Ags

Hard copy edit complete with all errors dog-eared.

I had a chance last night around 1.30 am to test the book a bit. I tried to track down M51 and M63, which I have never seen from a city or without goto. The book certainly got me on the right locations, but the sky was too milky even at that late hour. I could only see the slightest hints not even definite enough to claim averted vision. But at least I was certain I was looking in exactly the right location. More satisfactorily, I managed to hunt down Y CVn "La Superba" which had eluded me before on a few sessions last month. No difficulties tonight with the aid of the book. No color to be seen in the finder scope, but a definite sparking red in the ZS66.

Back to the scopes, I have only seen superficial reviews so far, but the Evolux 82 is a scope I would like to own if the optics are in order. The optics are apparently designed by the same outfit that did the Esprit lenses. As a side note, the square tube rings on the StellaMira are another fashion choice I will decline!

I don't get this fashion for handles. It doesn't look traditional and with a small tube like the evo 82 I don't see the added value.

I do like the aesthetics of the evolux. And it's 2 more mm!

Brought not by the postal worker but by the gods of fortune: my long lost red light torch. I said eight months ago "it's a small apartment, it's bound to turn up soon". NOT. Where was it? On the shelf with the other torches. 🙄

66° is still a good FOV for a zoom. Still, rule 1 of engineering is to never overpromise...

Should work fine. I am a bit more downmarket with a Solar Scout but I typically use it atF22, which is roughly where you would be with the Quark 4.2 teleconverter. With an ST80 you should still be able to get a full disc. If you want to get to F30, just use an aperture mask, which should also reduce spherical aberration.

It occurs to me it is just the right weight to collimate the telescope if more gentle methods have failed 🤣

Ok, I will stick with a single volume. You've saved me a ton of work!

I will add better indications of type. Dividing by hemisphere won't work really well because observers in each hemishphere see quite a lot of overlapping sky. So I was thinking more along the lines of a Messier/Caldwell volume and another for the rest.

Not to sure about a 1.1 kg book. Perhaps I should split it into two volumes? First one could cover the messiers and caldwells, and the second one could cover a further 220 targets so more targets overall.

Yes, ringbound, paperback and hardback.

Proof copy of my new book arrived!

Test Book 1 arrived today. 1.1 kgs, so it is quite the tome! Flipping through, I see a few errors, so will have plough through the printed book carefully. Always helpful to see a hard copy for final edits!

I lived in the Valleys for a couple of years. Nice skies - M31 was a naked eye object on a good night.

SS60-DS, ASI485MC, best 10% of 1000 4ms frames; scope stopped down to 43 mm (f22).

I did a reprocess to improve contrast. Tried conventional yellow and eyepiece red. I think I prefer the red actually...

I was trying that approach with M56, but failed at the first hurdle. Unfortunately I couldn't make out Sulafat. It's mag. 3.3 and I said it was a dark night (relatively speaking) but still lost in light pollution. What I will do next time is find Sulafat in the finderscope, and then use the RDF as a virtual Sulafat to estimate the location of M56. Oddly I can easily make out Albireo even though it's about the same brightness as Sulafat??? What SW 4mm were you using? I've been thinking of picking up the Nirvana type.

@GreatAttractor

They are all welcome as long as they come bearing eyepieces.

Anything that can cut the CA significantly is going to leave the stars a funny color. I sold on my ST80 not because of the CA but because star colors were way off because most of the blue was scattered away - add a filter that cuts blue and the problem is even worse! Looking at fainter objects, this is not a problem. But now I like admiring colored stars, so had to go the apo route.

That's putting your money where your mouth is!

It's was too late on a work night but the sky was soooo clear and dark and the C6 was cooled so took in the double double, zeta lyrae, Albireo (strong colors tonight) and M57 - the famous ring bright and clear. Tried to find the globular between Albireo and Lyra, but no luck somehow. But I had to call it a night after less than 20 minutes. A thousand curses on the capitalist rat race.

To be fair, 80mm scopes come in all shapes and sizes. There's that F15 version, the common Skywatcher F7.5 ED, and the ES triplet I mentioned has 34cm transport length. I feel 100mm is just a bit big but 80mm might be a bit small. But 90mms are definitely a bit expensive!