badhex

"Hold my beer..." 😂 You definitely win the wooden objective lens trophy! Maybe we should ask the mods to set up a badge for it 😂 Nice image nonetheless though!

Hello all, Prior warning, I may win the wooden objective lens trophy for the shortest actual observing time in an observing report here! Saturday night saw a predicted break in the clouds for the first time in weeks on end, around four hours starting at 1900. I got my TS102 F7 and Mount Zero set up and cooling outside well in advance to try and take full advantage of the situation, although was not completely convinced when at 1800 we still had 100% cloud cover. Still, I wrapped up and sat on my northeast facing covered balcony from about 1915 onwards and waited... and waited. Although there were one or two tiny sucker holes, I couldn't even see more than two stars at once to get my bearings and any revealed star was visible for no more than a minute before disappearing again. Under normal circumstances I would not bother observing at all, but this really was last chance saloon, as all my gear is being packed, along with the rest of my belongings, to be shipped to the UK ahead of my glorious return in May. After nearly two hours of waiting I was close to giving up but figured I'd come back into the warm for a bit and check again every 15 mins to see if there was any improvement, but was cognisant of my hard deadline of 2230 when food was due to arrive. At 2145 it had cleared! I quickly got my coat etc back on and got outside but by 2150, the clouds returned again! 😱😭 Honestly ready to just call it, I figured maybe there was hope just beyond the visible part of the sky, and so I waited a bit more... and lo and behold! With just over five mins to go before food arrived (typical!), the clouds cleared enough for me to track down the comet with the Lacerta ED 40mm. Under my city skies and with not great night adaptation at this point, it appeared as a light patch of very pale tinted green fuzz around a pinpoint. Although it was pretty faint, it also clearly stood out from the stars around it. No tail in sight sadly. I tried switching up to the Morpheus 17.5mm to see if I could improve the contrast, but only a moment later the doorbell went and it was time to call it. I did do a quick sky check after I'd eaten but as expected the 100% cloud cover had returned, so that was that. Well, I'd have loved to spend more time at the eyepiece and tease out more detail but it was not to be. At least I did get it! I had hoped as well for a potential second go over the last evening or so but the clouds were not playing, and with the movers arriving imminently, that ship, or perhaps moving van, has sailed. If you made it this far, I hope the payoff was not too disappointing, but I did warn you at the start it was a very short observation 🙂 Thanks!

Does sky safari give you the opportunity to centre and confirm your target, or just assume that it is correct? One thing you might want to try is a session just using the synscan app, as it gives you the opportunity after each slew to fine tune the centring of the target, which improves the accuracy. Worth seeing if it's any better when just using synscan, to narrow down where the issue might be. It could be that after only a North level alignment with two stars, it's not quite accurate enough, so maybe it needs a few more targets in synscan first along with the accompanying fine tuning/centring in order for it to more accurate in sky Safari. Regarding the manual moving btw, you need to ensure you have the dual encoders turned on in the settings, so that the mount knows where you are pointing when you unlock the axes and manually move it (it also needs to be accurately aligned before you unlock the axes).

I've used point and track on the sun, with the appropriate protection of course, and it worked very well. North levelled the scope (physically only, not the alignment process in the app) before starting, which is fairly important to get as close as possible, but then it tracked the sun for at least 45-60 mins before I needed to adjust it a touch. In general though, I have always used the North level alignment process in the app to great success. I know some folks have had a total mare with it but I have always found it to be excellent and self correcting (sort of). The first star is usually off by a fair bit, which you then manually centre. Then the second is usually off by a lot less, again needs manually centring, and then by the time you're slewing to actual targets it is very close to centre if not bang on. In theory, the model it builds should get more accurate over the session each time you slew then centre (if needed), and I've found that to be my experience.

If you do end up removing the focuser I'd be interested to know the OD of the focuser where it attaches to the main tube (or the ID of the tube of course, might be easier to measure). I imagine it is probably bigger than the TS70 one but worth seeing if it could be possible to fit the ST80 focuser on the TS70 tube.

If it is the same 45° prism that came with the TS70, and I suspect it is looking at the pictures, I would heartily agree - barely passable at best IMO. For one thing there's a pretty wide lip on the inside of the barrels, at the prism surface, possibly on both sides, so vignetting will obviously be an issue when using lower power EPs.

Super interesting read @Stu. Being that it is Synta, the construction similarities between this and the Travelscope 70 are pretty clear, although the ST80 has some metal parts and is generally better made. The focuser on the TS70 is pretty rubbish unfortunately and has some obstruction in the form of an inner sleeve in the draw tube. Anyway, I've said this many times before but optically speaking the TS70 is surprisingly good for such a cheap achro, once you put some decent accessories with it, so it doesn't surprise me that the ST80 performs similarly (even better, by the sound of it). I was pretty amazed at how much better it was with a decent diagonal and the Morpheus 17.5mm, so it goes to show that often the issue with beginner gear is not necessarily the scope itself, but the accessories.

I'm also generally very happy with 65-80ish FOV in terms of eye placement, so in that AFOV range I would give plus one over here for the 24mm UFF for lowest power/widest field in 1.25". I have the APM version but they are all the same optically (and the StellaLyra is the least expensive - top marks FLO). At a slightly higher power I would also strongly recommend the Morpheus 17.5mm which is nominally 76° - absolutely top notch EP and pretty much my favourite EP ever. I can't speak for the Nirvanas as I don't have one, but if you do plump for the 16mm I'd certainly be interested to hear how it pans out, roughly the same TFOV as the Morpheus with a very slightly smaller exit pupil.

