Moon-Monkey

Ok so this must fall into this category my little 80mmF5 (ST80) while I own a variety of other instruments both fracs and newts there is something very enjoyable about grabbing the little ST and going out whether it’s visually observing the veil and rosette or doing some white light solar obs I’m going to start a thread at some point and detail all the work I’m doing to this little cheap achro and mount good thread here loads of great little and. Large scopes 👍👍

There are nights when I go out with my eyepiece case and scroll through ptetty much every piece and there are nights when I go out with just one and this is a wondeful example of what fun you can have with a single EP when you just go hunting old school style a fun resort to read buddy very inspiring 🙂

Oooh that’s an amazing set buddy I hope one day to have them all !!!!! Why do you not use them now ? Have you moved on to other things bud if or when you ever want to let these go please let me know bud I would love to complete my set 🙂🙂🙂

Oh the views were excellent indeed the best I’ve had on Mars period lol it Does mean however that now I’m searching for those truely amazing skies for that “better “ session 🙂🙂🙂

Thanks buddy was a great night

How do you find the 5mm bud ? It’s just the 5 and the 40 left 🙂🙂

Very nice dude I was observing with my SL 8” too and found amazing views with such detail and clarity also by far my best Mars session too keepnat it bud love reading the reports M31 is in dobsons hole at the minute which is why it’s a bit tough give it a few weeks and it’ll be easier 🙂🙂🙂

Some great observations there mate had a great night myself the other day cloudy so far tonight though lol

Have been told by a trusted observer that what I was observing was the polar cloud trough

Beautiful nights observing both with the 8” Dob and the ST80 this evening 2.5hr session at about 4’celsius went from Jupiter and stunning views at 160x in my 2” with beautiful banding in reds detail of the temperate bands and equitorial zones as well as some detail on the polar caps then had a look through the ST80 at the double cluster below Cassiopeia with a stunning pinpoint cluster of stars at 12.5x pushing it up to around 50x on one of the r doubles resolving more and seeing deeper then went over to Mars which had risen over the roofs started at 160x which showed some detail but image size was still quite small so swapped over to 1.25” format and on the TMB 2’s so now image scale was better and started pushing the mag to see what the sky would hold ended up after a 9mm then a 6mm then a 5mm ending up with a 4mm was what the sky was holding this evening reaching 300x the detail was rich although the colouring wasn’t as stark as the other evening with pastel tones enveloping the poles then syrtis Major was a dark contrast of the albedo features which stiff out clearly and defined with and albedo crater like structure to the side which was Schroeter this was circular in shape and defined more in the limb side of this feature to the south (north to me in a Dob) was the larger dark feature of the Huygens area and due her still south the lighter sandy feature of Hellas Planitia the contrast was defined yet subtle changes of colour between the se light and dark albedo features there was also some what looked like cloud to the north this is an assumption as due to the angular nature I don’t think I can actually see the polar cap so until confirmation this observation won’t be classed as made till confirmed by others imaging this evening (unless anyone here was observing this evening ??) I finished off with the ST80 on Orion (M42) as it’s the first time I’ve had a scope on it this year how beautiful to see this again the nebuloscity popped in my ST80 with a 25mm jap Meade giving 16x but then I ramped the power up slightly to 25 then 50 in the end I was observing the inner M42 and a star Cluster called trapezium inside M42 the higher magnification with the jap 6.7mm giving me 59x darkened the background substantially actually giving better contrasts of the edges and core of m42 structure and texture was present at this exit pupil and the little ST really pulled in some photons giving very pleasing if narrower field of the nebula once inside I concentrated on and could easily split trapezium into the 4 main components and with a few minutes in the target was also able to pull a 5th component out too I think however this may have been flare perhaps that 6.7 is sharp though lol so perhaps not who knows I will check the mags of the trapezium fainter members in the morning and so ends my evening session with two scopes of completly diffenrt ends of the spectrum a contrast in instruments that bizarrely complement each other beautifully Clear skies everyone

Ahh sorry bud I guess I misquoted my friend yes I use tinkercad quite a bit actually 🙂🙂 I will have a look cheers bud

That’s a good thought I never thought about the mesh feature for this aweosme buddy Thabkyou could I then bother you for the STL for this and the 1.25” version please 🙏

