Show us your Frac

[Peter Drew]

My 8.5" F12.5 refractor.

[Peter Drew]

Oops!, plus a picture of my grandaughter serenading us, posted in error. 

[Chris]

Wow Peter, what a frac! I do believe that's a c chord your grand daughter is playing. Show us your guitar sounds fun too lol

 

[Stu]

Two very nice pictures Peter  

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, Lockie said:

Wow Peter, what a frac! I do believe that's a c chord your grand daughter is playing. Show us your guitar sounds fun too lol

 

Looks like an 'F' to me

A show us your guitar thread might make some people's scope collections look restrained.

Where do they all come from?

[Chris]

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Looks like an 'F' to me

Ah yes, I can see now I'm zoomed in lol Looks like F major 7 as she's not barring the top E. 

 

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

A show us your guitar thread might make some people's scope collections look restrained.

Indeed! I've always fancied a nice Ibanez with a low flat action for shredding Steve Vai scales  

[Fozzie]

I've posted my frac before, so technically this isn't new.. but the set up is.. gone is the skytee2 with steel tripod and in came the vixen gp and and homemade sapele mahogany tripod.. very happy with the look of this now.. hopefully the stability is good.. try it out tonight on some clusters and globs I think..

 

Initial indications are its going to be at least as good as the steel tripod, the half pilller seemed to have a bit of movement, but has tightened up fine..

It's the look you want though! It just says classic frac..  Well to me it does anyway!

 

Edited November 18, 2017 by Fozzie
Spelling!

[Chris]

Looks really good, great job you've done with that tripod  

[paulastro]

That tripod looks  really fantastic, a job well done.  The whole setup looks cool too .

[paulastro]

On 11/9/2017 at 23:11, Peter Drew said:

Oops!, plus a picture of my grandaughter serenading us, posted in error. 

Best telescope up at TAC - not that I'm biased or anything!

[Moonshane]

Here's one of mine. It's  the one at the back ?

[Stub Mandrel]

1 minute ago, Moonshane said:

Here's one of mine. It's  the one at the back

... behind the space heater

[Fozzie]

17 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

... behind the space heater

Useful thing to have around last night... seemed alot colder than it actually was... 

Edited November 19, 2017 by Fozzie

[Chris]

Picked up this little Altair ED70 for grab and go last week. I really wanted the new WO61 for a long time, but by the time you add the WO RDF, diagonal etc it's cracking on for £550 so just couldn't justify that for a 60mm scope in the end.

A quick first light last night and it was nice to see pin prick stars again, M45 looked great. I'll have to get another grab and go mount for it though, short tubes are a bit awkward to wield with the EQ3 for visual, I'll just reserve the eq3 for casual imaging I think. 

Edited November 25, 2017 by Lockie

[Alan White]

Looks great Chris, I was awaiting a picture and first light report.

But with all this cloud, knew it would take a few nights or more to happen.

That is a nice compact scope, looks far more petite than my ed80.

[iPeace]

9 minutes ago, Lockie said:

Picked up this little Altair ED70 for grab and go last week.

Nice one! Glad you got your grab-and-go frac. Looks a lot like the INED70 I used to have, surely must be the same thing except for the carbon tube. Great build, very nice focuser and great views, excellent value.

[Chris]

17 minutes ago, iPeace said:

Looks a lot like the INED70 I used to have, surely must be the same thing except for the carbon tube.

I think they're both very similar fpl51 glass at the very least. A good budget semi apo ED  

[Chris]

31 minutes ago, Alan White said:

Looks great Chris, I was awaiting a picture and first light report.

But with all this cloud, knew it would take a few nights or more to happen.

That is a nice compact scope, looks far more petite than my ed80.

Thanks Alan, I'd say it's a bit more compact than the ED80 but about the same weight. The ED70 f/6 is quite substantially built, I always remember the ED80's to be surprisingly light weight for what it is.

[mikeDnight]

Looking at your lovely looking 70mm Altair ED reminds me of an evening last April when I was privileged to use a similar scope. On that night I had a visitor, Rodger Vine, who writes some excellent scope reviews. He brought with him his 70mm Tak fluorite which genuinely thrilled me with its exquisite views of Jupiter's cloud belts and its crisp colour free views of the moon. The night itself was excellent, which added to the memorable views, but what stood out to me most was just how capable and pleasant a good 70mm scope can be to use. I'm not sure if these pics of Rodgers 70mm Tak have been posted before, but here they are anyway.

Edited November 25, 2017 by mikeDnight

[Chris]

Very nice! I didn't even know Tak did a 70mm. I wouldn't say know to a Tak76 some day. 

[mikeDnight]

1 hour ago, Lockie said:

Very nice! I didn't even know Tak did a 70mm. I wouldn't say know to a Tak76 some day. 

I was just testing to see if you were paying attention! 

You are right of course, it was a FC76 and not a 70mm.

[Timebandit]

On 18/11/2017 at 13:22, Fozzie said:

 , .  .. gone is the skytee2 with steel tripod and in came the vixen gp and and homemade sapele mahogany tripod.. very happy with the look of this now.. hopefully the stability is good.. try it out tonight on some clusters and globs I think..

 

              

 

 

 

Well done . That looks a cracking tripod you have made. I love it when SGL members make there own kit, but at the same time looks so good that you would think it has just been purchased from a shop. So great job?

IMO wood does seem to have a more of a dampening effect of vibrations than steel. So this could well be worth the effort and time you have invested in what looks such a well crafted tripod 

 

 

 

[Fozzie]

51 minutes ago, Timebandit said:

 

 

Well done . That looks a cracking tripod you have made. I love it when SGL members make there own kit, but at the same time looks so good that you would think it has just been purchased from a shop. So great job?

 

 

 

Very kind words.. many thanks.

[RobertI]

6 hours ago, Lockie said:

Picked up this little Altair ED70 for grab and go last week. I really wanted the new WO61 for a long time, but by the time you add the WO RDF, diagonal etc it's cracking on for £550 so just couldn't justify that for a 60mm scope in the end.

A quick first light last night and it was nice to see pin prick stars again, M45 looked great. I'll have to get another grab and go mount for it though, short tubes are a bit awkward to wield with the EQ3 for visual, I'll just reserve the eq3 for casual imaging I think. 

Nice scope Chris. Must bring back memories of your old Zenithstar 66 and Megrez 72? ?

[Chris]

14 minutes ago, RobertI said:

Nice scope Chris. Must bring back memories of your old Zenithstar 66 and Megrez 72? ?

Yeah it's certainly that kind of scope, Rob. It's a handy scope for quick peaks, but I need to think about an appropriate mount? so a thread beckons