetting on the 32mm Plossls. The Barlow narrows the light path so it doesn't hit the aperture stop of the Binoviewer as much/at all. Pretty sure that's right anyway

Yep, the 31mm Nag is 42mm, I guess a 28mm 82 degree is mid 30's perhaps, given that a 27mm 68 degree is 30.5mm All good experimental stuff

Sounds good! You've clearly done lots of thinking about this . Does the eyepiece field diameter mean the focal length or the field stop? I'm sure the end result will be good, I've used systems which I know are vignetting but in practice it is barely noticeable. I do like the way you've found a system which allows you to mount the new focuser but still keep the ability to collapse the tube. I look forward to hearing how you get on with it under the stars! I love widefield scopes

Very interesting mod Craig, quite ingenious! Do you know whether you get full illumination of a 2" eyepiece? That would be my only concern as I assume the secondary was optimized for 1.25" to be as light and cheap as possible. You might get some vignetting on longer focal length eps?