SuburbanMak

Interested to hear any tips and progress as & when you do that ST80 adjustment. Mine is still slightly out and having slackened off the lens cell I am thinking it’s a collimation job.

Thanks John, super article - I’ll do some testing & pop the results on here. When it came up on eBay I could find very little information anywhere on the Hilkin 60mm save the thread on CN that got shared on here. It’s a quality scope and I am loving bringing it back into service - the clarity on the moon last night was outstanding. Hopefully documenting its performance will someday nudge someone else to recommission a dusty old gem. Would love to get my hands on the 76mm f15

Update on the Wallace & Gromit 5mm SR EP. Tried it on some doubles - horrible. Last night on the moon though it was surprisingly good - a bit of milkiness to the view but good detail and given that it delivers 160x I was over-rating the scope's theoretical max a bit it was pretty impressive. Still waiting on that Vixen converter, have a Baader Classic Ortho 6mm that I reckon might be a good match & if so might pick up the other focal lengths + a high quality 30 odd mm (maybe the Televue) for a minimum glass approach.

I make a few notes on my phone then transfer them next day to a spreadsheet, all observations on one main tab then additional tabs for lists I am working on, right now that’s Messiers, S&T 100 best Doubles, Lunar 100. Observation sheet column headings: Date Time Seeing Transparency Moon %/Not risen Constellation Messier no. NGC no. Collinder no. Herschel no. Caldwell no. Melotte no. Bayer Designation (Alpha, epsilon etc) Object name Apparent Magnitude Separation (doubles) Type: so far - Asterism, Diffuse Nebula, Double star, Galaxy, Globular Cluster, Lunar, Multiple star, Open cluster, Optical double, Planet, Planetary nebula, Reflection nebula Equipment; scope, EP, filter Magnification (sometimes a range) Notes, try to capture how I found the object I’ve found I really enjoy reliving the session and looking up some of the data means a bit of learning about what I’ve seen. Ended up with lots of columns but this does mean I can sort by whatever I need - look up everything in a particular constellation , month, scope etc. Thank you for outing everyone’s inner trainspotter

I’m amazed at the difference the clamp upgrade has made to stability - although it did expose that any remaining sloppiness resided in the SW tripod, hence the new Berlebach…

Thanks John - I am still pretty near the beginning of my astronomy journey but immediately started to get real satisfaction from doubles. The main scope I’ve been using is a 127 Mak which is no slouch in this department but I’ve noticed that for some pairs the 60mm performs brilliantly. Polaris in particular just pops in the smaller aperture & colour contrast is superb. I’ve split tighter pairs in the Mak, right down to its optical limit (Tegmine for example) but Polaris sits much better on the 60mm optics, I reckon just as a function of where the diffraction patterns fall at focus. I’ll be very keen to point the Hilkin at Rigel & then Sirius come the winter.

Thank you - I’ve made a couple of additions to the AZGTi to make it usable in manual mode - a PB70 pan base and an updated ADM clamp - am very happy with it. The main use case for the modern mount is tracking which this thing does brilliantly. A really nice discovery was that the Hilkin 5x24 finder is lovely, gives a really nice view in itself and the Hilkin system holds finder alignment well, unlike the Prinz/Tasco version I have on a 60mm f11.8 if similar vintage. (That scope however is in weather-permitting daily use for solar white-light & was treated to a Baader Continuum filter today - it’s giving super, crisp whole disc views, although green obviously).

Thanks Dave - after my session just with the .965s this week I can’t wait to see the wider view on some brighter clusters. Also think this scope suited to a lunar programme.

You may recall that my bargain eBay Hilkin 60mm didn’t come with a tripod. There’s something slightly amiss with my economic logic here, but hey…

A thing of beauty, Berlebach 312 Report. Spot the Baader Continuum filter I actually went online to buy…

Meant to add - I also got a super split of Polaris at 64x after looking at the Double Double, seems very easy to see in this scope I think because of the smallness of the diffraction rings, the little white ghost of a companion sits just outside the single ring and there's a marked contrast with the yellow-er primary.

