MalcolmM

2 hours ago, John said:

Interesting sketches Malcolm 🙂

I may have seen some vague markings with my ED120, also with the TOE 4mm and later the Pentax XW 5mm (seeing was not so good here) but nothing that I could capture using a pencil and paper !

 

I wonder is the big aperture of the 120 collecting too much light? Is it possible to have too much light?

Malcolm 

32 minutes ago, Kon said:

Excellent observation Malcolm. Your drawing looks great and I think you have captured real features. I have stopped imaging Venus in UV as of last week since it is hard to pull fine details, but after you tagged me on this post I was really intrigued because you guys amaze me that you can get such details visually. As John said excellent scopes and experience. So, I got my Dob out and this is what I got....not far off your sketch! I imaged it at 2220pm so a few hours so you can take rotation of clouds into account. But i do see similar features to your drawing. The quality is awful (Venus is too low for good imaging and I usually do it at daytime) but you get the general picture. My hat off to you sir!  

 

That's brilliant thanks @Kon.

I'm genuinely never really sure with Venus, but your image here, and another one from a couple of weeks ago, seem to show enough correlation with what I thought I saw that I think I saw something 🙂 That and some nice corroboration too from @IB20, many thanks!

Thanks again for putting in the time and effort and taking that image - really appreciate it.

Malcolm 

I hope it's not bad etiquette @mikeDnight to post my own observation here!

I got it tonight at 7.30 with the help of binoculars and a wide angle eyepiece. I think I saw cloud detail - I'd love to compare my sketches with another of @Kon's excellent images!

It may have been an optical illusion but I thought I saw a couple of dark bands in the clouds using the 4mm TOE. Definite shape to what I was seeing (or thought I was seeing ) with the 4 and the 2.5. I have exaggerated the shading slightly. 

Broken wrist is limiting me to a small scope but my new Extender-Q (thanks for the encouragement @JeremyS and @mikeDnight) is giving the FS60CB a bit of extra punch without having to put the Ext CQ in.

Malcolm 

'Daylight' for me was 20.00 a couple of weeks ago and Venus took quite a bit of tracking down, so to catch it at 18.20 I reckon is pretty impressive. @mikeDnight, I really enjoy your posts. For me, they are the 'gold' standard of what is possible in an amateur scope. They help validate my own observations. For example, the bright edge round the limb in your sketch; I have seen that on a number of occasions. 

My only issue is you've upped your aperture beyond any of my refractors 🙂so your gold standard is now beyond my reach

Thanks for posting, 

Malcolm 

3 hours ago, PatientObserver said:

So far I have resisted further advances of the disease known as Takitis ... I instead decided to place an order on an Agema SD 120. It was a little less expensive than a Takahashi TSA-120, and I get to spilt the cost into two payments. All the reviews I have read indicate it is a quality scope. I will have to wait for it to be built, but that will allow me to exclusively use my FOA-60Q for awhile. Although I am currently in remission from Takitis, I am aware that it may return in the form of a Mewlon in the future.

I have never heard of these before. Looked them up and they look fabulous scopes. It'll go very nicely with the FOA. You will have lots of great viewing with that combination. Congratulations!

Malcolm 

4 hours ago, DirkSteele said:

And who was the tempter?

That @JeremyS has a lot to answer for! And I'm not letting you @DirkSteele and your website off. @HollyHound and @Stu are also culpable! I used to be very happy with, and very much enjoy my Skywatcher ST102. Then all of the above ganged up, twisted my arm, polluted my head and now I have a whole family of Taks and their respective bits and pieces! God bless you all

Malcolm 

4 hours ago, RobertI said:

Fascinating to see their relative sizes, and the standout is the compactness of the FC100. 

When I got a 100DC I thought it was huge! The standout for me is the 128. It must be enormous! I'd love to see one in the flesh!

Malcolm 

4 hours ago, F15Rules said:

It would be fascinating to see a head to head comparison of the Linear Design with the new Maxbrights

I compared the Linear with the Williams Optics binoviewers somewhere on this forum! I found the view through the WO better. I also find the view through the Maxbrights better than the WO. 

So in my experience, the Maxbrights are much better visually than the Linear. I really only use the Linear in my Lunt because I cannot get the WO or the Maxbrights to come to focus in the Lunt 50.

But you make me think I should do a comparison between all three, particularly now I have got a bit more experience using the Linears!

Malcolm 

This mirrors my experience exactly! Tricky to achieve best focus and the image is softer than with mono viewing. I found the same effects with lunar viewing and they do not tighten well in the Tak prism diagonal. Like you, definitely not the game changer the Maxbrights were for me.

That being said, I persevered with them and it does become easier to get a decent image through them with practice. And it's much more relaxing to use binoviewers than mono. 

