badhex

Haha whoops, I guess I hadn't refreshed the thread for a while as I didn't see this when I posted! I was very confused for a second when scrolling thinking "these don't look like the pictures I took"!

Isn't that a seventies jazz fusion band? 😂

Was just in Whitby for Christmas eve fish and chips (I feel a new tradition coming on!) and witnessed some incredible nacreous clouds, something which I have not seen or even knew existed until now. I have done some checking and although I understand these rare nacreous or polar stratospheric clouds are normally restricted to more northerly latitudes, certain circumstances have conspired to mean that the last few days they have been present over some areas of the UK; either that or everyone reporting it is confused and it's actually just more normal cloud iridescence. Either way I've never seen anything like it! These photos are as is, no filtering or enhancements applied.

Cheers Stu, good to know. Not in the market for a mount for now but it will likely be an AZ100 once I am, and I'd definitely get one with the encoders in the first instance, if not also the motors.

Looks great Stu! One question about the AZ100 motor upgrade (at the risk of opening a can of worms 🤪) - is it still possible to move with slow mos/manually, or is it motor only at this point? I assume motor only?

Amazing looking scope. The blue and brass is an awesome colour scheme! Quite awe I spring that it was used in compiling the New General Catalogue as well!

Cheers, very helpful. Any idea why the setup is like this? And how does the Svbony 'Microscope' store fit into all this?

Ah yes, the other classic showpiece DSO (Deep Street Object)

Agreed. Quite a few people had mentioned that they'd seen or bought the Zoom for about £75 from Svbony's official storefront, but I could only see it at about £110. I then searched again a few hours later and found it at £75 from Svbony's 'microscope storefront' 🤷 I've bought one or two other bits and bobs but overall I find it a bit hit and miss - long shipping times are understandable but a bit annoying, especially if the thing doesn't turn up which has happened more than once. That said there's some really interesting stuff, electronics etc, that you can't really see anywhere else.

Arguably, first light for many scopes will be "aerial on a house a couple of streets over" so I'm pretty sure that doesn't count 😂

Yikes! Yes, I've been following the generally positive reports of this EP for quite some time. I was fortunate enough to have sold a couple of bits here just in time to catch the black friday deal from Svbony's storefront on Aliexpress, so it was just shy of £75.

Finally! After inexplicably spending 8 days of its 15 day journey in a distribution centre somewhere in the origin country, my black friday purchase has arrived. Not that there have been any observing opportunities to miss 😂 Feels very solid and the zoom action not too stiff which is good news. Looking forward to trying it out.

Lovely session, taking note of some of these for the future. On the socks front, I strongly recommend Heat Holders - not too expensive but super warm. They do eject loads of black fluff in your washing basket though! 😂

The astro essentials appears to be the same as the synta prism that spear under SW and Celestron branding. They are not particularly high quality as @Louis D says, a pretty tiny clear aperture, and only have the one set screw so will mark your EPs, if that kind of thing bothers you. The StellaMira is definitely a lot more solid and of metal construction with a compression ring, but the mirrored version has a lip preventing full use of clear aperture as mentioned on other threads. Since the body of this is the same construction one might assume it has the same issue. I have the non-Amici version of the Baader and it is very good and solidly built, no issues with clear aperture (35mm on the Amici version) but naturally you pay significantly more for Baader, especially since the Amici version does not come with EP holder or nosepiece if needed.

Wonderful EP - you won't be disappointed, I think. I have a 9mm Meade HD-60 which this replaced. No complaints about the Meade, until I tried the Pentax!

Wishing you a speedy recovery @Mr Spock - LLAP 🖖

I too got a nice glimpse of the moon and Venus this morning, albeit from less beautiful surroundings!

There is precedent for this - I think Astrobiscuit on Youtube has a discord where they run something he calls the BAT - Big Amateur Telescope. An SGL based one would be great though. The mods might be able to set a club up for you in the clubs section even, which would give you a dedicated place to coordinate your efforts.

I will be very interested to see how it performs in my ZS73. I've really grown to like the APM Superzoom, especially for travelling, and it covers decent range of powers, but without a barlow I can only get 56x with the ZS73. I'm hoping the svbony zoom will make up the shortfall.

OMG @JeremyS you have to do this!

I probably misunderstood, but I thought the source of the Andromedids was the same comet? Or do you mean differentiator between meteors from the 1649 dust stream source, vs meteors from the normal annual source?

Thanks Nigel, funnily enough I had a long conversation with Barry a few weeks back on another topic, and yes he's still working albeit semi retired.

You mean like this?

A lot of those old EPs are Huygens or Ramsden, though it could be a Kellner or something even better! Maybe you could try it in one of your long FL scopes see how it performs? Also, what diameter is the threaded part? RAS thread is not dramatically far off 1.25", but in relation to the 0.965 adapter, that thread looks a fair bit wider.

Now I've confirmed that I have astigmatism and know my prescription I was able to get help - @HollyHound to the rescue!