Was about to turn in tonight when I noticed it had finally cleared so I headed out into the garden planless for a quick look around with my recent eBay Hilkin 60mm f13.3. Seeing was actually pretty steady & transparency up high improving all the time. I’m still waiting on the Vixen converter which will allow 1.25 eyepieces so took out the array of .965s which are in varying stages of disrepair. There is something satisfying about the way they slot into the split-cut diagonal with no thumbscrews - shame most of the higher powers seemed borderline unusable. The 25mm though gives a nice crisp view and I congratulated myself on my bargain looking at some lovely tight concentric rings either side of focus on Vega before hopping up to Epsilon Lyrae. Stepping down the focal lengths I was just about splitting the more southerly pair with a 12.5 mm (64x) and not a bad view. The 9mm (89x) on axis confirmed this lower pair & showed some elongation in the fainter, more northerly pair. Kind of dim view though. The 6mm & 5mm were hopeless. Popped the 25mm back in and took a pot shot at M57 which to my delight showed as a tiny but crisp circle. Tried to step up the magnification but it was not happening. Enjoyed a nice contrasty view of Alberio for a while - really do like the tight pinpoint stars, good colour and inky background in this scope. It’s a lovely still, warm night but the town clock striking two reminded me I have work in the morning so I took one last sweep around the rich centre of Cygnus. I landed on a pretty little cluster a bit like a micro-Pleiades & realised I was looking at M29 - a thrill to have tracked down a new-to-me Messier object with this lovely old instrument. I’ve hatched a plan to see how many of the lunar 100 I can observe with the Hilkin - seems a fitting task for it! As I packed up a huge Skytrain of 20+ satellites went N-S behind Deneb - biggest one I’ve seen and amazing in its way. Lovely all-analogue couple of hours well spent.

Thank you - I’ve grown to love reading about new seasonsble doubles to look for & there sound like some super targets here - great report!

Likewise - I didn't mention that I had a sweep around with the 10x50s and could pick up M81 & M82 which I haven't managed with bins before.

Thanks Nik The site I was at shows SQM 21.04, Bortle 4 as opposed to 20.16 Bortle 5 at my normal site, very similar to your garden situation, amazed it made such a big difference. Amazing to actually see that these objects are not minute in apparent breadth - M49 is a third of a moon-width, and M99 a fifth - very faint but observable and in the best cases with some shape. I'm sure that if someone is used to looking through a ten inch dob they'd regard the view as unspectacular but definitely doable with the 127. Can only imagine what would be possible in Class 1 or 2 skies...

There’s definitely darker spots in the National Park to try. Also thinking if I head NW bits of Wiltshire are pretty empty and would reduce the extent of light from the coastal conurbation and put the New Forest to the South leaving LP only in the SE. Or there’s Snowdonia…

Thank you & hope you get that weather. Doesn’t look like we’ve clear skies anytime soon. It was a good clear night to begin with but even then I was amazed at how much of a difference it made to locating objects as well as the view once identified.

Great report and thanks for the Hercules Doubles - these look ideal for a garden session for me one night! I've been wrestling the same problem in Virgo & Coma B. recently I've been working up from a series of little asterisms SW of Vindemiatrix for the group up to M84 & M86. For my last session I worked from a fairly wide almost equilateral triangle formed by Porrima, Vindemiatrix and Omicron Virginis. Even then I ended up getting lost more times than not!