Malcolm 

In a bid to minimise the glare of Venus, I thought I'd give it a go at 20.00 tonight. Not a mission of seeing it naked eye, it's basically daylight. So I scanned with the binoculars to get an approximate location. Moved to the FS60CB + 28mm Erfle (~4.7° FOV) and centeted it. Then to the finder on the FOA-60Q, centered it again and finally some lovely views with a 6mm Abbe (0.3° FOV)

Malcolm 

Just compared my observations with @Kon's excellent image from last night. His image shows banding, brightening at the poles, darkening at the terminator, possible explanation for my 'dark nick' but no horns unfortunately. Though possibly why I might have thought I saw horns; a sort of optical illusion? But all in all, I'm very pleased with the observation. 

Malcolm 

I thought I'd add to this post as I have just spent a lovely hour or so on Venus with a range of eyepieces. My difficulty with Venus, and it's down to my lack of experience on this planet, is I find it hard to decide whether I am seeing real cloud detail or just optical/atmospheric artifacts. It is surprising how hard it is to spot Venus for the first time. Then you see it and it's obvious. How could you not notice it! Then you look away and ... where's it gone! Anyway, I'll just reproduce my unadulterated notes!

2/6/23 21:30

FOA60-Q + WO Binoviewers + 12.5 Tak Abbes + WO diagonal (thanks @HollyHound  ) + 1.6 Barlow nosepiece in the scope side of the diagonal. See photo!

Tak diagonal + 6mm Tak Abbe

Similar view to the above but no Atmospheric (?) CA. Not sure if I can still see the banding. Darkening along the terminator. Bright ring all the way round the limb. Lovely sharp image.

4mm Abbe

A little softer on the limb, but still a nice sharp image. Darkening along the terminator is obvious. It is darker on the southern half. The limb is brighter in the northern half. Blooming eyelashes getting in the way! Some floaters, but not enough to kill the view. I am seeing a little dark kink eating into the southern end of the terminator. Still seeing what looks like cloud detail, though it comes and goes a bit. Very hard to know what is real detail and what are optical artifacts. 

4mm TOE

Very similar view to the 4mm Abbe. Maybe a little less sharp? Maybe not focused as well? But much easier to look through (no eyelash problems!)

3.3 TOE

Still a good image. Now this surprised me! This is x270! Possibly a bit more detail on the (possible) clouds. Possibly a hint of horns/cusps at the N and S ends of the terminator. The terminator looks a little soft and a little 'lumpy'

2.5 TOE

The limb is definitely a little soft now, but this is to be expected at the insane magnification of x360 in a 60mm scope. Many on this forum have quoted Scotty, "ye cannae change the laws of physics". But our very own @JeremyS, or maybe it was @HollyHound said "the laws of physics don't apply to Taks"  I know who I believe and it's not the guy who thinks he can travel at warp speed! I am seeing definite horns on the N and S ends of the terminator now and still seeing the dark nick on the S end of the terminator. 

At 22.20 Venus is now a bit to bright and I'm getting glare.

I put the 6mm Abbe back in, just to compare with the TOEs. I can still see the horns. Maybe once you've seen them they become obvious. The image is sharpened up quite a bit from the 2.5TOE but the disk is too bright to see any real (or imagined) cloud detail. 

The scope was on a Vixen AP sitting on an extension pillar on a Berlebach Uni 8. Even at the silly magnification of x360 this combination is very solid and vibrations settle down in less than a second. 

Thanks for reading, 

Malcolm 

Very pleased you got them working @ukskies. They really are a black art when you start trying to use them. I spent quite a bit of time, effort and money on first, the WO ones, and then the Maxbrights, but when it all comes together you really do get a 'wow moment'

Malcolm 

7 hours ago, Stu said:

Thank you Malcolm. It was with this bad boy, FS-128 with 5mm XW. Some of my best views too.

My partner caught me salivating with envy at that scope and asked me what I was smiling at. I showed her the picture, she replied "wow that's a big boy, but I really like the garden". I'm afraid I only had eyes for the scope 🙂

Malcolm 

Those are stunning pics @Stu. By far the best lunar smartphone pics I have ever seen. What scope were you using?

Ta,

Malcolm 

5 hours ago, HollyHound said:

Superb report Malcolm 😁

Sounds like you're enjoying the Masuyama too.  They're excellent eyepieces and I enjoyed my time with them, only sold them on because I wasn't really seeing anything more than my XWs were giving me, and with the new 85 degree 16.5 and 26mm, my two Masuyama were (unfortunately) superfluous 🤔 They are super light, extremely contrasty and the edge of field performance isn't an issue in an f/15 scope anyway 👍

You're pushing of the FOA-60Q reminds me very much of my first experience with mine....

I really must get back out and use it soon, with Venus so nicely placed... too much work, but I'll make a few hours spare very soon 😬

Enjoy and look forward to more reports like this 🤞

Lol, just re-read that post and obviously must have read it before as I've commented on it! Regardless, I enjoyed reading it again

Malcolm 

3 hours ago, HollyHound said:

Superb report Malcolm 😁

Sounds like you're enjoying the Masuyama too.  They're excellent eyepieces and I enjoyed my time with them, only sold them on because I wasn't really seeing anything more than my XWs were giving me, and with the new 85 degree 16.5 and 26mm, my two Masuyama were (unfortunately) superfluous 🤔 They are super light, extremely contrasty and the edge of field performance isn't an issue in an f/15 scope anyway 👍

You're pushing of the FOA-60Q reminds me very much of my first experience with mine....