Hey buddy I think this is a great option a bit above what I wanted to spend honestly as you say a bit expensive for my taste too however I may find one on the second hand market at some point 🙂🙂🙂 thanks for making me aware of it though Vlaiv

Very nice I had thought of designing something similar to this my only worry is it failing and dumping my EP’s on the ground is it quite sturdy bud 🙂🙂

Hey Simon thanks for the confirmation there buddy I may be on the road to nowhere … ok so my plan was this … I saw on CN a thread and on the 60mm telescope club that the Astro tech AT50’s were great little scopes now being a small apeture freak and loving a challenge I wanted an AT50 to ply with do some solar and take out and about on holiday etc as it’s so super small etc that was my thought train with it being on a budget doesn’t help or I would have ordered a Borg 50 but hey ho I’ll find a way even if I have to buy a lens cell and make everything else 😀😀

Yes that is M31 indeed buddy as said before try and get to a dark site to see it better and also make sure your eyes are dark adapted to get hr best out of any DSO no phones tablets etc etc I find that in my 8” M31 is clearly visible with texture and some structure and in complete contrast through my ST80 (which frames it beautifully ) you can see the outer reaches better as you can percept the true darkness behind it when you can see the outer reaches it’s a differnent view and nowhere near as much structure of course however beautiful in its own right 🙂🙂

Ok guys so a little update … I have now acquired in total 4 of these classic EP’s the 6.7 the 9.5 smooth side , the 16mm and thr 25mm smooth side I have to say I’m blown away with the crisp contrasty views through the hear eyeoieces !!! Still got to find a 40mm and the 5mm although I’m not too bothered about the 5mm tbh it’s a little tight on ER so I’m told not quite a contact eyepiece but getting close 🤣🤣

@vlaiv greatvideas there buddy and I agree sometimes it’s best to start from scratch and see what you end up with still not sure what way I’m going to go down with rbis cheers buddy

Hey gang so I need a little bit of help here I’ve been eying up the Astro tech AT50 from the states but they won’t ship here sadly and I’m really after a tiny scope to fit in a small bag to go travelling etc perhaps on a plane etc now I have a short tube 60 but that’s still far too big IMO I want / need something smaller so here we go … I have a straight through 8x50 (I 🤔 think) skywatcher finder and a 50mm tasco F10 refractor (real bad plastic lenses stopped down to 20mm) 🤣 so I wnat to put the optics from the finder in the other tube cut it down 3D print a female focal back and then put an 1.25” diagonal in to be able to (albeit rough) focus a 1.25” EP here’s what I’ve got any suggestions ??? Oh and before it’s asked the focuser on the tasco is .965 which is fine I have some great vintage circle t ep’s but there going to be horrible in such a fast scope so there out suggestiij lovely people before I start cutting tubes 🤣🤣🤣

Welcome buddy I’m down the road just outside Newbury if you can get to the ridgeway you will find some aweosme skies buddy assuming you have a vehicle ??

I modified mine somewhat by moving the Raci further to the outboard side and putting my telrad in between the focuser and Raci I’m also moving the mirror closer soon to take advantage of my 2” filter wheel min the process of currently making a new EP tray for thr 2” set I’m using as it’s annoying to me that nobody does eyepiece trays anymore everywhere is always out of stock OR won’t ship to the Uk anymore 🙂🙂

Hey guys so I’m not a quark owner but I am an ST80 owner and there is a book in the Patrick Moore series just about the ST80 and in that book there’s a write up on solar observing with an ST80 I believe one guys did exactly this with a quark and hot great views I think

Ok so managed to get a cr@ppy phone to EP pick with cloud but still it’s the second partial I’ve observed this time I drew a crowd 5 people wondered what the bejesus I was doing (some lab technicians) came over and had a look pic doesn’t show it but they noticed the sunspots and penumbra after I told them what to look for and they were truely taken aback anyway here’s my edited moody partial pic lol

Ahh see I’ve side by sided them … A/B same scope same conditions back and forth for nearly an hour and while the green 58 was an improvement over the EP in a native format the SC filter definitely (for me ) had a resounding improvement in contrast (however I am using a fast achromat ) so I guess YMMV ??? 🙂

Oh sorry buddy I must have miss-read it yes it’s a great instrument have been very happy with mine for about 18 months I think or sometime around that 🙂🙂