12121 replies to this topic

[John R.]

I have that scope also, although not near as nice a GEM as you have under it. Last time I used it was just looking at the moon with a 25mm plossl, 48x. Certainly no complaints, very sharp and the atmosphere was steady, although there was a bit of haze in the air. Mine has a home-made adapter for 1.25 that works fine. The mount I was using, a Sparta WD006 is not steady enough, although a better tripod would probably help. 

Edited by John R., 24 December 2024 - 07:23 PM.

[Cavs56]

I should have been more specific I meant the 1.25 adapter.

[elstargazer12]

Ah, yes the 1.25" adapter. I dealt with this back in 2018, but I remember the basic idea. The outer diameter of the drawtube is just a tiny bit larger than 1.25" (maybe 32mm??). So I scavenged a 1.25" eyepiece holder, maybe off an old diagonal or barlow, used a lathe to turn out the inner diameter of the 1.25" portion to a diameter just below the drawtube OD to a depth of maybe 1/2 inch, then just pressed it in a vise. (i.e., made a standard press fit part). Worked great ever since. The diagonal doesn't quite go in all the way, but as long as it's locked down, that's no problem. The drawtube itself rotates anyways, so there's no reason to need to loosen/tighten the diagonal once it's in. 

[ccwemyss]

Eyepieces do matter. I was testing a new scope on the Trapezium tonight, using a 5mm UO volcano-top ortho. E was just visible, but F wasn't showing. So I switched to a Pentax SMC 5mm ortho and E became easy and F became an occasional maybe (seeing wasn't the best). 

 

Chip W. 

[Paul Sweeney]

I woke up early this morning to a clear sky, so I went out with my Vixen 80L. Sky conditions were unusually good, being both clear and stable, maybe a 7/10. That is really good for Germany in the winter.

First up was Mars. I was able to use 240x. Mars looked really nice. The polae cap was very easy to see. It was separated from the planet by a dark line, which made it stand out nicely. The planets surface showed dark areas.

Then I split some doubles. Izar was very nice. The greenish companion was sitting right on the diffraction ring. It looked like a diamond ring.

The moon was next. The terminator area had lots to see. Gassendi was well placed and showed nice detail. Aristarchus and Herodtus made a nice pairing. Vallis Schröter dominated the view with it's dramatic structure. I had the feeling that it was going to burst open at any moment.

Last up was Mercury. At this time of year, it is an achievement to just find it among the clouds and fog. Today it was easy. The view through the scope was poor because of turbulence near the horizon. I could make out a roughly half-phase Mercury with bright red and blue on the tips. The colors decreased as Mercury rose higher, but never went completely away.

[highfnum]

the grinch  

DX8

Jupiter

[deSitter]

Eyepieces do matter. I was testing a new scope on the Trapezium tonight, using a 5mm UO volcano-top ortho. E was just visible, but F wasn't showing. So I switched to a Pentax SMC 5mm ortho and E became easy and F became an occasional maybe (seeing wasn't the best). 

 

Chip W. 

Interesting. I will test my 12mm Meade vs. 12mm Vixen orthos in the same way.

 

-drl

[Defenderslideguitar]

Just got home from a trip to Catskills the day after Christmas  Dark skies at   nice   Air B and B    

 

First night was grand with Grandsons in bed    and hanging with the dogs outside 

 Don't get me wrong      they are so much fun     nothing like talking to the 4.5 year old about stars and planets and  he names a few     the 2.5 year old is just plain funny in almost everything he does and says     but....

 

with clear cold skies   good seeing the first night anyway     folks who live away from the I 95 corridor  up in deer country have a real advantage     I  had the Everyday Grab and Go Vixen 80Fluorite for easy no worry use   lovely low power views of Pleaides and Orion        then pushing power up with    Jupiter  and Mars   I   like this scope but I should have brought a bigger refractor along perhaps  but I had the suv stuffed

 

some clouds the next day  the    cloudy then rain followed the next day into yesterday  

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Edited by Defenderslideguitar, 30 December 2024 - 06:10 PM.

[CHASLX200]

If the sea fog don't roll in too soon i may force myself to roll out the 826 and look at Jup. Should be 8+ seeing.

[starman876]

last night it was so clear.  Jupiter, Mars, orion all clearly visible.   I love those nights.  Mars was very bright.  Polar ice cap easy to see. 

Edited by starman876, 31 December 2024 - 06:06 PM.

[CHASLX200]

Jupiter in 20 mins.

