Show us your Frac

[Nigella Bryant]

My frac incarnation. Got to love the sun. 

[Saganite]

I have had the good fortune to grab a 4 hour observing session under very good seeing conditions within  the last week , just a few days  after this APM 6" arrived.  What I have seen so far has left me with no doubt that it, along with my Vixen, is a lifetime scope.  I have been ' blown away' with its performance on all types of objects, but the real show is yet to come, Lunar, Jupiter, and Saturn, and I can hardly wait.

The 3" Feathertouch  rack and pinion is sublime and handles the weight of the bino and eyepieces with such ease, no slip ,no notchiness, just buttery smooth and solid excellence.  Although it is a big scope, the AZ100 handles it with ease. On the tripod  It is excellent  but is absolutely rock solid on my pier....

[JeremyS]

Don’t forget Mars, too, @Saganite 👍🏻

[Mr Spock]

The Starfield 102 at night

And, in the daytime for solar

The old workhorse, a refurbed Helios 120 achro

[Saganite]

43 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Don’t forget Mars, too, @Saganite 👍🏻

I won't ....

Edited June 5, 2022 by Saganite

[Victor Boesen]

Here are my two fracs from yesterday while doing some white light and H-alpha solar observing.

I had extra supervision while observing as seen in the bottom left 

[Alan White]

56 minutes ago, Saganite said:

I have had the good fortune to grab a 4 hour observing session under very good seeing conditions within  the last week , just a few days  after this APM 6" arrived.  What I have seen so far has left me with no doubt that it, along with my Vixen, is a lifetime scope.  I have been ' blown away' with its performance on all types of objects, but the real show is yet to come, Lunar, Jupiter, and Saturn, and I can hardly wait.

The 3" Feathertouch  rack and pinion is sublime and handles the weight of the bino and eyepieces with such ease, no slip ,no notchiness, just buttery smooth and solid excellence.  Although it is a big scope, the AZ100 handles it with ease. On the tripod  It is excellent  but is absolutely rock solid on my pier....

 

That is a pair of beauties Steve,
I don’t often feel envious of other folks kit, I celebrate that they have had a turn of luck,
and wow, have you had a turn of luck with that 150, sits with the Vixen very well.

And on such a nice mount and tripod too, enjoy.

[Saganite]

Cheers Al, much appreciated...

[F15Rules]

1 hour ago, Saganite said:

I have had the good fortune to grab a 4 hour observing session under very good seeing conditions within  the last week , just a few days  after this APM 6" arrived.  What I have seen so far has left me with no doubt that it, along with my Vixen, is a lifetime scope.  I have been ' blown away' with its performance on all types of objects, but the real show is yet to come, Lunar, Jupiter, and Saturn, and I can hardly wait.

The 3" Feathertouch  rack and pinion is sublime and handles the weight of the bino and eyepieces with such ease, no slip ,no notchiness, just buttery smooth and solid excellence.  Although it is a big scope, the AZ100 handles it with ease. On the tripod  It is excellent  but is absolutely rock solid on my pier....

A sublime setup, Steve, many congratulations 👏🎉 😊!!

Can I ask what were your key targets during your first light sessions?

Thanks for posting 👍

Dave

[Saganite]

Hi Dave,

The targets were;

Vega and Arcturus.... The star tests revealed near perfect diffraction patterns inside and outside of focus, with no discernible colour , particularly Vega when tightly focused.

Polaris, Mizar, Izar, Albireo, Zeta Herculis, Epsilon Lyrae.. All clean splits with perfect diffraction patterns.  The Double Double split cleanly at 80x and at 171 each star showed a perfect diffraction pattern with a sharp black line between them.

The Ring Nebula M57 .. very bold and bright 'polo ', and as pleasing as I have seen through the Dob I once had.

The  Whirlpool   M51....two bright nuclei and eventually some evidence of the nebulous swirl of each galaxy.

M81 and M82.. two great favourites, clearly visible and pleasing to the eye.  

Globular Clusters..M13, M92, M3, and M53..... beautifully presented particularly M13 ( the only object for which  I felt I would miss my Dob ) , clearly  a ball of stars, not a mass of light.

