Deadlake

The Stellarvue Ep's have stainless steel barrels and block stray light entering (when you look at the moon) over the APM XWA's. Closer to Televue build standard. Vic does not make rubbish.

I think they have stopped this now, now they make their own scopes. However nice they are, no dealer network in the EU any more.

They do not sell Stellarvue cases or EP's.

Stellarvue does not have any dealers in in EU for example. The list goes on and on....

The joy of auto correct..... On another note, any cheaper way of not paying the £8 handling charge to Royal Mail for imports? All adds up.

Crows??? I think a drop of 60% in trade by value with the EU would effect prices, so a little lost in thinking dealers are making things up?

One question Stu, if this thread is around prices rises and a lot of the dealers I talk to (delays and cost increases) say corvid is not the only factor in prices rises but due to changes in trading arrangements shall we say how can you keep policitics out of it?

When I ordered the LZOS I discussed with Rupert having a handle fitted. Not surprisingly with the phenolic tube option (which apart from stopping dewing will stop my hands getting frozen to the tube) is not a standard option. In the end he had a spare APM handle and when the starlight rings where ordered the dovetail was sized to match the length of the standard APM handle. Trying to unattach the scope at the end of the night without a handle would be an expensive accident.

I just had some Vixen items turn up on Monday. I suspect there was a large delivery to come in from the Far East. Hopefully other delieries from the Middle East not going via the Suez Canal.

I wondered how long it would take for the handle police to turn up. Must be an SGL thing. 🤣 I thought @JeremySor @johninderby would be first.

The TSA120 is an outlier on weight. I believe Takahashi claims -25 degrees is the limit on operating temperatue. The APM's (mark II models) use a phenolic tube (composite) which reduces the weight to balance out the weight of the steel lens cells.

The moon is amazing, even a little high altitude cloud did little to obscure the view. Last time the moon looked so clear was last August 2020. Running with a 1.6 HR, gives x 497. Smooth silky views, with no shakes due to floating over the moon using the star book joystick. Once slewed (which is quite), the mount sounds like a quiet wrist watch, belt drives rule.

I'm beginning to think BBHS mirror is the way forward, apart from any scope > F7. I'm going to wait and use a known performer. It is hard to sort one dielectric coating from another as the silver Baader BBHS also have a dielectric coating applied as well.

This is the CN thread: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/593410-nv-tips-for-viewing-globular-clusters/?hl=+dielectric++infra#entry8373739 on the article.

Unfortunately the 2" dielectric coated diagonals absorb the infra-red spectrum and so are not suitable for NV usage. I cannot think of another 2" non-dielectric mirrored diagonal that does not absorb in the infra-red spectrum apart from the BBHS. Thanks for your help Don. BBHS back in stock mid too late April apparently.

If you are using the flattener on a fast scope F6 will there still be an advantage of using a mirror diagonal over a prism at all? I ask this as BBHS mirror diagonals are hard to come by at present. I want the stars at the edge to be sharp.

The other option is a Q extender, https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/751644-apm-xwa-100°-eyepieces/?p=10889469 this gets rid of abberations around the edge by increasing the field curvature (focal length increased), but I suspect the flatterer works with more EPs.

How do you determine the curvature of a scope? Edit: I’ll get number crunching https://www.telescope-optics.net/curvature.htm#For_a_doublet Telescope in question would be a 130mm/F6. The field flattener reduces the focus length, presume you need a flatterner that can screw directly to a prism with a short light path?

If you add VAT to these prices its quite a shocker what the UK price is: https://www.kyoei-osaka.jp/SHOP/takahashi-tsa120-125s.html I don't know how much shipping would be, UK has a trade deal with Japan, same terms as before with EU so that should not be a shocker. Tak is a lot cheaper than say Vixen for UK prices, also a little funny that Vixen mounts are bundled with Tak scopes.

Edge 11 I believe was £3750 now £4249 for instance, the C11 has gone up £300.

Seen how much Celestron SCT (£300-400) have gone up? By the way your are not the only one that has said the NP101 is not a keeper, I've heard that before.

I’ve just have small items dispatched from Bressner. They have been out of stock for last four momths. Ordered at the weekend.

There is also this thread here as well:

Introducing the new mount. RST-135E This is also next gen, and now has encoders. Note, encoders would need to be fitted to the RST-300 to be competitive with the Avalon.

You need to define other fracs 😀, and how dark the skies are for the scope being used, some targets might be off the menu...