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Show us your Frac

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John

John

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How many EVO 150's have you owned now John? :D

Did you not have a similar scope some years ago? Did it have a Baader focuser though?

I feel the only down side to them is they are really demanding on mounts ( I admit I have ocd towards focusing vibrations no matter how small) but those 6"s of unobstructed glass on doubles and the moon makes it a keeper for me. While I don't think mine suffers overly much from CA they do benefit from a semi-apo filter. Although I'm sure now your more accustomed to ED glass your eye may become easily distracted to a blue atmosphere around the lunar limb.

I think it's my 4th or 5th but it is what I call a project scope so I may not hang onto it for that long. I tried some of the CA filters on another scope a while back and didn't really like the results. I prefer to use a Chromacor if at all possible.

They do need quite a heavy duty mounting arrangement, I agree. Not as severe a challenge as my Istar 6" F/12 was though ! 

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Stu
Stu

Don't worry Chris, Frac Pack moral is very high Here are a few of mine, past and present. Will take some better pics soon. Vixen Atlux 150ED with Tak FC-100 as a finder 120ED with Quark Tak FS-60

Chris
Chris

Just testing my Skylight 60mm f16 and C100ED on my new Skytee II, and I thought I'd try and boost moral with the frac clan after reading the "show me your dob" thread 

laser_jock99
laser_jock99

My Equinox ED120 & Starwave ED80 getting a rare outing.....

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FenlandPaul

FenlandPaul

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Those are "The Goons" (Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Michael Bentine). Bluebottle was a character in the show voiced by Peter Sellers. One of his catch phrases was "You dirty rotten swine you" usually when he had been blown up, shot or otherwise "deaded".

I think it was your "knotted string muscles" reference that made me think of him :icon_biggrin:

Sill available nowadays on BBC Radio 4 Extra!! Always makes me chuckle.

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Chris

Chris

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I'd be interested to hear how the aluminium AZ4 stands up to the weight, as I'm considering the same set up as a grab 'n' go and was favouring the ally tripod over the steel to reduce weight.

Just some further thoughts before you hit the button on a Ali AZ4.

I had the chance to use the Ali AZ4 with the ST120 and WO binoviewer barlowed 2x to get it to focus. I'm guessing I was working at around 100x considering binoviewers add to the barlowing effect. You would expect things to be more shakey at high power than the low power single eyepiece views I had previously, but things were VERY shakey (I couldn't rest my eyes sockets on the eyecups without it wobbling quite a bit, and don't ask about focusing :D )

I would still get an Ali AZ4 if you want something easy to carry with a semi decent weight limit, but if you ask me it's only suitable for short focal length low magnification viewing. So things like binoculars with an L-bracket or scope with 800mm focal length or less for example.

As for the ST120 AZ4 bino exeriment: As a specialist widefield low power scope I coudn't really expect a great deal on a Moonlit night. Especially when Barlowed to an inch of it's life to get it to focus with my BV unit. It didn't do bad all things considered, yes there was a good half inch of violet halo around the Moon, but once the tube currents settled I was able to pull out reasonable detail in Tycho such as the ejecta streaks, and fairly 3D detail around the wall of the sea of crises, and the northen region of the sea of fertility, and to the east of the sea of tranquility, this all looked good as it was near the teminator at the time. M42 was really washed out but the trapezium stars were right in my face! Also betelgeuse looked lovely and juicy. I could have done with an Apo for the Moon as it lacked contrast but the stars looked nice other than a touch bloated. The main thing was the shaking as I couldn't put my eyes into the eyepieces to get totally absorbed into the view.

Actually, I would really go for the steel legged AZ4 thinking about it, then you're future proofed. 

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DRT

DRT

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I've only used the lightweight Alt-Az Aluminium tripod once and put it away after 5 minutes as it was just too unstable. They might be ok if weighed down with sand in the legs of weights on the EP tray but that sort of defeats the purpose of it being a lightweight grab-n-go option.

Edited by DRT
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wheresthetorch?

wheresthetorch?

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Just some further thoughts before you hit the button on a Ali AZ4.

I had the chance to use the Ali AZ4 with the ST120 and WO binoviewer barlowed 2x to get it to focus. I'm guessing I was working at around 100x considering binoviewers add to the barlowing effect. You would expect things to be more shakey at high power than the low power single eyepiece views I had previously, but things were VERY shakey (I couldn't rest my eyes sockets on the eyecups without it wobbling quite a bit, and don't ask about focusing :D )

I would still get an Ali AZ4 if you want something easy to carry with a semi decent weight limit, but if you ask me it's only suitable for short focal length low magnification viewing. So things like binoculars with an L-bracket or scope with 800mm focal length or less for example.

As for the ST120 AZ4 bino exeriment: As a specialist widefield low power scope I coudn't really expect a great deal on a Moonlit night. Especially when Barlowed to an inch of it's life to get it to focus with my BV unit. It didn't do bad all things considered, yes there was a good half inch of violet halo around the Moon, but once the tube currents settled I was able to pull out reasonable detail in Tycho such as the ejecta streaks, and fairly 3D detail around the wall of the sea of crises, and the northen region of the sea of fertility, and to the east of the sea of tranquility, this all looked good as it was near the teminator at the time. M42 was really washed out but the trapezium stars were right in my face! Also betelgeuse looked lovely and juicy. I could have done with an Apo for the Moon as it lacked contrast but the stars looked nice other than a touch bloated. The main thing was the shaking as I couldn't put my eyes into the eyepieces to get totally absorbed into the view.

Actually, I would really go for the steel legged AZ4 thinking about it, then you're future proofed.

Ah, interesting. My old 4SE had a very similar mount to the steel legged AZ4, and it wasn't overly heavy, so maybe that would be the way to go.

Food for thought . . . Many thanks for the information.

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nightfisher

nightfisher

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I think it's my 4th or 5th but it is what I call a project scope so I may not hang onto it for that long. I tried some of the CA filters on another scope a while back and didn't really like the results. I prefer to use a Chromacor if at all possible.

They do need quite a heavy duty mounting arrangement, I agree. Not as severe a challenge as my Istar 6" F/12 was though ! 

John, i think you should hang onto this latest 150 evostar, you have owned so many you must deep down like them

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Special K

Special K

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On 20 January 2016 at 23:37, John said:

I think it's my 4th or 5th but it is what I call a project scope so I may not hang onto it for that long. I tried some of the CA filters on another scope a while back and didn't really like the results. I prefer to use a Chromacor if at all possible.

They do need quite a heavy duty mounting arrangement, I agree. Not as severe a challenge as my Istar 6" F/12 was though ! 

Be sure to let us know if that "project" nears its end and you want to move on!!!

CA aside, these Synta f8's must be very effective on deep sky stuff. I'm very eager to try one out as a complement to my small frac.  

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Marki

Marki

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On 26/01/2016 at 22:35, CHASLX200 said:

Added a new brother.  On the right is the new 130mm Astrotech.

156denl.jpg

Now thats a lovely looking collection! What is the 130 mounted on?

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DRT

DRT

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Cute indeed. I just stuck the numbers in a FOV calculator and my Pan 41mm is going to give me 6° of sky and a usable exit pupil :grin:

I bought if for my Quark so that I can try full disk observing in Ha. Let's just hope the Quark performs as well as this little thing looks!

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DRT

DRT

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4 minutes ago, John said:

I hope the Quark keeps working Derek.

One device that I'd not risk I'm afriad.

 

From what I've read since I bought it I hope it works at all!! The 5 year guarantee is a comfort but I hope I'm one of the lucky ones.

Edited by DRT
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