[cavedweller]

I have been plagued with high thin clouds and periods of high winds for the past week, but last night was at least calm although some high clouds persisted. I am in a restricted commercial flight zone that spans an area to include Edwards AFB and NAWS China Lake, but jets fly just to the west over the Sierras and the prevailing winds bring their contrails over me. Still good enough to view Jupiter and Mars through my orange C8. 

[CHASLX200]

Venus is a monster half disk with a 2.8mm . Jupiter needs to come up some more. 8mm drop dead good but choppy with a 4mm.

[clamchip]

Today a little sun on the valley but not so much that everything shimmers.

My Jaegers/Vixen 4 inch f/15 was my instrument of choice.

A mail box on the other side of the valley about a mile and a half was my target.

Black mail box with 8316 on the door, gold self-adhesive 1 inch numbers.

I found a coyote stalking something in the grass a mile out and it caught a mole for lunch. 

Down it went in one piece head first. It didn't use it's paws at all, chomp, chomp

chomp, maybe 4 chomps and it was gone.

After recent rains the valley is very with wet standing water everywhere and I'll

bet the moles probably come out on the surface more than normal and the coyotes

knows this for a easy meal.

 

Robert

[CHASLX200]

Just drop dead still at a easy 9. Jup looks best in a 7mm Delite.  4mm Radian does well but once you slap up the pow wow higher the image starts to dim on Jup.  Even used a 2.5mm LV and the moons are nice balls but Jupiter is dim.  Lots of water in the air and winter is the best nites for seeing when sea fog starts to move onshore and the temps are warm.

 

AP800 mount and 826 are the total dream setup.

[Airship]

About 90 minutes before sunset I set my 6” f/15 Jaegers refractor outside to checkout a new focuser installation which is part of an on-going top-down refurb of this scope. The forecast for the evening called for clouds to arrive during dusk so I started with Venus in daylight. The planet looked absolutely gorgeous at 163x and 260x showing a slight gibbous and showing wonderful soft details along the terminator. As dusk deepened I slewed over to Vega which showed a brilliant blue against the deepening blue of dusk. From there I hopped up to Epsilon Lyra which showed 4 clearly resolved pinpoint stars. Close examination showed a tiny, sharp Airy disk and a single, sharp diffraction ring at 260x. From there I swung over to Saturn which looked gorgeous despite a thickening veil of haze. I ended the evening with Jupiter. As the flowing veil of haze ebbed and flowed I switched between 260x and 416x. I don't think that I have ever seen such fine detail on Jupiter. All four Galilean moons were visible, each showing a tiny disk with its own size and color. Europa was just starting to transit showing as a bright spark over the southern equatorial band. By this time the increasing clouds brought an end to a very amazing and productive day.

 

My baby... a work in-progress...

 

 

[deSitter]

Today a little sun on the valley but not so much that everything shimmers.

My Jaegers/Vixen 4 inch f/15 was my instrument of choice.

A mail box on the other side of the valley about a mile and a half was my target.

Black mail box with 8316 on the door, gold self-adhesive 1 inch numbers.

I found a coyote stalking something in the grass a mile out and it caught a mole for lunch. 

Down it went in one piece head first. It didn't use it's paws at all, chomp, chomp

chomp, maybe 4 chomps and it was gone.

After recent rains the valley is very with wet standing water everywhere and I'll

bet the moles probably come out on the surface more than normal and the coyotes

knows this for a easy meal.

 

Robert

When I got my first telescope it was cloudy for 2 weeks. There was a subdivision about a mile away across a creek valley. I think I knew every license plate in that subdivision!

 

-drl

[oldmanastro]

On the night of December 29 I had clear skies and a seeing of at least 8. I decided to do some observing with my B&L 4000 SCT. It is a well collimated telescope but shows a bit of astigmatism at high power. I would give the optics a C-. Nonetheless I had a good time observing the Orion doubles Rigel, Zeta and Eta, Gamma, Sigma and Iota Orionis plus M42. I was able to split Eat and Zeta at high magnification. Jupiter was very nice with the 6mm UO ortho showing several belts and some details. Mars was more difficult but the polar caps were visible. The images of Jupiter and Mars were taken with a 2X Barlow and ZWOASI224mc camera. It was not that bad for C- optics. Jupiter was a a high altitude when the image was taken. I had intermittent clouds coming from the north with a nice mild cool breeze and 70 degrees. The B&L 4000 mount is the best feature. It is solid and the tracking is good enough for these images. Not bad for a 40 year telescope. 

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

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Edited by oldmanastro, 01 January 2025 - 11:17 AM.