And another

15x in stock at FLO 😂

Let's just all be thankful no one has mentioned lickable OGs or @JeremyS will be in here like a shot. Oh damn, I have now, haven't I?

Bit of a "cheap/fast/good, pick two" situation unfortunately I think. Goto, alt-az and portable generally will come at a significant cost, e.g. Rowan or one of the newer harmonic drive alt-az mounts. Although it's not a goto, this is also somewhat true of the manual setup I mentioned earlier with the Gitzo and Mount Zero. I was using the Skytee and EQ-6 tripod, but it was a total pain lugging everything up and down two flights of stairs, so I spent ages trying to find something that would be as light as possible but still take the 102 happily. I eventually settled on the Gitzo/Zero which ticks those boxes but between the two items it cost me ~1500 eur for the privilege. Worth it, though 🙃

I have the AZ-GTi and found even an Evostar 80ED a bit much for it, especially with the standard aluminium tripod that it ships with (in some configurations). I suspect it would be a lot better on a better tripod, but it think the 102 is too much even on a good tripod. I use the 102 on a scopetech mount zero and Gitzo 5 series tripod. Mainly this is for portability. The scopetech is probably at it's limit with the 102, but having such a sturdy tripod means that it works very well and any vibrations at very high power damp down quickly. Not the cheapest tripod/mount combo though! For a much sturdier setup at a much lower cost (but also a lot heavier), the Skytee-2 is very solid and reasonably priced, and could be paired with the standard 1.75" steel Skywatcher tripod, also reasonably priced. I have a skytee which I use with an EQ6 2" tripod and it's insanely sturdy with the 102 on there.

Yep, that's the badger. Very manageable size and packs a punch, excellent fit and finish to all the components. It's a great scope, can highly recommend. Obviously you need a mount so that's an additional cost if you don't have one already, but as it is a reasonably small-medium scope you don't need to spend the earth. You mentioned AP - not sure if you are intending to explore that at some point but this scope is a touch on the slow side at F7 so you'd probably need a reducer as well as a flattener - but I am not an imager so take with a pinch of salt.

Throwing in my lot with another vote for a 4" doublet, specifically the Starfield 102 as mentioned by @Mr Spock if you're in the UK, or other brandings for elsewhere in the world. Obviously it does not have the light gathering of a larger dob but the performance you do get per inch is exceptional. Added to that, with the right EP combo you can easily get 4° of sky at one end and 200x at the other, which is a great spread and covers many objects.

Yep you're right, no option to ship to the UK in the drop down. Maybe give them a call?

Yep, Lacerta, TS-Optics, Aero ED are all the same, just different branding. I own the TS-Optics 35mm and the Lacerta 40mm, and agree with @Louis Dthat the 40mm is the better option. You're unlikely to find anything better at that price/quality/weight balance, as far as I can tell. I use my 40mm far more than my Panoptic 41mm because it's way more convenient and lighter (approx similar to my other EPs), and whilst there is an obvious difference in quality, its not worth getting out the Panoptic and rebalancing the scope! A couple of years ago, I looked for quite a few months for the 40mm but it was not available anywhere under any branding, so bought the 35mm (which as mentioned was not part of the original TMB Paragon lineup) from TS as it was the closest I could get. Then last year I noticed that Lacerta had started stocking the 40mm so I got that as well before it disappeared again. Lacerta mention that they ship to the UK in their shipping info section, I can try logging in and see if they give me the option of uk shipping in the checkout process if you like.

17mm from the eye lens, 8mm from the eyecup when fully extended, according to Ernest in the Astro Talks link above. I've never measured mine, but that seems about right and he's pretty methodical so I trust his figures. You might find the shipping cheaper from Lacerta, I think it's about 45 EUR including customs to UK according to their site.

I believe you are correct - Ernest notes that the EDs are KUO http://astro-talks.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=863

Also, Lacerta do have them in stock: https://lacerta-optics.com/LA40ed I could be wrong about this but I believe that Budapest Telescope Centre is in fact run by Lacerta, or at least in partnership with them somehow. The logo matches Lacerta's Austrian Telescope Centre shops, for one. I have a feeling that I figured out a while back that Lacerta is was formed by folks from Austria and Hungary, but I can't remember how/why I discovered that.

The Aero ED clones (technically clones of TMB Paragon) were originally 30mm and 40mm, and a new 35mm was added later but not designed by Thomas M Back. These are now branded as lots of different things such as Aero ED (although they are now unavailable in that branding), Lacerta and TS-Optics. They are not the same line as the UFF series which only go up to 30mm. Hope that clarifies?

Lovely, thanks for this! Got it on the wishlist. Not that I have any clear skies 😂😭

I had a couple of short sessions in early November, but had fewer than 30 mins of observing time since then 😱 Partly this was due to recovery from shoulder surgery (I even got my 80ED/skytee setup and ready to go under a BBQ cover on the covered balcony so I didn't need to move anything) , but actually the main issue is pretty much continual cloud cover for the whole of the last two months. Very annoying as my time with my current scopes is limited - everything gets shipped to the UK in a couple of weeks and I won't see it again until probably June!

Very sad news indeed 😢 Like many others I had noticed his absence but assumed he'd perhaps been busy with other things. Condolences to the family, he will be greatly missed.

I would say the same as @Louis D- giving yourself the option of 2" EPs opens up a lot more possible choices such as the Lacerta ED 40mm.