chrispj

I was my own postman today, picking up this lovely StellaMira 80mm F10 from @HollyHound. Spent a little time looking at the moon this evening before the clouds came over and i think we are going to get on very well together...

My first thought also 😆

A green and black hand grenade was waiting for me when I got home today, courtesy of @Sirius Bizness, along with a Contrast Booster filter for my Bresser AR102, from FLO. Had a quick peer at the moon through the clouds with the Panoptic, very nice, will look forward to a better use in the future there's some stars in view...

I hadn't considered chromatic aberration, not knowing anything much about it or how it appears until just now. It is evident to an extent on Jupiter by the time i get to 100x with the Bresser 102 and more so with the 7mm. I will most likely try a filter in the short term, though I suspect I'll be keeping an eye on the classifieds for a Cassegrain type or an ED refractor (though not this month!).

Thanks all. The CC is an interesting idea John, i have always loved a classic refractor so i hadn't considered one before. Another thing to ponder... I have a lot of floaters (i can see them right now, nevermind when i look through a telescope), hence the concern about exit pupil and thoughts turning towards binoviewers. My observing eye gets tired quite quickly as well, which they might help. As does the rest of me, I should sit down, such an obvious thing, instead of wobbling back and forwards bouncing off the eyepiece!

I've had a few good sessions over the last week or so, mostly watching Jupiter and Saturn as they are visible at a reasonable hour, and also splitting doubles courtesy of Ag's rather good new book. I'm using my Bresser 102/1000 refractor, on a Skytee 2, with my current shortest eyepiece being a Pentax XW 7mm. Jupiter I can discern the larger colour bands, very occasional brief hints there might be narrower bands and the four main moons (highlight being a transit I think of Ganymede last night). Saturn I see the rings as a single entity, the planet as a fairly uniform disc and the shadow of the planet on the rings. Not even a hint of the Cassini division. Jupiter seems to have something of an aura around the edges which i would think must be due to brightness and diffusion/ dispersion through the glass (I've looked and i can't see any smears on the lens!). I have something of a quandary where to go from here to improve things. The obvious would be to step up to my 10" Dob but that has the fundamental problem that it's not high enough to see the planets over the garden fence! Other options seem to be in a more or less similar monetary ballpark so I'd be really interested to know what others think. 1. Higher magnification eyepiece; obviously a smaller exit pupil - how low can you go before this is likely to be problematic? Also I'm not sure realistically how much more I can push it before it will be too much for the scope. Continuing my XW/Delite theme isn't overly cheap either (i like the eye relief being a glasses wearer) as they don't pop up 2ndhand that often (but cheaper than options 2 or 3). 2. Better glass; there's the odd tempting item that pops up, like the 80mm StellaMira in the classifieds recently. Better glass = clearer image/ more detail/ higher possible magnification? But less aperture = less light and shorter fl so smaller image for a given eyepiece... Hmmm. 3. More aperture, faster goal ratio; again in the classifieds there's items like the Starwave 152 f5.9 at a not unreasonable cost. Focal length similar to my Bresser so not dissimilar magnification, lower f number so a larger exit pupil for a given eyepiece so easier to use shorter eyepieces/Barlow what I have already... 4. Binoviewers; like hen's teeth secondhand. 2 eyes better than one, brain processing etc. More fiddly for my wife to come and take a look as she does like to for a few minutes sometimes. Tempting out of curiousity. 5. Anything else? Any ideas/ thoughts appreciated. Also any ideas on how any of the above might improve splitting of tight doubles - is this a magnification issue or do i really want better glass...? Thanks all!

Oh, that's where it goes! I thought it was a bit odd to have a spare screw included. 😆

I'm sorry for bringing the rain that's forecast for the rest of the week. Fine focus adjust for my Bresser AR102L and a Pentax XW 7mm, again for the gas giants and those tight doubles... 😃

Looking forward to getting to grips with this, hopefully a couple more clear nights tonight & tomorrow to get started 😀

Back from 6 weeks away at work and four small boxes sitting at my place on the dining table, the product of my lack of willpower while passing slack time on shift when faced with the classifieds here and ABS...

The 10" is portable enough for me (I carry it through the house from garage to the back garden). The base is lighter but more awkward with the larger base diameter than the OTA and the single handle. It's easy enough to pick up the tube by the altitude bearings and the top of the tube rests against my shoulder. If you are moving it around outside, to do more than udge it a foot or so I'd still want to split the two as you can't really pick the two parts up together, in which case you'll want something soft to put the OTA down on while you move the base.

I decided to flock my 10", which looked a similar finish inside - on moonlit nights there was a lot of glare evident reflecting from the side of the tube if pointing within 20-30 degrees of the moon. It was a good improvement (for me at least).

Having the TS Optics deluxe 10", which looks identical to the FLO spec from 8" upward (except with a white tube and straight through finder) I have to say I find the altitude bearing very smooth and easy to adjust position and change friction level. The azimuth adjustment is a little sticky to start off whenever it has sat for more than a few minutes (though then smooth once it's moving), which can be annoying at high magnification.

