Simon128D

The C11 is my main weapon of choice for lunar and planetary imaging but I do crave a low FL APO for some lunar work too. I had the pleasure of borrowing a TMB 115 APO for a few months and the results I got on the moon were nothing short of incredible.

I've become quite the fan of Hickson groups and have had great pleasure observing them. Keep trying for 44 as it's immensely rewarding when you get the right conditions. My view of it two weeks ago was exactly like the drawing you shared.

Oh sorry ha ha! I grabbed the wrong image. I'll fix that in a moment.

I just happened to be out testing my tracking platform on the 16" when I went to the moon and was astonished by the crisp view and then noticing the phase it dawned on me the X and V should be there and they just popped out. I had to get an image so setup the C11 for a quick imaging session and this is my result.

Absolutely, I will likely go into detail about it on my Taurus thread

I am looking forward to trying it out. What I can say is the build quality is lovely and also very light, I have two impact marks - not caused from rough delivery - but it is only cosmetic and to be expected from a company I suspect is working from a garage or home workshop.

I got something nice in the post today. 🙃 Base of the 16" fits perfectly. Motor installed.

Hi all, I have an old but excellent Orion (Optics UK) Europa 250 Newt - my very first scope - and could never part ways with it. I every once an a while throw it on the EQ6 Pro for a nice time out but what I really want to do with this is convert it into a basic Dob. I've been wanting a grab and go scope I can throw into the back of the when I go on my travels or decide on a random night out that I haven't planned and with this scope spending almost all of its time in the loft, converting it into a dob would see it get a lot more regular use. Could anyone recommend a dob base and as set of rings to match? I looked into Orion Optics own dob mount but the prices are insane and they aren't anything to be excited about either, I used one of their 12" Dobs with the base and rings for almost a year and while nice and practical it's not worth more than £60 in my honest opinion. I have absolutely no handy skills, so making my own is not an option. If there was something out there that doesn't cost too much.

@Dave scutt Yes it is, I spend a day at Achill and it's a stunning place. @Captain Scarlet Hopefully you'll get over. Don't be afraid to say hello if you see me. Usually easy to pick out having long hair and if that fails there is always my scope to look out for. 😆 @niallk That beach is lovely. I went down there every morning for a full walk of it to try and shake out the late night cobwebs and get an appetite for breakfast. I've often thought the beach car park would make an excellent observing spot too and if it's too much chaos getting the car into the lodge and setup there I may just fall back to there and do that. Being such a remote place I wouldn't expect any youth or yobbos in their cars being an annoyance. I did get permission to camp at the lodge - should all else fail - for €10 a night but thankfully I got booked into the B&B by the beach. @nfotis We get it every year. Usually around the start of spring. Normally only lasts a day or two, up to a week and we usually notices our cars covered in sand after a spell of rain but this year it has been hanging around for weeks. It's incredible how global that phenomenon is.

Appreciate that Dave, I will keep that in mind and my just do that. I did go to Mayo in September last year, I booked a house for three nights at Blacksod. The location was stunning but sadly the weather was not on my side. I want to try again.

The hostel were we do all the observing is fully booked I am sorry to tell you. I got booked into a B&B just down the road from there.

Thanks all for the kind replies. Nice to know what I wrote came across well. Yes, the scope is wonderful. The more I work with it the more I fall in love with the design and it becomes more clear how much thought and practical thinking went into the design. The wood is so nicely crafted and finished. Opening the storage bag to get that aroma of wood is a pleasure worth having. I only went for the standard optics, the professional mirror may have a better PV but I cannot imagine any human eye being able to perceive the difference between the 93% light transmission over the 95% of the professional. The views I have been getting and how super pin sharp stars are - when the mirror is fully cooled down - to the incredible details I am seeing in nebula and galaxies, there is nothing to be disappointed by. It is optically excellent. @Captain Scarlet The B&B owner was an elderly lady and it's the typical situation there. Person who has lived their whole life under some of the darkest skies in Europe and never bothered to look up. She didn't know a single constellation. I did try to show her a few things, M42 being the first but sadly due to her eye sight condition I don't think she was seeing things very well. I did teach her a few of the easy constellations, Ursa Major, Cassiopeia and Orion. @niallk I will be going back there for sure. There is also a few other Bortle 2 locations in Donegal I want to try. I am also planning to go down to Mayo or Galway for a weekend session in May - before the summer takes away our dark nights. I am also booked in for Skelligs star party, not sure if you'll be going to that but if so then you'll see me there and I will have this scope with me.

