bosun21

I have added this to my to do list of things to observe. Thanks, however I'm a bit more conservative than yourself and will probably throw more aperture at it. Once located I then like to reduce the aperture and ascertain whether it remains visible.

I am beginning to think that I am one of those rare few individuals who actually gets a lot of satisfaction from the smudges in my eyepiece. I draw a lot of motivation and satisfaction from looking up a given target and learning about the details for example the distance, magnitude and the orientation of the galaxy. The orientation helps me draw out some detail knowing beforehand which shape and angle it is relevant to Earth. Of course I love all the usual targets which I find myself revisiting over and over again as the seasons come and go. Low magnification sweeps around productive regions of the sky like the constellation Virgo during galaxy season can be productive, depending on conditions of course.Having recently taken up planetary imaging and to a lesser degree a bit of EAA, I could easily enough replace the eyepiece with the camera and bring the galaxy clearly into view but I love finding a target with my eyepiece beforehand (if possible at all). Maybe I have a masochistic streak in me. Does anyone else appear to have this streak?

Thanks @vlaiv. That's exactly what I thought.

Regarding the mirror quality being 1/6th wave or 1/10th wave lambda I always thought that this has nothing to do with the reflectivity of said mirror. I always thought of the lambda quality would be better for resolving the finer details of an image, ie a 1/10th wave is better than a 1/8th wave. The actual brightness of an image being directly related to the reflectivity of the mirror. Of course eyepieces and other factors will play a part in this. as well as the mirror coatings etc. Am I wrong in these assumptions?

I had a look at the 127 Mak that is bundled with the Astromaster EQ mount and I am unsure how it differs from the standard Celestron and SW models. I did notice that it states fully coated and not multi coated optics and the bundled extras like diagonal etc are poorer quality. Personally I would message Celestron and ask them what the differences are between this OTA and the 127 SLT. Perhaps someone who owns the Astromaster 127 Mak can shed some light on this question.

I owned a 150 and found that an EQ5 is the minimum I would use although the HEQ5 would be better. On the EQ5 pro I added an electric focuser to eliminate focusing vibration.

I use an electric hand warmer for those freezing nights. It's lithium battery powered and has three heat settings. It generally lasts a session easily

Welcome to SGL John.

I think you should check the collimation of your 127 Mak as i routinely observed at 200+ with the one I previously owned. The planets remained sharp.

After polar alignment I select the first star in the alignment process and after the mount stops slewing to its position near the target star I use a red dot finder to move the mount and place it in the eyepiece. Once you centre it then select the second star and it should be in the FOV of your 28mm eyepiece.

He was talking about the 17.5mm Morpheus but I take it will be the same with all eyepieces with a larger FOV.

I love Glenmorangie 18 year old although it's very expensive followed by Glenmorangie itself.

I tried the tour of the distilleries on Islay in which you have a dram at each of them. Needless to say I never made it to them all.

The dark part which is the horshead itself is indeed a dark nebula which is a dark cloud of non reflective gas and dust.

It's an excellent eyepiece.

Yes I agree. I think Whiskey is the American spelling. I'm not sure about the Irish spelling although I think they also spell it that way.

I always thought that the horsehead itself is a dark nebula and the surrounding part a reflection nebula. Maybe I'm wrong.

Is there a benefit of using mono against a colour camera capturing in mono?

Yes I bought a pair new recently primarily for the threads on the eyepieces to enable me to use UHC filters. On receiving them I discovered that they had removed them. The supplier was however still advertising them as having threaded eyepieces.

I had one fitted to my C8 which worked just fine. I used mine in conjunction with a standard dew shield and only turned it on when the dew was particularly heavy.

Nice images. There's just something about mono images that make them appeal to me. I particularly like M109.

Yes it's just that your mount has a different azimuth adjustment mechanism than most other mounts.

Excellent image Kostas. I will have to try Uranus myself before it's gone. How do you add the colour when using a mono camera? I guess that's going to be another thing to learn. I recently acquired a 462MC so I'm now wondering whether it's worthwhile adding the mono version for IR filter captures. The collimation doesn't look that far off in this image.

The 180 Maksutov is a good choice for planetary. Having used both SCT's and Maks for planetary I much prefer the Mak. I found them sharper to the point that to better them you would need an apo refractor. I used to frequently view at 200x with a 127 and 300x with the 150 both on Saturn. They are also good for planetary imaging. For general AP they are just too slow along with a small FOV.

Let this be a lesson!