MalcolmM

Great sketches and great observational skills! From my point of view, it's great to have something to aspire to! Malcolm

I can definitely see the bright ridge on the pic, I'll look out for it next time. Great detail too for handheld eyepiece shots! Malcolm

Thanks for all the tips, advice and comments. I'll definitely try daylight viewing for Venus and a variable polarising filter sounds like a useful buy! I wish I could say that was definitely a bright ridge rather than an accident of shading but I suspect it is the latter! I can say the bow on the Rill is genuine though 🙂 Malcolm

Sometimes I feel like sketching and sometimes I just want to enjoy the view. Here's my latest attempts! I struggle to decide what amount of detail to try and capture. And there is always extra texture you suddenly see, or an extra tiny craterlet or piece of subtle (or not so subtle) shading. The eyepiece view is so much more detailed. Anyhow, as @mikeDnight has explained, sketching really does help to concentrate the mind on what you are seeing and helps you see more. I enjoy correlating my sketches with a Lunar Atlas the next day. My sketch of Venus needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. It's so bright (even with a Neodymium filter) and sparkles and dances so much, I'm not sure whether I was seeing genuine dark areas or just aberrations. Markarian's Chain (my first time) was really just to draw roughly what I saw in order to correlate it with a star atlas. It was what I could see through a 180 Mewlon and it allowed me to compare the views with a 100DC the next night. The DC did not see as much, unfortunately I did not record which ones were visible! Thanks for looking, Malcolm

Yes, I do appreciate being able to see these, though I suspect with the local development that's going on, in a couple of years I may not be able to! A couple of years ago I was just able to see the milky way. I've not managed to see it this year! Malcolm

I was using a 1.25" diagonal. Your 2" will have a longer lightpath than that. Don't give up hope yet! @Stu is a bit of an expert on binoviewing and I think he uses a wedge. You also have the option of Baader solar film for example? Malcolm

I've used Williams Optics binoviewers on a SW Star Travel 102. I used a Baader prism diagonal with the WO 1.6 GPC attached to the telescope end of the diagonal. I have been told this is not the best place for the GPC (it should be attached to the binoviewer), but it allowed me to reach focus easily and gave me great immersive views of the moon and very relaxed viewing of star clusters. Note, this was not using a wedge. A wedge will have a longer light path than the prism diagonal and therefore require more inward focus which might be an issue. Malcolm

Great sketches, I especially like M51, and fabulous descriptions! Almost makes a refractor man want to go out and buy a big dob Malcolm

It's reassuring to me that someone as experienced as yourself @mikeDnight needs a little trial and error to get Binoviewers to focus with a Tak! I must have gone through half the Baader accessories to get my WO Binoviewers to come to focus! Then I went through the other half when I got the Maxbrights! Some people only seem to use them for lunar and planetary but with 28mm Erfles and no GPC (yet more playing around to reduce the light path), I find them very relaxing and immersive for low power wide(ish) field viewing. Malcolm

I popped into Jodrel Bank just a week ago on the way to the Yorkshire Dales. Closed for the day to casual visitors! Very disappointed. What a sight though when the large dish appears behind the hedges! Had also tried the U-boat in Birkenhead; also closed! Ended up in the Avro Heritage Museum which was very interesting. My grandfather flew an Avro during his training before flying under Squadron Commander Dunning off HMS Furious. That pub looks fabulous, I'll remember it for next time thanks. Malcolm

I'm getting very stable views through my Lunt 50 at the moment. Lots of different prom types. Worth a quick look if you have the time. Malcolm

I can't help with the comparison but would say I have been very pleased with my Lunt 50. Proms particularly are shown very well and there's also lots of surface features and detail. The scope feels chunky and very well made, the pressure tuner particularly has a very solid feel to it. The focuser is not the best but I find it adequate! It actually gives very fine focus control. I had a problem with my focuser after 6 months or so of use; the whole draw tube started to rotate slightly but @FLO very kindly replaced it for me with no quibble. A 'must have' accessory is the Tele Vue Sol Searcher. It makes finding the sun a doddle! Malcolm

Totally agree @josefk. Also very easy to pan around with the handle (take note @JeremyS🙂) and the quick release is nice too. Malcolm

