SuburbanMak

Good haul at the Oxfam shop today…

Like others here I would say it depends on the targets you favour. 

I have the Mak 127 and not an ED80 but the ST80.  The Mak is a superb lunar/planetary, globular cluster and double star instrument and I have so far tracked down 80/110 Messiers with it, so it is no slouch in the DSO department.   The extra aperture the Mak delivers over the ED80 will count on DSOs especially if you can grab-and-go to a really dark sky location. I've seen spiral form in M51, dust lane in M82, and form in some of the Virgo/Coma galaxies with the Mak on the best nights.   Its a sharp contrasty view and the difference in star patterns to a refractor is not that huge, I would say that diffraction rings are slightly messier but its quite marginal.  Its robust, doesn't need collimating and with the 127 I've not found UK cool down time to be much of an issue - everything steady after 15-20 minutes outside, which is often how long it takes me to get organised anyway. 

I love my ST80 for widefield clusters - the Mak will just fit the whole of the main parts of the Double Cluster or the central section of the Pleiades for example but features like the Hyades, Alpha Persei, Andromeda Galaxy etc are better in the ST80.  At some point I'd love to upgrade to either an ED72 or ED80.   

The two 'scopes you are choosing between are complimentary - personally if I had to pick just one it would be the Mak, but equally if you are being offered a great deal on the ED80 maybe go for that one first and pick up a second-hand Mak later. As I said they are not fragile so should be able to pick up a good one used when funds allow. 

PS - The AZGTi is great! 

Nice night here - a wee bit breezy but otherwise seeing decent and transparency slightly milky but better than average - could just about see the Beehive naked eye with AV. 
Very chilled out session from the garden with ST80 in 2 inch mode & 31mm Baader Hyperion Aspheric giving 13x magnification & a massive 5.9 degree field. Have a bog standard RDF on it as the field is so big it can actually be quite disorientating in rich fields. 
I have this permanently set up on a Manfrotto 55 and it’s an easy one hand carry out into the garden, so gets me out on nights when I otherwise might not make the effort. 
I always get a thrill from seeing galaxies from my back garden so started with a long look at M81 & 82. 
Hunted for M101 for a bit but really couldn’t see it, know I was in the right spot. I am sure that one special night it will just pop out, but not tonight! 
Went on to the Beehive M44 - almost the perfect object in this widefield rig, lovely sparkling lost in space scene. 
Moved to the Coma Berenices cluster another super star filled field. 
Pottered around Leo, couldn’t pick out the Triplet (M65 & M66) but could just about discern M95  M96  & M105 only as fuzzy stars but nevertheless upped my distance record for the nights from M82’s 11 Million LY to around 60. 
Looked at M3, M13 & M92 - love globulars in the widefield, you really get their context as lonely extra galactic wanderers and these brighter ones show up a bit better than the galaxies. 
Took a first trip this year into the bowl of Virgo, familiarising myself again with the “mini-asterisms”  I used last spring to galaxy-hop my way through the Messiers here, the “jet plane” around Rho V., the “StarTrek badge and “the line”. 
A tantalising glimpse of smudges in Markarian’s chain 
Caught M35 as it slipped West toward the roofline then finished back on the Beehive. 

I do love this kind of low power observing and some day would love to upgrade to a really sharp ED set up, for now though the ST80 delivers a whole lot of outer space for the money. 
 

Out with the ST80 / 31mm Hyperion Aspehric enjoying some widefield wonders and just seen a super yellowish fireball tracking South from the Zenith, through Leo for about 40 degrees. 

A moonless clear Friday night? Too good to resist… 

After a tough week all round it was a pleasure to get out with the Mak 127 tonight with both decent seeing and transparency. 
 

Started out with big Messier hunting plans but caved in to a glass (maybe 2)  of wine with dinner which ruled out the drive to my darker site & may have blunted my scientific resolve slightly. 
 

Instead I headed to the park for a Mak tour of the highlights - and it was great. 
 

Got myself oriented in Mizar/Alcor - one of my favourite star fields. Then went to M81/2 to see if galaxy hunting was on - superb view tonight with a dense core and extensive nebulosity in M81 and the cleanest definition in both the shape & dust lane I’ve yet seen in M82. 
Encouraged, I went in search of the UM Measiee galaxies but nope, I’m blaming the slight haze over the wine but hey, they’re still out there for next time. 
 