I spent a lot of time just observing star masses in the Milky way, and revelling in the sharpness of  the whole FOV, just myriads of pinpoints.  I finished with all the open star clusters in Cassiopeia, but sadly did not get the one I wanted the most, The Double Cluster in Perseus because with my garden being South facing, my house severely hampers my view of the Northern sky, and of course I cannot move my pier.

[Roy Challen]

8 hours ago, Saganite said:

I have had the good fortune to grab a 4 hour observing session under very good seeing conditions within  the last week , just a few days  after this APM 6" arrived.  What I have seen so far has left me with no doubt that it, along with my Vixen, is a lifetime scope.  I have been ' blown away' with its performance on all types of objects, but the real show is yet to come, Lunar, Jupiter, and Saturn, and I can hardly wait.

The 3" Feathertouch  rack and pinion is sublime and handles the weight of the bino and eyepieces with such ease, no slip ,no notchiness, just buttery smooth and solid excellence.  Although it is a big scope, the AZ100 handles it with ease. On the tripod  It is excellent  but is absolutely rock solid on my pier....

Fantastic setup, Steve! That first photo is very deceptive, the scopes appear very similar in size, but the second pic reveals all.

Edited June 5, 2022 by Roy Challen

[Saganite]

On 05/06/2022 at 16:04, Roy Challen said:

Fantastic setup, Steve! That first photo is very deceptive, the scopes appear very similar in size, but the second pic reveals all.

Here is a better image to give some idea of the comparative sizes Roy.

 

Also a piece of vital evidence of its pedigree which I forgot.  The Strehl value at  0.98  is exceptionally high on this doublet, I am very happy to say..👍

I have also fitted a carry handle today.

Edited June 6, 2022 by Saganite

[Roy Challen]

The pedigree was never in doubt, Steve, but I'm very happy for your purchase 😊

[tom.yates]

AP 152 Starfire and a 6" Tak

[CCD-Freak]

Here is a recent picture of my Explore Scientific 127ED Triplet with a University Optics "80mm Kit Scope" for guiding all riding on an AP900GTO mount at my SRO dark site.

I built a Todmorden pier for it to perch on.

 

[ED Splitter]

Oh dear me. It was a mistake to enter this thread. The setups are just too much. 

[DaveL59]

9 minutes ago, ED Splitter said:

Oh dear me. It was a mistake to enter this thread. The setups are just too much. 

The way I see it, drooling's free 😉

 

[badhex]

Just realised I have a new setup to show - haven't had it under the stars yet but hopefully at the weekend. 

[philj]

Well it,s been awhile since I posted on here, fracs have come and gone over that time. Mainly gone due to house move and health.

But I have fallen in love again. I got a baby Tak at auction back in June and I love it. It,s a 2001 FS60C, slightly longer in body than the latest CB offering. Came with q etxtender to turn it into F9, Tak diagonal and 24 and 7mm Tak LE eps.

 

A great little spotter/ widefield scope/ OK at f9 with the 1.6 q extension and a really easy scope to image with here it is rigged for the 1000d

 

Yes, that is an ed80 flattener/reducer on there 😀

 

 

In F9 visual guize

and a quick shot through it and the 1000d

 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2022 by philj

[F15Rules]

1 hour ago, philj said:

Well it,s been awhile since I posted on here, fracs have come and gone over that time. Mainly gone due to house move and health.

But I have fallen in love again. I got a baby Tak at auction back in June and I love it. It,s a 2001 FS60C, slightly longer in body than the latest CB offering. Came with q etxtender to turn it into F9, Tak diagonal and 24 and 7mm Tak LE eps.

 

A great little spotter/ widefield scope/ OK at f9 with the 1.6 q extension and a really easy scope to image with here it is rigged for the 1000d

 

Yes, that is an ed80 flattener/reducer on there 😀

 

 

In F9 visual guize

and a quick shot through it and the 1000d

 

 

 

Hi Phil,

Firstly, it's great to see you back on SGL, you've been missed! I'm sorry to hear you've had health issues, and hope you are well again now.