A little late in posting this one due to work and the arrival of a new/old ‘scope but wanted to record my first solo trip to a darker site and a memorable observing session. As dark fell last Thursday (May 6th) there was a deep clarity to the sky that convinced me to do something I'd been threatening to do since the end of lockdown, put the gear in the car and drive 15 minutes out of town to a local country park. Farley Mount is a favourite viewpoint around Winchester and I'd previously clocked its near 360 degree horizon and elevated position away from immediate lights. The dis-incentive to date had been a ten minute walk from the car park through deep and ancient Yew woodland to the observing site, but the sky conditions, largely moonless night, & a lighter day in the diary at work Friday convinced me to bite the bullet. I don't mind admitting I was bit nervous for no rational reason, I'm a big lad and despite any local superstition all I'm really likely to run into up there is the occasional poacher (I took the chance the cold would keep al fresco couples and any attendant, ahem, spectators indoors). Nevertheless I was glad of the relaxed Canadian astro-dude banter of the Objects to Observe in May edition of the Actual Astronomy podcast in the car on the way up there and as an extra precaution took my heavy and very bright night-watchman style Maglite torch/truncheon for reassurance. I was pleased to find the car park deserted, no steamy cars or worse still, blood-stained pickups with deer in the back in evidence. The sky was mesmerising however, good seeing and good to excellent transparency. By the time I'd walked in, selected a spot allowing use of a handy bench as observing table and gone through the familiar routine of set-up I’d got very happy with my isolated situation and ready to track down some more spring Messier objects. This site is about 10 miles from Southampton and with a clear line of sight down to the dockyards and the ships strung out along the Solent and on toward Portsmouth. Beautiful in its own right but casting a glow to South and South East up to about 50 degrees. Basingstoke glows dimly over the Northern horizon about 20 miles away but only seemed to be affecting a dome up to about 15 degrees. All other directions were dark to the horizon and no local lights at all. This is a big step up from the local park! The Milky Way was very plainly visible along with M13 and 10+ stars in Ursa Minor. I used a Mak 127 on an AZ GTi, Baader Hyperion 24mm giving 63x magnification, a Neodymium filter and occasionally switched in a Baader Zoom 8-24mm to up the power. Aligned Vega & Arcturus then slewed to Vindemiatrix as a start point for some of the galaxies I haven't yet spotted in Virgo & Comma B. Took a quick look at M86 & M84 region first to gauge conditions against my last session in that area of sky and it was immediately clear the darker site and clear sky made a huge difference. The galaxies sprung out in 9x50 finder and I could see more of the nebulous regions surrounding the core. Took a quick sweep NE along Markarian's chain from there and it was dotted with 7 or 8 fuzzy patches in the same field, amazing. By this time I was getting dark adapted and relaxing into the new environment, so turned to new targets.I orientated myself through the finder in a triangle between Vindemiatrix, Porrima and Omicron Virginis and started hunting for a fuzzy patch between a diagonal pair just off centre right (in RACI view) of that region… M49 – Spent quite a while hunting this one before realising I’d aligned on the wrong fuzzy patch between a diagonal pair & had to resort to Stellarium on the iPad to find an optical triple in the bottom right of field which confirmed I was in fact looking at NGC4526/NGC4560 – “The Lost Galaxy” apparently now found. A quick sweep up and West found a wider spaced pair and there was a faint fuzzy cloud with a slightly brighter centre, surprisingly dim though. Not a lot of features so moved on but M49 located. M85 - found to R of 11 Coma Berenices, verified by the presence of dim star on lower R edge. Not much detail but nice to find. M100 – moved to 6 Coma Berenices as a reference then up and W to place a pair bottom L and look for M100 top right, eventually perceived as much as saw this – to my eye was only visible in averted vision – some sense of circular shape, apparent but really dim, brought home the vast distance (55 Million light years). M99 – back to 6 C.B. and put it in the top L of the field and a little down to the right, along the base of a low triangle of dim stars was M99 – a highlight of the night, whilst very faint showing some spiral structure- took a long look at this one. M98 – back the other side of 6 C.B an oblique egde on clearly visible as a “stripe” – reminded me of a dim M82. M61 – Looking half way along the line between Porrima and Omicron Virginis this one took me ages to find. I kept going to the spot where I thought should be and panning around not finding much. Tried a GoTo and that landed me in the dark. Eventually used Stellarium live on the iPad to confirm I had 16 Virginis and a line of 3 stars above in the field then moved up & found M61 between its 2 bridging stars. Another one very faint, and with averted vision some cloudy spiral form was visible. That all took a while and I was a bit cold so I decided to just hit GoTo on some targets of opportunity and see what I could find. Transparency up at the Zenith and over into Lyra and Cygnus was by this time superb. I had a bit of globular-fest alighting on: M13 which looked superb with many stars resolved and not for the first time a hint of dark lanes. M92 – smaller area than M13 and dimmer with less resolution but still lovely and a new “M” for me. M3 – Jumping around a bit but this is the first globular I found in binoculars and I wanted to compare. M5 – Tighter than M13 but I think slightly more spectacular, may be my favourite so far. M10 & M12 in Ophiuchus – easily popping into view in the finder. Have to confess I’d stopped really making notes by this stage. After all that galaxy hunting at the limits of both scope (and more to the point observer), the GoTo was behaving and the globulars look like celestial fireworks and are so easy to spot – great fun! Couldn’t resist a look over at M57 and things were so crisp and transparent over there I tried for M27 also and there it was, bigger than M57 and with a discernible double sphere shape. I rounded off with a super view of M81/82 with a sense of shape in M81 and of dark band across M82. Also notable was that where the other galaxies I’d viewed that night were grey mists of varying density – these appeared both brighter and golden in colour. Really amazing view. Just one more… (it was gone 2.30 am by this time and getting a bit blowy which wasn’t helping tripod stability or my core temperature!) M51 – great view with twin cores, a discernible spiral and a lane of connecting stars between the two centres. Amazing way to finish. An unashamed Messier-ticking session then but some unforgettable views and firsts, I am already plotting my next darker sky run, now, how far do I have to go to lose the glow from all those dockyards…?