After that I looked at greatest hits- possibly the best view I’ve had of M13, diamond dust with hints of dark lanes & tendrils in averted vision, superb showing of the double cluster then some wider field views of the Owl (NGC 457), the Beehive & sweeps of the Coma cluster. 
 

Tried for the Leo Triplet but transparency & concentration were deteriorating and the frost building fast so packed up.  Magic sweep of the constellations as I trudged home to thaw the extremities with the help of a wee dram  

Mission accomplished though- feeling much enriched by this spectacular hobby. 

(note to self, never forget gloves again). 

3 hours ago, PeterC65 said:

A session with the Photoline 72 APO this evening (a widefield scope with a 432mm focal length), partly because I’d had a session with the MAK earlier this week and partly to check I could still achieve focus with the second filter wheel that I’ve just installed (I can, just).

I aligned the AZ GOTO with Aldebaran and Procyon again since they worked out so well last time. Initially everything went haywire until I realised that I’d entered 5022 as the year!

M42 – good view with the ES 6.7mm and the UHC filter, and with the Binoviewer with no filter with the x2.25 Barlow and with both Barlows (x3.6), but the view is better with the MAK in all cases.

With the APO the Binoviewer needs a x2.25 Barlow to achieve focus and this means a relatively narrow field of view which defeats the object of this widefield scope. It feels like the Binoviewer may be more useful with the MAK.

SAO 132346 Alnilam et al – the three Orion Belt stars were nicely framed with the ES 24mm but I couldn’t see any nebulosity around Alnitak.

M45 – a nicely framed view of the whole group with the ES 24mm, with some nebulosity visible with the UHC filter.

IC 1805 Heart Nebula – my first attempt at this target, with the ES 24mm and the UHC filter I could clearly see some nebulosity around the central star cluster and around the cluster of stars forming the bottom V of the heart shape, I could just about persuade myself that there was nebulosity elsewhere, but no discernible heart shape, without the UHC filter no nebulosity could be seen.

NGC869 / NGC 884 Double Cluster – a nicely framed view with the ES 14mm, the two clusters looked like they were almost touching but still distinct, NGC869 looked the more extensive of the two.

M81 / M82 – one of my favourite targets for the APO as I can see both galaxies together with the ES 14mm, M81 was clearly an elliptical blob and M82 a line shaped smudge.

NGC 2244 Rosette Nebula – with the ES 14mm and the UHC filter I could just make out some nebulosity around the central star cluster.

NGC 2175 – with the ES 14mm and the UHC filter there was just the faintest trace of nebulosity, much less than the ball of nebulosity that I could see with the MAK a few days ago.

SAO 093955 Hyadum III (Hydes) – the ES 24mm just takes in the main group of stars plus the very bright and slightly yellow Aldebaran on the edge of Hydes, this target is way too big for the MAK.

SAO 082291 Coma Star Cluster – the ES 24mm field of view wasn’t quite enough to take in the whole of this very open star cluster, I’ve been waiting to check out the Coma Star Cluster for a while but the stars are all white and of similar brightness so not the most exciting of targets.

M101 Pinwheel Galaxy – the AZ GOTO located this correctly (I checked against Stellarium) but there was no sign of it, not a dicky bird, even with the CO 40mm and its massive 6.7mm exit pupil.

Great report on what sounds like a fab session. 

40mm Plossl for Mak 127 filter adventures with bigger exit pupil - thanks @George Sinanis for a smooth sale & @Stu for the suggestion. 

2 minutes ago, PeterC65 said:

First time with the new WO Binoviewer (with 20mm 60° eyepieces) and the Skymax 127 last night.

The view of M42 was amazing, I could see the wings, their shape, the shape of the cloud structure around the centre, and I could easily make out four stars in the Trapezium (I’ve never seen more than four). The focus point for the Binoviewer is quite a way from the normal eyepiece focus point so I centred on M42 first with the ES 24mm then found focus with the Binoviewer. Usually M42 looks better with the UHC filter but with the Binoviewer I’d say it looked better with just the Neodymium filter.