Secondly, what a lovely little Tak that is, and an amazing image with such a small aperture..it's crazy to think that all those stars are there whenever we view visually, but we just can't see them.

Hope to see much more of your great posts on here in the coming season👍.

Dave

[lvan]

Drinking beer, watching footie, hanging with my buddy

Edited September 13, 2022 by lvan

[Robindonne]

21 hours ago, lvan said:

Drinking beer, watching footie, hanging with my buddy

The typical UK astronomer😅

[AstroNebulee]

Now don't laugh everybody but I've nearly completed my frankensteined refractor and mount. She's no high end set up or a shiny Tak but she's mine and a beauty in my eyes. 

It's taken me a while but I really fancied dipping my toes back into the visual world  whilst my imaging scope captures the photons or if its not suitable to image (I did start on visual back in 2020 but soon fell in the rabbit hole of AP) 

I had this old 80mm f10 meade acro canon hanging around for a couple of years which was free but never got round to using it. I cleaned the optics and it already had a crudely installed focuser, I altered and fettled that. So I've added my sw 9x50 raci finderscope to a shoe I had laying about, this I connected the scope where the previous one must of been. 

I'm still waiting for a visual back to arrive from China, so I cobbled together a crude thumbscrew to hold the diagonal and eyepiece (already owned from visual days). 

I acquired the rube rings from @Roy Challen and attached my previously owned dovetail bar. The eq mount from @skybadger this I have moved into alt az mode for ease of use for now. Then all mounted onto my unused star adventurer tripod. It's all quite solid really and I had first light tonight to test it Jupiter and it's moons looking great and Saturn took my breath away again as it did the first time I saw it a couple of years ago. Then spent some time looking a moony and she looked great, so then I hooked up my Canon dslr to the scope and easily achieved focus with just a T-ring and nose piece to take a few images to stack moro and play with (I couldn't resist the AP haha).

So all in all I had an enjoyable time and this frac doesn't give off to bad CA and hardly noticeable. With nice sharp views. So the frankensteined visual set up lives! 

Sorry for the long read. 

Lee 

Edited September 16, 2022 by AstroNebulee
addition

[Roy Challen]

5 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

Know don't laugh everybody but I've nearly completed my frankensteined refractor and mount. She's no high end set up or a shiny Tak but she's mine and a beauty in my eyes. 

It's taken me a while but I really fancied dipping my toes back into the visual world  whilst my imaging scope captures the photons or if its not suitable to image (I did start on visual back in 2020 but soon fell in the rabbit hole of AP) 

I had this old 80mm f10 meade acro canon hanging around for a couple of years which was free but never got round to using it. I cleaned the optics and it already had a crudely installed focuser, I altered and fettled that. So I've added my sw 9x50 raci finderscope to a shoe I had laying about, this I connected the scope where the previous one must of been. 

I'm still waiting for a visual back to arrive from China, so I cobbled together a crude thumbscrew to hold the diagonal and eyepiece (already owned from visual days). 

I acquired the rube rings from @Roy Challen and attached my previously owned dovetail bar. The eq mount from @skybadger this I have moved into alt az mode for ease of use for now. Then all mounted onto my unused star adventurer tripod. It's all quite solid really and I had first light tonight to test it Jupiter and it's moons looking great and Saturn took my breath away again as it did the first time I saw it a couple of years ago. Then spent some time looking a moony and she looked great, so then I hooked up my Canon dslr to the scope and easily achieved focus with just a T-ring and nose piece to take a few images to stack moro and play with (I couldn't resist the AP haha).

So all in all I had an enjoyable time and this frac doesn't give off to bad CA and hardly noticeable. With nice sharp views. So the frankensteined visual set up lives! 

Sorry for the long read. 

Lee 

That looks great Lee. The rings match the scope and your sofa!😂 Nice grab and go setup.

At f/10 only the fussiest observer will be upset with the CA, whatever is there can be filtered to next to nothing levels anyway.

[garryblueboy]

Don’t think I’ve posted this one before