That Skylight F13 is something else! Wonderful! Malcolm

This is really difficult for me as I love them all, but if you twisted my arm till it really hurt I would choose this one (but don't tell the others 🙂). It accompanies me on weekends away. It accompanies me abroad. It fits in a very small rucksack, mount, tripod and all. I can get a 5° FOV with a 28mm Erfle (over 7° if I use a 2" eyepiece). I can get a razer sharp x140 with a 2.5mm TOE (I feel it could go further but I've no shorter FL eyepiece or Barlow). And to boot, it's lovely to look at sitting in the corner of the lounge ready for instant use. Even my partner calls it a cutie 😀 Malcolm

That's really interesting. If you get a chance it would be very interesting to compare say open clusters/DSO's and wide angle views (the ST's forte). I replaced a SW102 Star Travel with a 100DC. Very obvious difference on moon and planets at medium to high power. I also felt there was a big improvement with open clusters but this was not compared side by side so could have been combination of experience and sky conditions as much as anything else. Malcolm

A Tak on an AP! That's a gorgeous looking setup. Welcome!

Excellent and fair comparison @Mr Spock, if only you had done it two years ago you might have saved me a small fortune 😀 That being said, now that I have an extended family of Taks, I wouldn't swap them for anything! For me, they have a soul, a little je ne sais quoi and I enjoy looking at them almost as much as through them! They feel to me like there is a 'Whole Lotta Love' goes into each and every one of them during their manufacture. Mind you, maybe that says more about me than about Takahashi scopes 😀 Malcolm

I spent half an hour gazing at just two features on the moon. I had the Mewlon out with Maxbright binoviewers, 1.25 GPC and Tak Abbe 25mm eyepieces. Petavius and it's Rima stood out. Petavius C was very clear and Petavius A was always visible and very clear in moments of steady seeing. I could also see the rima heading northish from the central mountains.The terracing on the crater rim was complex and there was an almost 3D view in the binoviewers. Also very evident was a dark scar just to the right of Mare Crisium (refractor view). It had a distinct break in it towards it's North end. This was a very striking feature. I thought this was the Cauchy Fault but it took me a while to figure it out. I'd seen this feature before but it had always been very indistinct and I was under the mistaken belief that it was a very hard object to see. Just goes to show how important the angle of the sun is when observing certain features! The Cauchy Rill was also visible, but much more indistinct. I've attached a very rough sketch I used to confirm my observation against an atlas after I'd finished. Definitely not one for the sketching competition 🙂 I then replaced the binoviewers with a 2" diagonal and a Masuyama 32mm eyepiece. I love this eyepiece. I find it easy and relaxing to use and very clear sharp images. I have not been particularly aware of the poor off axis performance that people complain about. I wanted to try the Mewlon on the Leo Triplet. I'd 'sensed' a couple of them before in a 4" and was interested to see what the extra aperture of the Mewlon could do. It was not the darkest of nights but M65 and M66 were instantly visible. No structure as such but there was a hint of a brighter core. Unfortunately there was no sign of NGC 3628. I was looking in the right place, tried averted vision, but nothing! I'll try again when the moon has gone! Malcolm

I have tried to capture Rima Petavius before and never managed it so I was very surprised and pleased with this. Tak FC100DC with a Tak 9mm Abbe and hand held phone with x2 zoom. I've included a pic of the scope as I think it looks great on the Vixen AP 🙂 Malcolm

Great when travelling, four for one, but when at home I much prefer my Tak TOEs. I find I can simply see more detail with the TOEs. I also find the TOEs much more relaxing to look through. Same with the XW 5 and a Vixen SLV 4. So in my experience, the single eyepieces give a better and more relaxing view. That being said, I'll never sell the Nagler Zoom. It's a great eyepiece and perfect for travelling light! Malcolm

I sometimes pair an FS60 with a Mewlon on an Ercole mount. I actually use the FS60 as a finder! I like to find targets manually, I don't use goto! It's also nice to see the object in a widefield context, assuming the FS60 has enough aperture to see it! Malcolm

Fabulous!

Another vote for light eyepieces. Especially in the DC or 76 which are such light scopes, it feels counter intuitive to me to be putting heavy eyepieces on them. That being said I do put a binoviewer on the DC sometimes! But with light eyepieces in the binoviewer 🙂 I usually take @JeremyS's word as gospel 🙂 but I would consider Naglers as heavy. Gimme a good Tak Abbe! Malcolm

Wonderful read! You've really captured the magic 🙂 Malcolm