The thing I liked most about the Binoviewer is how much more relaxing it is on the eyes. I could have gazed at the same object for an hour or more without tiring. They give a very immersive experience, better I’d say than a wider angled single eyepiece.

The AZ GOTO mount was particularly well aligned last night, using Aldebaran and Procyon, 50° and 40° altitude respectively and 65° azimuth separation, so finding targets was very easy.

M78 – I could just make out the nebulosity with the ES 14mm.

SAO 132444 Alnitak – the brightest star in Orion’s Belt, I could see some slight nebulosity with the ES 24mm and with the Binoviewer.

NGC 2244 – with the ES 24mm and the UHC filter I could see the bright star cluster and some slight nebulosity.

NGC 2175 – with the ES 24mm and the UHC filter I could see a bright star surrounded by a very faint but quite large disc of nebulosity which moved as the scope was slewed.

NGC 1514 – first time for this Planetary Nebula, with the ES 14mm I could just make out that the middle one of three stars was something more, then the UHC filter brought out a small blob of nebulosity which was just visible with averted vision.

M81 – I had a very quick look at M81 with the ES 14mm, it looks better with its companion M82 through the refractor.

M65 / M66 / NGC 3628 Leo Triplet – first time for these too, all three just fitted into the field of view of the ES 24mm, I could see a grey smudge around M65 (or was it M66?) but the other two were just points that I could just about persuade myself might be galaxies.

M35 – took a quick look at M42 again with the Binoviewer but it was only just above the trees by now so I switched to M35 instead which looked great and filled the whole field of view.

 

Excellent report - so does the binoviewer reach focus in the Mak without any extensions or adapters? 

After so much ugliness in the news today I was glad to get out and enjoy some stellar beauty and perspective. 

Worked my way through some Messier open clusters, taking a good look at a few I merely “ticked off” in my first flurry of enthusiasm last winter. 

Seeing was quite stable, transparency moderate but managed to pick out M41 low down although not the brightest view. 
 

M47 looked brighter than I remember and had fun trying to work out if I was imagining the planetary in M46 or not (came to the conclusion I couldn’t be sure). 
 

Looked at M50 - nice bright Cluster & then after some hunting found M67, a favourite object of mine although transparency not allowing it to show its best tonight. 
 

M35 superb however and, as always M44 & M45 spellbinding. 
 

Finished, as I often do, gawping at M42 & environs. 
 

All with the Mak 127 tonight & mostly the 31mm Baader - getting to like this combination although eye placement is a knack. 
 

37 minutes ago, OK Apricot said:

I'll try to sort a shield in that case. I did notice after bringing it in, the meniscus was dewy and stayed that way for a good couple hours! 

It's definitely the portability that's appealing with the GTi... With issues in mind, what other mounts would be similar? 

As a temporary measure you can take the scissors to a camping mat and secure it with gaffer tape - not pretty but works perfectly well. 
+1 here for the AZGTi Mak 127 combo - very capable mount.  
Really interested in the recommendation to go for a 2inch back on an SW127  - my understanding was that the limiting factor on FoV was the focus tube so going for a 2 inch back didn’t make any difference. Would love to be proved wrong on that. 
That said at just over 1 degree most objects are fine - just about squeezes both sides of the Double Cluster in. 

Congratulations! Great scope - I love mine and grab&go with it frequently.  Get it somewhere nice and dark and it will do better on DSOs than you might expect too.  
P.S. You’ll be needing a dew shield  

Friday night - post storm it was still breezy but great transparency here.  Went out with ST80 & Mak 127 to try some eyepiece swaps. I bought the 31mm Hyperion Aspehric for use in the ST80 (2inch focus converted)  and it does give a huge field - but there is quite a bit of astigmatism.

In the Mak however this EP is great & sharp to the edge. 

Meanwhile the Hyperion 24mm 68 degree in 2inch mode gives a much flatter field in the ST80 and a lovely sharp 4 degree field. 
 

Enjoyed testing all this out on the Beehive, Pleiades, Alpha Perseus cluster, Double Cluster and M3 + crisp whole disc moon views. 