Well the Hilkin 60mm has arrived and is intact - no blemishes in the objective, lovely smooth focusser, usable 5x24 finder & a nice clean tube. The objective was dusty but otherwise in good shape. The lens cell showed deposits that looked suspiciously like snail-poo. All quickly succumbed to a gentle clean with Baader Optical Wonder. The peripherals are a mixed bag - the wooden box was rotten at one end & won’t be kept & the eyepieces have corroded barrels as a consequence. The prism looks quite degraded & there’s the usual lethal sun filter + an intriguing looking screw-in single element Barlow thing. The mount looks beautiful but is incomplete & missing it’s lower housing which I guess remains missing in action with the tripod. I’ll definitely keep it though as the sage green crackle paint and quality Alt Az wormgear looks amazing, as does the slightly tatty purple velvet padding for the clamshell - a future project. For now though it’s in some guide rings & looking business like on an AZGTi. Am having a few challenges achieveing focus with the cheapo 1.25 converter + Tak prism so reverting to the old school .965 prism & EPs for now. I have some nice clean Circle K ones that came with my Prinz 330. Have ordered the Vixen threaded converter & we’ll see, but for now it’s the full classic experience! Church-spire and chimney pot test looked great, finder solid, aligned & performing well. Waiting now for some stars. I wonder how long it is since this lovely old thing channeled photons from across time… First light: Good clean rings either side of focus & no sign of CA on Vega. Super Airy disc & single ring on Arcturus. Colours look quite rich & backgrounds inky-black. We have a winner here! Just spent a happy hour looking at favourite Doubles. Algieba, split beautifully at 53x. Lovely field around Mizar with ball like double at 32x & a line of faint stars in view to the W which I’ll check the magnitude - haven’t noticed them before. Polaris - split cleanly & clearly with a faint white ghost at 7 o’clock at both 32x & 53x just outside the single ring. Primary looked yellowish in comparison. Alberio - pin like gems with good colour contrast despite sitting somewhat low into the moisture haze & streetlights. A very promising start with some slightly dubious glass at the EP end of things. Looking forward to many chilled out garden-sessions of classic doubles and lunar work enjoyed with a nice glass of Shiraz. And boy does it look like a Telescope!

Thank you! Visual view was lovely plenty of detail visible on the groups and lovely to prove my idea of having an old 60mm with the redundant SW supplied plossls from my main scope can be put to real use. This will sit on permanent station and I can make a quick record whenever I'm in and the sun is out in the afternoon! QQ, Do you think its worth investing in the continuum filter?

& here they are, not making any claims for the image other than it is my first (old Prinz 60MM, Baader White LIght filter, 25mm SW Plossl, iPhone8)

Yes - precisely. I love my AZGTi but the Az clutch feels a bit under engineered, it’s a bit fiddly to use and, although I haven’t actually heard of it happening, feels to me like it might wear or worse still strip if repeatedly slackened & tightened. My plan is to lock it off and use either the motors for everything, or completely manual mode like an AZ5. After 1 day I’d say It’s lovely & smooth so I think this will work out. Here it is with an old Prinz 60mm on it - the whole thing is so solid it’s amazing. The only slop is actually in the tripod legs.

Thanks @alanjgreen - made this modification yesterday, makes an amazing difference to stability. Your post was helpful and reassuring - especially the part where you have to bite the bulllet and rip off the plastic cover!

Clamp and manual panning upgrades for an AZGTI mount + a security upgrade for all that glass hanging out the back of my Mak 127.