Thanks very much, that is a useful blast of info and gives me something to think about for a while.

Over the past weekend (of the 26th of March) I had the pleasure of planning a night of observing under Bortle 2 skies in Donegal - Ireland. I booked a B&B with the intent of taking a short drive to an observing site I had picked out but the B&B itself was so ideal and well situated that I asked permission to observe from there and the host was more than happy to have me. The conditions weren't the best to be honest. There was still a lot of the Sahara dust in the atmosphere but my hope was that a bad night here would be the equivalent to a good night at home. Aside from that the weather was amazing. A perfect spring day with not a cloud to be seen and being high up and beside Mount Errigal it was BIG sky all around. This was my observing spot for the night. This was my view directly to the south, with the landscape being "The Poisoned Glenn". Breath taking views with no light pollution of any kind. I was observing by 21:00 and right away the views were tremendous. I had a very long list made and I observed a lot but I will just mention some of the highlights below. The winner of the night went to M101, I've observed this galaxy hundreds of times and have had great views of it -most being poor and the rest not to be seen at all - in a 10 and 14" scope and thought I had the best view I would ever see a couple of years ago but this blew it all away. Using a 13mm Ethos the galaxy filled the FOV beautifully, what jumped into my retina the moment my eye reached the eyepiece was how bright the core was and a moment later the glory of the spiral arms just melted my vision and I was gasping from awe and excitement. After a few moments more of absorbing the view I realised I was seeing star clusters or nebulous regions and that's when the hair on my neck and arms raised. I switched over to the 31mm Nag and took in all I could. I had no idea what clusters or nebula I was seeing at the time so I looked and looked to let the moment and image burn into my memory. The next morning I looked at my maps and could confirm what I was seeing. NGC 5462 and 5547 were very bright and were the two clusters that caught my eye first. With prolonged averted vison 5453 and 5458 were revealed. I've never had an observation like it with a face on galaxy, it's the kind of observation you dream about and expect to never happen. Then, the icing on the cake! when that area of sky was approaching zenith I was just star gazing for a while and in a moment of disbelief, there it was M101, naked eye!! This diagram from my star maps is an excellent reference to what I was seeing visually, the diagram is better of course but the image at the eyepiece was very close to this. M57 was like looking at a greyscale photo. M82 I've looked at thousands of times but this was the best view I ever had too. The star burst region of the galaxy core was intense with a V shaped dark nebula structure going northward or from the core and disk. The disk self was super rich with detail, bubbling and knotted features, it was almost three dimensional to look at. I could go on and on about other observations I had but I've gushed enough. What a first light to have with this stunning instrument. The performance and quality of this scope has exceeded my expectations and I am excited to get to know it better and discover what new pleasures of the night sky await me.

Okay, so, how to structure this into something that makes sense 😆 Right, I have a 16" Dob, that has a DSC system built in and it works brilliantly with SkySafari but I am also now thinking about getting a tracking platform and I notice that SkySafari - in the scope setup options - has a mount type option for "Alt-Az. Push-To on Equ. Platform" but am not sure how this will work exactly. Is there anyone on here that has used this and can explain a few things? The big one being, how does the software and star alignment cope when you need to reset the platform for a fresh hour of tracking? Is there some kind of new on screen icon to press when the tracking reset has been done or is it like I imagined, turn the DSC off and redo alignment all over again? How can you tune SkySafari to adjust tracking speed to match the platform? I have looked to see if new options open up when selecting this method as your mount type but do not see anything. I don't want to risk dropping £350 odd on a platform that could just be a pain in the Bottom to use and then end up not using it. Of course I could use it without the DSC on and just enjoy finding objects for myself - which I get a lot pleasure doing - but it would would be nice to have the best of both worlds. I really desire tracking for when I am looking at Arp, Hickson group galaxies or PN when at really high power, 400x or above. Thanks in advance, Simon

Hi folks, I was wondering, does anyone know of any good products or solutions for placing a dob mount onto and then adjust to give you a level surface? Most of the observing sites I use all have a slight slant and what I've been doing for ages is bring some squares of wood that I place under each foot of the base and then move around until I find fairly level ground. The GOTO on my 350P Flextube does work great when properly level and the DSC system on my Taurus 16" appears to loose accuracy fast if not level. I was hoping there were some kind of plates or shoes you could place under each foot of a base and then twist to adjust height but have had no luck in finding anything. I am also going to be investing in an tracking platform for the 16", later in the year, and it will be even more so important to have that level.