1 hour ago, Nik271 said:

The Moon with 127 SW Mak. I installed flocking on the primary baffle and despite the wind and clouds managed to get some views last evening to test. Happy to say the flocking certainly helps with full Moon. The baffle does have ridges but they are dull grey and still reflect strong light when the Moon is just outside the field. The velvet flocking paper completely removed any stray light 🙂

As a bonus I saw Humboldt (the crater). It's quite a large crater on the eastern limb with a central mountain which was showing reasonably well in the Mak despite the atrocious seeing.

Excellent stuff - sky looked very clear last night between scudding clouds but family stuff prevented me sneaking a peek. Glad some got to take the opportunity. 
Flocking the Mak does make a subtle but pleasing difference in my view - well worth the easy but slightly fiddly effort for any owner I’d say. 

Lovely impromptu hour or so out there. Mostly to verify that flocking the Mak 127 hadn’t messed with collimation (it hadn’t), that the dust that made me take the front off in the first place had gone (it had) and determine if flocking made any difference (it does). 
 

Seeing fairly steady & transparency good outside of the odd cloud band, even those looked beautiful in the moonlight. 
 

Sometimes nice just to meander from target to target, without the “pressure” of the hunt for a dim galaxy or two.  
 

Enjoyed M42, the trap’ (5 / hint of 6 stars at 140x), Orion easy doubles and NGC clusters generally, Auriga Messiers (starfish looking particularly good despite the moonlight), Alpha Persei cluster in the 9x50 finder, and the highlights - the Double Cluster, looking superb despite being unfavourably positioned for local LP and the Pleiades, certain I could see the swathe of nebulosity in AV with the 24mm Baader Hyperion & Neodymium filter. 
 

Moon looked crisp too - although didn’t take the time to identify features but crisp valleys, craterlets & central mounds in abundance! 
 

Verdict on flocking the focus tube, collector baffle & main tube - a discernible improvement in contrast & decrease in scatter, well worth the effort. 

Another wonderful Oxfam shop find, £3.29 well spent! Photos are mainly Hubble/VISTA & very well reproduced. 
Haven’t read it yet but the content looks good and is a 2019 edition so nice & current. 

Lots of brilliant posts on here - I’d add that if I was going for the the lowest possible cost way into the hobby then my used ST80 on an equally used photo tripod could still keep me interested and delighted for years for around £150 quid all in (including a bit of flocking and a generic 32mm Plossl).  
(I am sure the same goes for used SW 130 /150 Newtonians etc) 

My “solar observatory” is an (excellent) old Prinz 330 60mm and a 12 quid Baader film filter - white light observing for the princely sum of £72 all in (and I probably overpaid for the OTA!). 
 

At the next level up I am closing in on a full set of Messiers with my Mak 127 which seems to me to be optically very good and  a perfectly capable instrument for a lifetime of observing for around £500 including the excellent AZ GTi mount.  It’s a big chunk if you’re on the national average wage (for example) but if you put it in the context of Gym membership then over a couple of years it’s peanuts compared to the satisfying hobby it enables. 
 

Do I hanker after a VX10 and a 3 or 4 inch Tak - of course I do but I don’t “need” them to get a massive amount of pleasure out of observing. Even these more expensive instruments don’t look outrageous when compared to what some of my mates spend on say golf club membership (never my bag…), hi-fi, cameras and don’t even get started on classic cars!

My other great passion is music and I treated myself to a lovely American pro fat-strat - but when I am belting out Springsteen in a packed, sweaty pub my £90 Tele seems to do very nicely  