I really must get back out and use it soon, with Venus so nicely placed... too much work, but I'll make a few hours spare very soon 😬

Enjoy and look forward to more reports like this 🤞

I can't believe it! I'm not sure I've actually read that post. That's my bedtime reading tonight sorted. Looking forward to it 🙂

Malcolm 

6 hours ago, Roy Challen said:

You've seen it many times before, but here is my Skylight this morning. Seeing was terrible so I went for a walk. Now I see that @Peter Drew has spotted a huge outburst when I am at least an hour from home 😄

Awesome is a very overused word these days, but that scope ... Awesome! Beautiful! It must be at least f100 🙂

Malcolm 

Great report and Stephenson 1 (which I had never heard of) sounds well worth a look. 

Malcolm 

Trying to resist having only recently got a bunch of Masuyama 85 degree eyepieces 🙂. Which I think are brilliant. Very light, very sharp, very easy to look through and the poor edge of field has not bothered me yet (haven't even noticed it yet!)

I thought telescopes were addictive, there's something lovely about a nice eyepiece 🙂

Malcolm 

I had what I thought was a great idea. I've recently got a Tak Abbe 4mm eyepiece and now have all but the 32mm and so I thought I would record observations of Venus and the Moon, starting with the 25mm and working down to 4mm and then comparing the 4mm with the TOE 4mm. I was going to start with Venus in the brighter sky and then go on to the moon. I was really interested to see when/if the image broke down.

But the clouds scuppered my plans, covering Venus initially, so I had to start with the Moon, and finally covering everything just after I popped the 6mm in!

Anyway, I'll try again but here's what I recorded last night.

21.30

25mm

The Moon is filling just less than half the FOV and it is razor sharp, very contrasty, in fact it is like an etching. If I were a poet I would call it achingly beautiful 🙂 The Couchy Rille was visible as a bright streak coming out of Couchy and heading North. The Rheita Valley was obvious and five lovely, evenly spaced, similar sized craters heading East (refractor diagonal view) from the bottom of the valley. These were very striking at this magnification and were, I think, Young F, Steinheil G, Steinheil H, Fabricius J and Janssen K. Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina were very striking and complex. The Messier rays were appearing as a single ray and Dorsa Smirnov was appearing as a long dark double stacked backwards S's curve heading South from Posidonius.

18mm

Very similar view. No obvious evidence of seeing much more, just a larger image. The Moon is now taking up just over half the FOV. A little less contrasty and etching like than with the 25mm. Can now see the twin rays off Messier. A little heat wobble is evident and ... blasted clouds!

12.5mm

The Moon now fills the view. The etching is back so the light cloud maybe compromised the view with the 18mm. The Couchy Fault is now visible as a black thin pencil line. Messier twin rays are now very obvious. Dorsa Smirnov is now showing light on the sunward side and dark on the shadow side. There is an inky black shadow on the floor of Theophilus and very obvious terracing on the opposite crater wall. There is a hint of the Petavius Rimae and a bright streak from the central mountains heading to the NW rim (refractor diagonal view). There is what looks like an extened valley/feature heading Northish from between Metius and Fabricius. It's dark and I suspect an optical illusion.

9mm

Now we are well zoomed in and the image is getting slightly dimmer and slightly less sharp. The central Theophilius peaks look like a clenched fist. Lots of isolated bright 'jewels' on the dark side of the terminator. The double edge of Posidonius is very clear and there are hints of the rills on the crater floor.

6mm

This is x150 in a 60mm scope! Dimmer again, but still a good view. The rills on the floor of Posidonius are more obvious. Giving the scope a hefty thump and the vibrations die down in less than half a second. I find the Vixen AP a lovely solid mount. Birds are chirping all around me. I'm digressing ... there is total cloud cover. Session over ☹️

I have briefly had the Abbe 4 and TOE 4 on Venus a couple of days ago with the FOA60-Q and I found the views surprisingly sharp but I really wanted to make a better comparison in the context of the other Abbe eyepieces. Maybe next time ...

Malcolm

28 minutes ago, Paz said:

However I use a lot of dimming

What was recommended to me recently by @ScouseSpaceCadet, and makes a huge difference, was observing when the sky is bright. Similar effect to dimming I suppose. Best view I've had recently was when it was not actually visible with the naked eye! A lot of fun to find though, alternating between binoculars and scope with a wide FOV eyepiece 🙂

I use Tak diagonals and am not aware of excessive (or any) CA. Definitely atmospheric CA at times. Next time I'm observing I'll look out for any CA.

Malcolm

Gotta love doing astronomy while sitting in the sun! All I need for complete perfection is a glass of red wine

Malcolm 

Great story @Jim L. Love the pic of the little refractor beside the big dob! I'm an out and out refractor man but people's descriptions of DSOs through big dobs is very compelling. I'd love to try and make one, including grinding my own mirror. 

Malcolm 

Brilliant piece and very uplifting. Really enjoyed watching that @FrenchyArnaud. 

Malcolm