What did the postman bring?

[John]

40 minutes ago, Greymouser said:

Not from the postman, but went to a nice gentleman near Stoke and bought his rather lovely Starwave 152mm from him. Lovely telescope, nice to look at, ( to me, )  but his dog stole the show, a lovely border Terrier/ Jack Russel cross, who thought I needed a face wash! I need to get me a new dog!

I tried to get a shot of the lens, beautiful and a slight green tint...

Now I intend to do as @Stu1smartcookie has done and apply it to my SkyTee along with my Starsense. Maybe a lighter mount too.

I tried to resist this, even started a thread asking for help to avoid, but seeing this on ABS in as good as new condition, I couldn't resist. It Hardly looks like it has been used.

 

Very nice !

I have recently acquired a Starwave 70ED which looks like a miniature version of your 152mm !

Mine is my 1st Starwave and I have to say that I have been well impressed by it both in terms of performance and build quality. The focuser, which looks to be the same unit that your 152 has, is really, really nice 🙂

[Greymouser]

19 minutes ago, Franklin said:

 it was on a matching Sabre mount, beautiful looking set up

Don't you bad man! It seems that mount may be back in stock somewhere!!!!!

Edit: I cannot remember where. No, don't tell me, I do not want to know...

Edited March 26, 2023 by Greymouser

[Stu]

51 minutes ago, Greymouser said:

Not from the postman, but went to a nice gentleman near Stoke and bought his rather lovely Starwave 152mm from him. Lovely telescope, nice to look at, ( to me, )  but his dog stole the show, a lovely border Terrier/ Jack Russel cross, who thought I needed a face wash! I need to get me a new dog!

I tried to get a shot of the lens, beautiful and a slight green tint...

Now I intend to do as @Stu1smartcookie has done and apply it to my SkyTee along with my Starsense. Maybe a lighter mount too.

I tried to resist this, even started a thread asking for help to avoid, but seeing this on ABS in as good as new condition, I couldn't resist. It Hardly looks like it has been used.

 

Lovely! One day I will buy one of those, in red of course. Biggest problem being the red! All my other scopes are white so look the same. As long as they don’t gather together in groups, few questions get asked. A red one though, now that would get some attention!! 🤣

[Greymouser]

10 minutes ago, John said:

Very nice !

I have recently acquired a Starwave 70ED which looks like a miniature version of your 152mm !

Mine is my 1st Starwave and I have to say that I have been well impressed by it both in terms of performance and build quality. The focuser, which looks to be the same unit that your 152 has, is really, really nice 🙂

I have an Altair 72 EDF Deluxe, which is an excellent scope, tiny but powerful. Not sure if the optics in it are better than my SW ED80 though.

[John]

10 minutes ago, Greymouser said:

I have an Altair 72 EDF Deluxe, which is an excellent scope, tiny but powerful. Not sure if the optics in it are better than my SW ED80 though.

Possibly not - the Synta ED doublets can be pretty darn good. My ED120 is a belter 🙂

My ED70 is the basic ED (an FPL-51 or equivalent) and does show a little false colour around brighter targets but the objective seems well figured and that means a lot to me. 

It will be very interesting to hear how your 152 performs when you have used it a few times 🙂

[mikeDnight]

*

 

Edited April 5, 2023 by mikeDnight

[Stu]

4 hours ago, Zermelo said:

instead arrived in a Caterham Super 7

Nice to catch up Paul, hope you enjoy the binoviewers. Just a correction, mine is a poor man’s Caterham, aka Westfield. Still a lot of fun though 😄.

[Stu1smartcookie]

13 hours ago, Greymouser said:

Not from the postman, but went to a nice gentleman near Stoke and bought his rather lovely Starwave 152mm from him. Lovely telescope, nice to look at, ( to me, )  but his dog stole the show, a lovely border Terrier/ Jack Russel cross, who thought I needed a face wash! I need to get me a new dog!

I tried to get a shot of the lens, beautiful and a slight green tint...

Now I intend to do as @Stu1smartcookie has done and apply it to my SkyTee along with my Starsense. Maybe a lighter mount too.

I tried to resist this, even started a thread asking for help to avoid, but seeing this on ABS in as good as new condition, I couldn't resist. It Hardly looks like it has been used.

 

Maybe we can start a 152mm Starwave club  ... tonight is forecast (almost) clear ... sooooo looking forward to putting the starsense and this scope to the test . I have a dual fitment for the starsense so it can even be deployed in the finder bracket on the scope , but its a perfect fit for the skytee with the dovetail . 

Edited March 27, 2023 by Stu1smartcookie

[Stu1smartcookie]

12 hours ago, Stu said:

Lovely! One day I will buy one of those, in red of course. Biggest problem being the red! All my other scopes are white so look the same. As long as they don’t gather together in groups, few questions get asked. A red one though, now that would get some attention!! 🤣

Don't worry Stu , they all look the same colour in the dark ... having said that my Starwave has been sitting in our spare room on show instead of being under dark skies due to weather . 

It looks lovely on a white skytee mount . 

[Stu1smartcookie]

A nice post lady brought me this lovely EP courtesy of @F15Rules (Dave) . Really looking forward to using it tonight . I now have the 6mm, 10mm and the 18mm .  