There's an awful lot of equipment on the second hand market that appears barely used that is at a good price. Having bought quite a wide range of items from the classifieds here and on Astrobuysell (from a 10" Dob through finders and diagonals to a rapidly increasing collection of eyepieces) I would say I haven't been disappointed in the condition of anything, it's all been well described. If you see something that matches what you need I wouldn't really have any qualms about buying second hand rather than waiting an indeterminate amount of time for delivery. I am also with Mr Brush though, I must get round to selling on the one or two eyepieces that don't quite work for me (I made a couple of mistakes with eye relief as I wear glasses) or are now surplus to requirements having been usurped by shinier items!

We have this too. Fuel duty is £0.57 per litre on petrol, then we pay 20% VAT on the total. So with the retail petrol price around £1.25 per litre including tax, we are paying around £0.78 in tax of which £0.11 is VAT levied on the fuel duty.

Yes, the only qualification to that is that no-one in the UK would consider it to be a £100 item because it would be advertised everywhere inclusive of tax at £120 (the only businesses that price without sales tax are those that sell primarily to other businesses that are likely to be VAT registered and able to reclaim the tax)

I have the opposite problem, working away from home for a month at a time everything I pick up from the classifieds arrives when my wife's the only one of us there to receive it so there's no possibility to hide anything! There's currently 4 small packages waiting at my place on the dining table for when I come home next...

A lot of astronomy kit seems to go for around 2/3 of new price (including VAT), there is no VAT/sales tax on the sale of 2nd hand equipment by individuals. This percentage is often higher for premium or rare items, the more or less 75% (600/810) in this case is high but probably not exceptional.

With the 18mm ES eye-piece I mentioned, pressing hard enough to gain a reasonable field of view left my glasses lens scratching against the aluminium face around the lens, which obviously isn't preferred! This seems like a reasonable rule of thumb. Unfortunately, for the gap I want to fill around 18mm, it seems to rule out a few tempting eye-pieces with around 16-17mm quoted eye relief (which was the driver behind this thread really). No Naglers for me then! 😂 This is a fair point, I do use contacts for sports but find with the daily disposables my focus isn't as precise as when I wear glasses (& without either I'd be falling over my tripod legs!)

Wow, that is a comprehensive list, thanks!

This is something I imagine will vary depending on your prescription and probably other factors but hey, I think it will be interesting for me. I'm quite short-sighted with a -3 (more or less) prescription and have to wear my glasses when observing. I'm gradually building up an eye-piece collection, mostly from 2nd hand purchases here and on UK Astrobuysell. Some eye-pieces work much better for me than others - I love the Pentax XW with its 20mm of eye relief, but I don't get on at all with the ES 18mm 82 degree where I got caught out by the 13mm relief. Somewhere between the two is going to be the limit for what I can comfortably use but I don't know where that limit is yet and there's a lot of eye-pieces that fall in between... It's not so much of a commitment buying 2ndhand as it should be possible to move the eye-piece on again at a minimal loss, but it is obviously much more of a commitment to buy new, without knowing if it will work (& I don't like messing a retailer around and returning equipment that is perfectly fine but just 'wrong' for me). So, it would be really helpful (for me at least) if any other glasses wearers out there would post up the lowest eye-relief eye-piece that they can comfortably use (and what the value is). Thanks in advance.

In my brief 6 month stargazing history I am 100% visual so far, looking for the wonder of seeing what I can see. I am recently intrigued by NV assisting as I come to understand the limits of what I can see purely visually but the cost seems rather prohibitive! I guess live-stacking is another option but I don't particularly want to go down the route of having to hook up a laptop and deal with tracking mounts etc as I enjoy the simplicity of what I do, pointing a largish Dob at the heavens. I can certainly see why folk get a satisfaction from AP but it is not for me at the moment...

Well done! I hesitated overnight and it was gone, won't make that mistake again!

My neighbour has taken to leaving his bathroom light on all night (which I completely understand as we leave a light on in case our kids wake up in the night), but unfortunately without anything in the way of blinds or curtains although it's a small window it shines out over about 95% of our garden area. I'm considering a strategically placed tiltable sunshade umbrella (or 2!) to create some darker space to observe from (sadly not enough space available for a shed/observatory), though my wife tells me I'm going a little over the top. Has anyone out there had to do something similar or gone (much?) further in an attempt to block out the neighbour's lights? Would anyone care to share any good stories that could convince the missus I'm still relatively sane?

If you're willing to read it on a tablet (Android or iPad) and read other magazines then I'd second the recommendation for Readly. It lets me dip into a whole lot of magazines that I wouldn't if I had to buy them individually and the missus looks at a whole different selection again. I think you can have up to 5 devices on the same account. £7.99 a month is more or less 1 1/2 paper magazines at today's prices so it doesn't take much to break even...