badhex

I had this a few weeks ago whilst in Italy. Did the same checks for dew etc but had put it down to a light haze at the time. I did later wonder if smoke and ash in the atmosphere from some of the Canadian wildfires could be to blame, as I know that has reached Europe too.

Just a quick update and a nudge on this, I did go to the park today and had a quick recce. The horizons are pretty clear and local LP shouldn't be too much of a problem - seems like it would be a great place to observe from that perspective. I also looked at the gate (at least the one on Beckenham Place Park road) and it seems like it's not shut very often if at all, as there is leaf litter etc around the bottom of the gate so I don't think access to the park in the evenings would be an issue. Would be really interested to know if anyone in the local area is interested in meeting up to observe!

By the looks of things, almost certainly the same (or very nearly) as the TS version. I have the TS 102ED which is the same as the Starfield, and also the Altair Starwave 102ED-R. @FLO any chance there might be a Starfield 150 at some point?

Just a thought, but since you're planning to potentially recoup money from your existing kit, perhaps it would make sense to go with a small but high quality refractor? I haven't used the mercury so I can't comment specifically on that scope, however it looks of the same sort of build quality as a lot of the low end Synta scopes. That's not to say it will be bad, I have a 70mm Celestron Travelscope which is very similar in build quality - quite good for the money. That said, the mercury definitely will not be as good as some of the other small refractors mentioned above, such as the Altair. You also won't have those nice extra quality of life touches like compression ring, standard finder show fitting, solid 2" dual speed focuser etc. Whilst they certainly aren't required to have a good experience, in the longer term you might find them annoying enough to put you off using the scope, and end up back where you started. If I were you, I would genuinely consider getting a small, good quality ED doublet like the altair or similar. It's not a lot more, but the quality is an order of magnitude better, in my opinion.

There's a 70mm Altair ED F6 refractor just popped up in the classifieds. I can't speak for the quality of optics in that specific scope but as previously mentioned my William Optics ZS73 is the same class of scope and I love it. Great WF views (and surprisingly good planetary), and it only requires a small lightweight mount. I personally use a Scopetech Mount Zero primarily for travel, but I'd imagine one of the smaller Skywatcher alt-az options would work very well too.

Cheers, yes the thought had occurred, but the focus travel on the ZS73 is massive and it was all the way out, so wouldn't be ideal even when focused at infinity. Might be worth a go though nonetheless, like you say.

Cheers. Yes, I had presumed that's what was happening. Unfortunately I think it makes the scope a bit too unwieldy, and in the end this scope is primarily what I use for grab and go or travel, so it sort of defeats the object a little when I could just use a 2.5x PM or Barlow with an ortho and effectively end up with the same approx result with much less weight. Anyway, always good to have a little play around with these things!

Hello all, Has anyone managed the Veil yet? Is the FOV wide enough for such and object?

Ah damn. Just tried it on some houses across road and I ran out of focuser travel before it got to focus. Oh well, that's the end of that very short saga! What started me on this was wondering whether a focal extender is available for the ZS73, since it performs surprisingly well on planets when you bump the magnification up. Sadly it seems not, however such an accessory would turn this scope from a widefield wonder to a solar system slayer. I guess shall just have to stick to the tried and tested BCO + barlow/PM method for now!

Haha the only reason I haven't tried it is a literally just thought of it 😂 The one potential issue that I thought of is that the slightly smaller clear aperture of the field lens on the PM might intersect the light cone since it is closer to the objective, and cause some vignetting, but I'm not sure that's true. I read something ages ago on the nead for large clear aperture on barlows etc. being a bit of a myth.

My partner is very supportive of the hobby but there is now a running joke about searching for yet another grey smudge 😂

Yes, exactly. As you say, I think the guide was always intended as a starting point and on a budget for those struggling with focal length requirements.

Hello all, I was recently using my ZS73 with a 2" Powermate but the resulting configuration, especially with a large EP, is a bit cumbersome. It occurred to me that actually, I might be able to use the PM before the diagonal which would lead to a more stable configuration, mass distribution wise, giving me a sort of focal extender configuration and making the scope F11.8. Obviously this is no different to using the PM as intended. I'm of the understanding that the PM should not change magnification (well, not enough to worry about) depending on the distance to the field lens of the EP, so should function exactly the same as long as I can reach focus etc. Am I missing something here or is it really this simple?