I was able to get all the work done and get the mirror back into its cell and cell box. I will do a setup this evening to get the mirror collimated. For now I would like to share some before and after photos. Before Wash Dry After It could be partly clear for me tonight, all be it a bit windy and the pain in the behind, that is the moon, but it should be good enough to verify collimation and do a star test, or two, or three, a few doubles just to be sure oh and a hand full of planetary nebula since I am out and at it. What's that, it's 2am already...

I did get a sneaky first light with it before I sent the mirror back and the views blew me away and it was an average night for seeing and transparency. I was not expecting much of a difference over my 14" dob but it was vast, I was not expecting it at all. The design is outstanding and makes for an excellent portable scope setup. It is 15KG lighter than my 14".

Thanks for the replies folks. After a night of sleep to get over it and also a few emails back and forth with Taurus it has come to light that the plastic protective lid that is placed on top of the mirror will crumble and flake if squeezed and or crushed and the evidence is clear in my own video that the box went through some rough times to get to me. I have been sent photos of the mirror after it was cleaned by Taurus and it looked fantastic so I've decided to wash the mirror today and if it is just the plastic dust it should rinse off. Any particles that are statically charged may be a little stubborn but my cold water tap has ridiculous pressure and I also have RO water for the final rinses.

The mirror arrived back today and I am upset to the point where I don't want to talk or say anything The mirror looks clean and nice, under all the filth! It's obvious this dirt got onto the mirror while packaging it up shipping, as the mirror had a protective cover placed over and wrapped up in a large and thick see through bag, so no matter how badly the box may have been knocked about debris should not have gotten onto the mirror. The other thing I noticed a while later is the central ring was not replaced. You can see through the ring out the bottom of the glass, that is not professional to my senses at all. I made this video to keep myself safe should there be further problems and so glad I did now as I have to AGAIN contact Taurus about it. I am happy to share it will you but it's not that entertaining to watch. I have already emailed Taurus about it, with photos. At this point I just want them to take it all back and get a refund. Why is it so hard to buy new products and not get flaws and defects. I've owned several Skywatchers and have the 14" 350P for over 10 years now and when I got delivery of that scope the mirror was perfectly clean and brilliantly wrapped to prevent any chance of contamination. Yes I could, very easily, wash the mirror and that be that but I spent just over £4000 on a brand NEW scope and I expect to have mirrors that are good quality but also CLEAN!

To add an update to this. I sent the mirror back to Taurus about three weeks ago and is already on its way back to me with tacking stating it will be delivered this coming Wednesday. Really hoping it comes back pristine clean with no contamination from the return packaging.

Thanks for the tips. very useful.

Now there is an idea and I was really considering the T500. I think I will forward your suggestion on to them 🤣

Yeah the expected turn around is two weeks. I think a recoat would be most sensible anyway. So, with shipping times I hope no more than an month. I really want to have this for spring galaxy season.

I set the scope up last night to do a dry test of the DSC system and also to find an assembly and disassemblely routine. I am so impressed with the build quality. The action of movement in RA is incredible, smoothness like no other. The scope feels like it was balanced for the heaviest of eyepieces. Even with a 31mm Nag in the focuser balance is excellent, yet the base allows for three different setups so the primary mirror acts as a counter weight and yet you can buy a full counter weight system for these scopes. Maybe its needed in the smaller apertures but certainly not here. I took some photos when I got all set up, it was an impressively imposing beast, making my living room seem very cramped lol. Thrilled to say the DSC appeared to be working perfectly, I couldn't get it to connect to Bluetooth but I think that is more to do with my S21 Ultra security not liking it. It worked fine over the WiFi connection. I was hoping Stellarium Plus would have worked but sadly it seems that app only supports NextStar and LX200 scopes, so I went and bought Sky Safari Plus and that worked just fine. Not a fan of the latter app as I think Stellarium has a much cleaner and professional look with a nicer UI to work with but that's just a personal preference. Some good news regards the mirror. I am having a box sent over so I can return the mirror, either for repair or replacement. From my own personal experience with cleaning several mirrors, it looks like permanent damage to me. Here's a few more photos of the setup. Still hoping I can get a cheeky first light before the mirror gets sent back. Looking possible for a good clear spell tonight but with strong winds and as damp as a shower rooms sponge, so not sure on that.