What did the postman bring?

[John]

2 hours ago, lenscap said:

Just a Skywatcher 6 x 30 RACI Finderscope for my 150p.

Been looking for one of these for months but everywhere has been sold out. And FLO don't seem to stock the RACI version at all.

Noticed stock at Bristol Cameras. Ordered Wednesday, delivered Friday by RM. They're still showing "in stock" as I type.

 

I use 6x30 RACI's on 3 of my refractors and find they do a very good job

They show a true field of around 7 degrees and stars down to around magnitude 9.

While 9x50's go deeper the 6x30's I still find very useful.

[Stu]

This very lovely Celestron Omni XLT  120 arrived today, beautifully packaged and in wonderful condition! Looks like a proper refractor and I love the blue finish.

[DeepSkyMan]

Pulsar Obsy kit delivered this evening…. How am I feeling… Daunted…😅

Edited July 19, 2021 by DeepSkyMan

[John]

13 minutes ago, Stu said:

This very lovely Celestron Omni XLT  120 arrived today, beautifully packaged and in wonderful condition! Looks like a proper refractor and I love the blue finish.

I have often wondered about those Stu.

At one point FLO were going to loan me a Celestron Omni 120 and a Skywatcher Evostar 120 so that I could compare them and see if the claimed aspheric figuring of the Omni objective and / or the XLT coatings made any difference in visible performance.

Nice colour scheme the Omni has and they retained the collimatable objective cell of course, which Skywatcher seemed not too keen on in the later Evostar versions.

I did have the Evostar 120 for a while generally liked it but that was before I'd used an ED doublet of any type.

I'll be interested to read your views on the Omni 120

 

 

Edited July 19, 2021 by John

[Knighty2112]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

This very lovely Celestron Omni XLT  120 arrived today, beautifully packaged and in wonderful condition! Looks like a proper refractor and I love the blue finish.

I got an Omni 120 from a member off here nearly 3 years back. Very versatile scope, so won’t be one ill be letting go of in a hurry. Enjoy! 😀

[Sunshine]

On 15/07/2021 at 15:02, rob_r said:

Arrived this morning, a new Powermate 2.5x. Will be interesting to see how it compares against my Celestron 2x Barlow on the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn over the coming months. Courtesy of @FLO 

Oh I think there will be no comparison, I have the same one and it is wonderful, I love how it maintains the optical characteristics of the eyepiece unlike traditional barlow lenses.

[Highburymark]

4 hours ago, Stu said:

This very lovely Celestron Omni XLT  120 arrived today, beautifully packaged and in wonderful condition! Looks like a proper refractor and I love the blue finish.

Congratulations Stu - a favourite scope with many solar enthusiasts I’ve noted for both Ha and white light - clearly have well figured optics. Can see yours has already been introduced to the Baader wedge.

[Stu]

49 minutes ago, Highburymark said:

Congratulations Stu - a favourite scope with many solar enthusiasts I’ve noted for both Ha and white light - clearly have well figured optics. Can see yours has already been introduced to the Baader wedge.

Thanks Mark. Yes, I’ve been tempted by this one before and finally succumbed.

A quick star test looked very good; similar inside and outside of focus with nice even diffraction rings. Nice split of the double double at about x100 despite dodgy seeing due to the heat. CA seems very well controlled, definitely there but not objectionable at all. Solar today was brief but promising. Will report more separately.

[SuburbanMak]

A c.1900 Clarkson 3’inch f16 refractor. 

Will need a more permanent mount solution… 

[StevieDvd]

ZWO ASI178MM Mono arrived today as a replacement for my old DMK41 which does not want to play nicely anymore. So I guess it's me to blame for the thunder and  rain we are experiencing today!!!

But at least it's a bit cooler.☹️

[johninderby]

Nice camera. 👍🏻

Still very hot today here and sunny but supposed to cool off a bit by Friday.

 

 

 

Edited July 20, 2021 by johninderby

[IB20]

Not the postman but got this from the wife. Has sections for reports, sketches and lunar phases. Perfect for me to start properly documenting my sessions. 
 

 

[cwis]

A few things have turned up in the past couple of days!

Beautiful fantastic supportive wife got me a "throne" for observing - this has been squirreled away for my forthcoming birthday. I was using a stool that is adjustable for height but is generally too high for my dob - this will drop me a few valuable inches whilst still allowing comfort when near the zenith: 

Apparently a drummer sits on a throne! Who knew?

Also my first foray into telescopes involving actual glass:

I got this on the understanding that now we actually have to go away on holiday to foreign climes which is one of my other half's passions - obviously I poked it out of the back door when it turned up:

(It's Meade's version of the venerable ST80). A quick review would be: Handy backpack, comical tripod (to be upgraded to something better that will also fit in the backpack), two Huygens eyepieces that were probably pretty good in the 1600's (I'll use a Seben zoom instead) and an erecting diagonal that seems to vignette with eyepieces wider than about 50 degrees.  

Star diagonal or erecting diagonal upgrade? Baader contrast booster, semi apo or fringe killer? Opinions welcome!  Jupiter is looming large currently and I could use the contrast booster in the dob too so that's a front runner at the moment...

[AstroNebulee]

This beautiful looking beast arrived today courtesy of RVO and the lovely dpd delivery driver. This will simplify my astrophotography sessions with my dslr so much more now and hopefully take all the stress and hassle of laptop and other astrophotography software in a nifty complete package, just need to save up for my dedicated osc camera now and I'm there. 

 

Edited July 21, 2021 by AstroNebulee

[Deadlake]

On 19/07/2021 at 20:09, Stu said:

This very lovely Celestron Omni XLT  120 arrived today, beautifully packaged and in wonderful condition! Looks like a proper refractor and I love the blue finish.

I was going to ask for DSO usage but I can see you are pointing at the sun. Very nice.

[Daf1983]

A filter adapter for my canon 600d, courtesy of @powerlord👍 I have a uhc filter lying around to test this out

[powerlord]

Woohoo - After a 3 month wait - my EQ6R-PRO has arrived !!

[Davey-T]

5 hours ago, powerlord said:

Woohoo - After a 3 month wait - my EQ6R-PRO has arrived !!

Perhaps SW have started catching up, maybe my tripod will arrive soon.

Dave

[JeremyS]

[jacko61]

DHL just dropped off my birthday present - ZWO ASI533MC PRO from FLO but I'm not allowed it till monday

Graeme

 

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

On 22/07/2021 at 10:28, powerlord said:

Woohoo - After a 3 month wait - my EQ6R-PRO has arrived !!

And a bonus buy a mount get a small dog free offer too? 😉

[Knighty2112]

New Hercules mount from RVO, and Berlebach Report 312 tripod from FLO to make for a lighter and quicker grab ‘n go mount for my small AA 80ED scope.

 

Edited July 23, 2021 by Knighty2112

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

13 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

New Hercules mount from RVO, and Berlebach Report 312 tripod from FLO to make for a lighter and quicker grab ‘n go mount for my small AA 80ED scope.

 

Very nice. A write up on the AA 80ED would be worth a read... 👍

[Knighty2112]

2 minutes ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

Very nice. A write up on the AA 80ED would be worth a read... 👍

Had the AA 80ED for a while now, but it has just recently been joined with its big brother the AA 102ED, so I may do a write up on both at some stage. Watch this space! 😉

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

5 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

Had the AA 80ED for a while now, but it has just recently been joined with its big brother the AA 102ED, so I may do a write up on both at some stage. Watch this space! 😉

I'd be interested in what you think of the 102ED too...