Friday early evening is filled with child-ferrying to various activities but in a down-half hour I sneaked 15 minutes naked eye from a dark spot between Scouts & swim-team.  Transparency was rubbish in bands of high cloud - nothing above mag2 but good in the clear stripes. 
Almost overhead I could pick out the Auriga Messiers with AV and the bits of Orion in the clear looked great. 
I had to meet a bloke in a pub after that to talk about post lockdown resurrection of a band (weighty matters) and this ran, predictably, late.  
Consequently elected for a garden session (driving out to dark site rendered impossible through beer, motivation to schlep gear on foot to the park very low). 
Nice night though, seeing & transparency after midnight much improved and was able to confirm that Mak-flocking exploits earlier in the week have not disturbed collimation & tantalising signs that things may be a little crisper. 
Hunted a long time for M101 & must’ve been looking straight at/through it but really couldn’t find it . 
Consoled myself with a lovely long look at M3 and the thrill of picking out  good  views of M81/2 in the same field - still blows my mind that I can see objects 11m light years away from a garden overlooked by year round fairy lights! 
Enjoyed splitting Algieba, Castor, Mizar & Porrima (a lovely even vertically aligned white pair standing 250x tonight). 
Thought about heading over to the park with the ST80 for a bit but caved in to a nightcap & SGL browse instead  

1 hour ago, johninderby said:

You mean the 127 mak mounted on the Telrad? 😁

Touché  

On 28/01/2022 at 14:19, johninderby said:

The stock RDF isn’t very good. There are much better ones available. Telrad is really only suitable for a bigger scope as it’s rather latge.

Au contraire - I think the Telrad looks splendid on a Mak 127, works a treat and I can pretend to be a spitfire pilot…

@Yubnub some great advice above on Mak 127 upgrades above. In order of usability impact over the course of a year I went: 

- Dewshield essential, unless you’re in Arizona or elsewhere very dry (if you’re saving money gaffer-taped foam roll mat will solve, ugly but works!) 

- Telrad/Rigel finder - the illuminated “gunsight” target circles at 4,2 & 0.5 degrees really help finding stuff. 
 
- 9x50 RACI finder - the Telrad gets you in the right area, the visual finder for final alignment & tracking down fainter things. GoTo is great but won’t land you spot on target every time, there’s still hunting to be done. 

- Baader Zoom eyepiece 8-24mm

- Something to get the max field  of view, I went for the Baader Hyperion 24mm 68 degree but a basic 32mm Plossl does the same job in this respect. 

- Uprated clamp to ADM clamp for AZGTI, improved stability way more than I was expecting. 

- Uprated Baader clamp for visual back. Feels a bit more secure when you start to get heavier eyepieces. 
 

- Takahashi Prism diagonal, just tightens up the star patterns a bit & slightly higher contrast than the (perfectly decent) supplied mirror diagonal. 
 

+ 1 for a zoom eyepiece. I have the Baader Hyperion MkIV 8-24mm & it’s great. Also has a dedicated 2.35x Barlow.  Really comes into its own on freezing cold nights when fiddling with eyepieces is at its most unappealing!
Lots of people speak well of the Hyperflex zoom too at a lower price point. 

 

12 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

"Yes, Officer, I have this terrible weakness for nubile blondes hanging upside down in their bedrooms!"

Actually in the Mak they'd just be back to front, but that answer could just open a whole other can of worms...

Actually had that happen in one of sessions that re-kindled my current astro phase, I'd just had one of those special views having caught comet Neowise in a pair of 10x50s from the car-park out that back, it was low in the NE above the houses.

A car full of what my Mum used to call "youths" sped past, windows down, and the shout of "PERVERT!!"  gave a brilliant demonstration of the doppler effect...

Another weird one recently when my normally deserted South Downs spot was occupied by a lone car - "uh-oh" I thought.  Turns out it was a radio amateur using the elevated position to talk to a mate on the other side of the Isle of Wight.    "Astronomy" I explained and carted off my gear. I could then hear him laughing with his mate about "big telescopes" and what a "weird hobby".  This. From a radio amateur in the age of WhatsApp??? 

4 hours ago, Sunshine said:

🤣 What was their reaction when you said you were just "spotting doubles" at the park? 🤣

I didn't actually phrase it that way at the time, I was initially quite bad tempered about being illuminated with a bright torch & had to backtrack a bit when they used their special "police voices"  to identify themselves.

(If I were a copper I don't think I'd be able to resist using phrases like "  'ello, ello. ello, what's going on 'ere then?" and "Evenin' all..." . Or "Oi, I want a word with you!" would be great fun).

17 hours ago, cajen2 said:

@SuburbanMak Do tell us about your 'brush with the Hampshire constabulary'!

I wrote about it here at the time:   (p.s - I was wrong about the Pup that night btw, not seen  )