MalcolmM

1 hour ago, Moon-Monkey said:

Thanks Malcolm some good points lol here buddy I appreciate that it never occurred to me about the wedge being of a longer light path than my normal 2” diagonal hmmm I may have to reassess the situation I was looking forward to trying this out in the future but I guess it may not work with the little ST 

clear skies my friend 

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 

9 hours ago, Marki said:

Well, this is actually a difficult question! So many different scopes have given me so much joy or wonderful memories, from my first view of Saturn in a Celestron 8SE, or showing Jupiter to relatives through a Skywatcher Equinox 80 (lovely little 'frac that - regret selling it!).

However, for sheer quality of optics (and views), then I have to say my APM LZOS 130 ED.

But I love the looks of my Skylight 100mm F13 even more - something about that long black tube with brass fittings that just triggers my inner Victorian gentleman astronomer/steampunk vibe :).

And, perhaps oddly, of all the scopes I've owned the one I love most is my TAL 125r, simply because of the effort it took to acquire and then to get it fettled.

No one said I had to be rational in my choice ;).

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 

19 hours ago, Stu said:

With sincere apologies for the unashamed, attention seeking ‘Look at me’ post!

Can you tell that;

a) It’s cloudy

b) Mrs Stu is away

c) I’m bored 🤪

Thought this might give an easy way of comparing the three scopes. The AZ75 handles them with ease and the balance is good. Look forward to giving it a go!

Left to right in the first image:

FC100DC ; FC-76DCU ; FS-60Q

Fabulous!

2 hours ago, JeremyS said:

Agree. I generally use lighter, 1.25 inch EP with my 3 and 4-inch Taks. Especially for travel. This is where the TV Naglers come in - and the Tak LEs for even lighter use. This is not that the foster can’t take it, by any means - just my usage preference

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 

1 hour ago, Jim L said:

Malcolm, I hope you don’t mind me borrowing your and Robinson’s quotes from time to time. There are certainly many equipment related discussions where it would be handy to reflect on the perils of confirmation bias, and particularly so when making recommendations to beginners like myself.

I'd be flattered ☺️ Can't speak for Robinson but I suspect he'd be tickled pink to think that he was being quoted 200 years later 😀

Interestingly, he did choose some lemons for the observatory but by all accounts he was a very accomplished visual observer!

Malcolm 

What an amazing collection! They look fabulous!

And that comes begrudgingly from a Tak lover 🙂

Malcolm 

I'm one who loves them. Pros are (for me): stunning views (almost 3Dish), very relaxed viewing. The cons are that they can be a bit of a faff to use; they are quite heavy leading to potential balancing issues, sometimes merging the images from each eye can be difficult, getting them to come to focus can be tricky due to their extra lightpath and changing magnification necessitates 2 eyepiece changes (though not the way @Stu does it)

I use ortho eyepieces mostly in a bid to minimise the extra weight.

I use them for low, medium and high power viewing. I don't use them all the time (I still enjoy mono as it's less fuss and arguably a slightly sharper view), but when I do use them, I go wow!

Malcolm 

I always use manual.  For me, as others have mentioned,  part of the fun is the hunt. And there is huge satisfaction in eventually finding the target. And when I say eventually,  I mean it; sometimes I can spend half an hour on the chase!

Malcolm 

6 hours ago, Stu said:

Very nice @MalcolmM. Not easy to capture Ha prominences with a phone so you’ve done well 👍

Yes, very pleased with it, and helped also with lots of advice and tips from you @Stu

Malcolm