Agreed, I also find planetary views best at ~200x. Perhaps "Planetary eyepiece" is an additional selection to be added at maybe 0.5x FR of the scope, but I suspect a bit more judgement is needed as to whether that will work for all scopes.

I did an outreach thing last year and almost everyone who came to view through my ZS73 compared it favourably to the C14 and other massive scopes nearby, saying that the image in the other was bigger but not very sharp 😂 A couple of folks even said that it was the best scope they'd looked through all night!

Hello all I'm located in Beckenham and I recently discovered (although, not confirmed in person) that Beckenham Place Park is open all night, and since it is so huge I think it would be a great place to do observing from, weather and LP notwithstanding. That said, I not sure how comfortable I would feel wandering the park on my own with a load of astro gear late at night. Couple that with the lack of very local astro clubs (Orpington AS is the nearest and over an hour away on public transport), and I began to wonder if there might be scope (aha) to set up an informal but regular meetup for SGL folks (and others of course) in the local area. Is there anyone nearby who would be interested in such a thing?

I still use this basic formula as a guideline for any new scope or EP purchase - after all, although the glass might get a bit better, physics doesn't change and the basic optical designs also remain the same. @The Warthog's original post is still relevant 14 years later! I would recommend anyone who has asked questions about which focal lengths etc. to purchase to read the very first post, if they haven't already 🙂

That is quite some grab and go!

Hello all Was out on Friday at the Amateur Telescope Makers of London club, first time back in 8 years! When I got back home I realised it was actually clear, so I got the Mak out to cool (again, first outing for this scope in 8 years!) as Saturn was visible from the balcony. Unfortunately I didn't have long before Saturn disappeared behind a tree but got a few minutes. I really must find a good spot somewhere on the grounds for a better viewing spot. Seeing was a bit wobbly and I found it hard to get a snappy focus - could also have been a couple of rogue tree branches but cooling shouldn't have been an issue as it was out for around an hour before I started observing. With cygnus riding high, I moved over to Deneb just to do a star test and check both seeing, and collimation of the scope. I think all is in order and circles seemed concentric but need to compare against some Mak specific diagrams as I felt the pattern looked different to a frac. I also had a quick look at M39 as well, although I'll admit it didn't feel super impressive. Since it's been a long time since using a Mak, there were a few things I'd forgotten such as the tiny tiny TFOV; a finder will definitely be necessary and I also want to upgrade the visual back to standard SCT thread and fit a compression ring or clicklock.

Another vote here for a small, good quality ED doublet. In my case it's a William Optics ZS73 and requires very little effort to get set up and running, and since the build quality and glass is very good it punches above its weight.

I also have a short FL Bresser AR-152S which has been waiting for a proper test for over 9 years since I refurbished it 😂 It most likely needs collimating but have not had clear enough skies recently to test. I expect a fair amount of chromatic aberration but I'm hoping once the collimation and so on are sorted it will make a great RFT.

I lamented this recently on another thread, but my worst purchase is probably an EQ6-R Pro. It's literally never been used in earnest, just to test everything works. It's just too big and heavy for my use case which requires taking things up and down stairs, and I've also discovered that these days I prefer the simplicity of manual alt-az mounts. Since I could not (and still can't) imagine a scenario where I would have any scopes it couldn't handle I'd always intended that it would be my forever mount, but in fact it has turned out to be my never mount.

Cheers! I'm hoping to try again with a bit more aperture, but might start small and see where I get to. I have a 4" doublet, 4" Mak and failing that, a 6" achro waiting in the wings but since I'm now back at home in Bortle 7, LP might be the issue!

Thanks! This looks useful, I'll check it out tmw!

As previously mentioned, True North is referenced on Page 7 of the manual I attached as the Home position. It is not mentioned on the alignment pages, however we can infer that they mean true north since it's the home position of the scope from which the north level alignment starts. Ultimately if your tripod is level, and even if you are only using a rough eyeball to find north - after the first 2-3 alignments the mount should have been corrected for any initial errors and be finding your targets almost if not totally bang on the mark. It should not consistently be pointing 10° out in any direction once aligned, as that is the whole point of the corrections you make during the alignment routine. In fact, since you have to always confirm the target is in the centre even when doing a normal slew, it is constantly correcting the pointing model throughout your session also. When using the mount regularly, I frequently just made sure the tripod itself was definitely level as that's the base on which the mount sits and rotates, eyeballed north (I had a reference building which was pretty much north), eyeballed the scope to level, and then ran the routine with a very low power EP in place for the final corrections. I genuinely rarely had any issues at all.