[DaveL59]

Been a while since I bought any astro gear but when this came up I couldn't resist hitting the buy button

A very nice TAL wood tripod, looks barely used at all. It won't hold the TAL pier mount I have on the TAL-1 as I don't have a converter for that, but plan will be to fit the legs to one of the EQ5's tho I may need to use some packing washers to match the gap. Should look nice with the 100RS riding above 🙂 

[markse68]

1 hour ago, DaveL59 said:

A very nice TAL wood tripod

Nice find Dave- they seem to be getting scarce due to the scourge of "designer lamps"

Mark

[DaveL59]

1 hour ago, markse68 said:

Nice find Dave- they seem to be getting scarce due to the scourge of "designer lamps"

Mark

so true and of course that's pushed prices up lots too. I was at one time looking at surveyor tripods but they've jumped in price in many cases and many are collect, so not many over my way. Now I'd just need to find a TAL head for a wood tripod... maybe - tho I think with the EQ5 it'd be just fine with the convenience of either GoTo or dual-motor drive.

The top of the tripod boss looks like this:

So I guess it may be possible to just bolt the EQ5 directly via that central hole? Will try that at some stage later perhaps, but that'd be a fair chunk of weight. Might be OK tho once the scope is balanced up etc.

Edited March 27, 2023 by DaveL59

[markse68]

13 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

The top of the tripod boss looks like this:

Wonder why they removed the steel cup for the Tal head? When I picked up my Tal 100R the seller had the tripod but wouldn't let me have it as he wanted to use it for a lamp but I managed to twist his arm into unscrewing the cup part which I attached to a surveyors tripod. Is the EQ5 m9ounted with a central screw? Maybe a stack of thick mudguard washers to spread the weight underneath would do it

Mark

[John]

20 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

so true and of course that's pushed prices up lots too. I was at one time looking at surveyor tripods but they've jumped in price in many cases and many are collect, so not many over my way. Now I'd just need to find a TAL head for a wood tripod... maybe - tho I think with the EQ5 it'd be just fine with the convenience of either GoTo or dual-motor drive.

The top of the tripod boss looks like this:

So I guess it may be possible to just bolt the EQ5 directly via that central hole? Will try that at some stage later perhaps, but that'd be a fair chunk of weight. Might be OK tho once the scope is balanced up etc.

It might be possible to simply remove the TAL hub (or what is left of it) and bolt the legs onto an EQ5 compatible hub. How wide are the hub flanges (the bit that fits between the top of the tripod legs) ?

 

[DaveL59]

13 minutes ago, markse68 said:

Wonder why they removed the steel cup for the Tal head? When I picked up my Tal 100R the seller had the tripod but wouldn't let me have it as he wanted to use it for a lamp but I managed to twist his arm into unscrewing the cup part which I attached to a surveyors tripod. Is the EQ5 m9ounted with a central screw? Maybe a stack of thick mudguard washers to spread the weight underneath would do it

Mark

Not sure Mark, but wasn't in the listing and sounds like it's just sat in a corner for a very long time so if there was a cup it may have gone walkies long ago. As for the EQ5, yeah single central bolt but the mount sits into a cup on the SW tripod head. Might work tho and agreed re some big washers to spread the load 🙂 

Edited March 27, 2023 by DaveL59

[DaveL59]

3 minutes ago, John said:

It might be possible to simply remove the TAL hub (or what is left of it) and bolt the legs onto an EQ5 compatible hub. How wide are the hub flanges (the bit that fits between the top of the tripod legs) ?

 

That was the original plan John 🙂

Thinks I'll need some penny washers to do that as the TAL boss is 45mm vs the SW ally leg one at 35mm. The one the GoTo is on has the round legs so a different fitment that wouldn't work. I'll find a way... 🙂 

[John]

2 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

That was the original plan John 🙂

Thinks I'll need some penny washers to do that as the TAL boss is 45mm vs the SW ally leg one at 35mm. The one the GoTo is on has the round legs so a different fitment that wouldn't work. I'll find a way... 🙂 

Sounds right. I used a TAL tripod to mount an AZ-3 a few years back and recall needing quite a few washers between the tripod leg tops and the sides of the mount hub flange. It worked quite well though - so much better than the flimsy aluminium tripod that was supplied with the mount as standard.

 

[markse68]

beautiful new old tripod- hopefully to mount my Tal-200k on a GM8 for “portable” tracking setup

Pretty stable for 4kg

Mark

 

[Jasonb]

Two separate deliveries, the Flocking Material and Solar Filter from FLO, and the Dual Speed Focuser from fellow SGLer @Greg Shaw (thanks Greg!). All upgrades for my Skywatcher Explorer 150P...

 

 

 

 

 

[SuburbanMak]

The postman brought a Pentax XW 5mm,  which was nice of him. 
 

Quickly despatched from @FLO as always and remarkable packaging by Ricoh/Pentax.  Just need the clouds to clear… 

 

[cajen2]

37 minutes ago, SuburbanMak said:

The postman brought a Pentax XW 5mm,  which was nice of him. 
 

Quickly despatched from @FLO as always and remarkable packaging by Ricoh/Pentax.  Just need the clouds to clear… 

 

Excellent EP; got one myself.

[LongJohn54]

I heard the DPD van pull up and went to open the front door.   The driver slid the parcel from the front to the back of the van then hoiked it onto his shoulder and strolled down the path.  He placed the box carefully at my feet and exclaimed 'That was a bit heavy, glad I didn't have to walk too far.'
A small packet was taped to one end and unsuprisingly contained FLO's clouds along with a dew strap!  But it was the big box that held the exciting stuff.

And finally a family group.  On the left is an Ian King Ikorus 102ED, then a TS 127 Achro next to the Askar 130PHQ.  The Askar almost weighs the same as both the other two put together.  My two old scopes will be sold as I cannot see the Askar ever being removed once it has been mounted.

 

 

[wookie1965]

 Nice UOVT 12.5mm from Steve (Saganite) cannot wait to try it. 

[Dave scutt]

Another fast delivering from flo.

Going to test it out now to see if I can achieve focus.