[ccwemyss]

There's that white oval feature on the south edge of the NEB that I was seeing the other night, which was just going around the limb when you took your earlier image with the GRS so nicely placed. It's impressive that the 4000 gets that much detail.

 

Chip W.

[highfnum]

airship

lovely Jeager F15

I got F10 version 

most of time Jeager are good 

lost era for sure

here is rongram of my  6 inch F 10

Edited by highfnum, 01 January 2025 - 09:30 AM.

[Bomber Bob]

Happy 2025 to All Y'all Classics!

 

Christmas Eve was the best planetary night in weeks; in fact, I think it was the best night in 2024 -- seeing at 9.75 / 10 (y'all know I hate calling things perfect).  So, I did a systematic SideBySide between my Meade 826 & FC-100 to answer several questions...

 

1.  Does double the aperture mean double the features?  YES.  I counted belts, barges, & ovals -- objective features that don't take much time to identify.

2.  What's the ideal magnification :: aperture ratio for these 2 old scopes?  55x / in for the 8" Newt, and 75x / in for the 4" APO; or, 450x vs. 300x.

3.  What's the highest-resolution eyepiece for each scope?  TV Radians for both.

4.  Which eyepiece delivers the most natural colors for each scope?  AT Paradigms in the 826, and TV Radians in the FC-100 -- AT P-8 vs. TV-4.

 

Seeing was so close to perfect that the NEB & SEB were more brown than gray, and the GRS had pink in it using the Radian 4 in the FC-100.  No sketching; instead, I made notes.  Albedo shading on Ganymede in the 826 at 480x (LV 2.5); then, once I knew where / how to look, at 375x (AT P-3.2).  So glad I replaced the original R&P focuser with the Lumicon helical.

 

Since then, the "clear" nights have been plagued by airmass boundary issues -- very high winds starting at 9K to 12K MSL.  It's been great for open clusters!  Double Cluster at 25x / 62x (RKE 21 / 8) in the Carton 101 F5; plus Cassiopeia, Perseus, & Auriga...  Can't imagine backyard views any better than what I've seen.  So, hoping that Christmas Eve to date are previews of FEB & March.

[deSitter]

Happy 2025 to All Y'all Classics!

 

Christmas Eve was the best planetary night in weeks; in fact, I think it was the best night in 2024 -- seeing at 9.75 / 10 (y'all know I hate calling things perfect).  So, I did a systematic SideBySide between my Meade 826 & FC-100 to answer several questions...

 

1.  Does double the aperture mean double the features?  YES.  I counted belts, barges, & ovals -- objective features that don't take much time to identify.

2.  What's the ideal magnification :: aperture ratio for these 2 old scopes?  55x / in for the 8" Newt, and 75x / in for the 4" APO; or, 450x vs. 300x.

3.  What's the highest-resolution eyepiece for each scope?  TV Radians for both.

4.  Which eyepiece delivers the most natural colors for each scope?  AT Paradigms in the 826, and TV Radians in the FC-100 -- AT P-8 vs. TV-4.

 

Seeing was so close to perfect that the NEB & SEB were more brown than gray, and the GRS had pink in it using the Radian 4 in the FC-100.  No sketching; instead, I made notes.  Albedo shading on Ganymede in the 826 at 480x (LV 2.5); then, once I knew where / how to look, at 375x (AT P-3.2).  So glad I replaced the original R&P focuser with the Lumicon helical.

 

Since then, the "clear" nights have been plagued by airmass boundary issues -- very high winds starting at 9K to 12K MSL.  It's been great for open clusters!  Double Cluster at 25x / 62x (RKE 21 / 8) in the Carton 101 F5; plus Cassiopeia, Perseus, & Auriga...  Can't imagine backyard views any better than what I've seen.  So, hoping that Christmas Eve to date are previews of FEB & March.

Wow that's fantastic but what about poor Mars? He's trying to put on a show between the shivers. My CSS shows BAD seeing for days. Hope it's not weeks of it. HNYBB!

 

-drl

[Cavs56]

I went out last week one night excited to try out my new build I thought something was wrong with the telescope. I grabbed my Vixen 90mm, poorest viewing conditions I have ever seen. Cloudy ever since.

[davidmcgo]

The rest of the week after Christmas was crap with all sorts of high clouds and they didn’t clear out until after midnight Saturday.  My wife and I went out exploring Amboy Crater and the Mojave in my new AWD Ford Transit and were camped out Saturday night at Mid Hills in the Mojave Preserve and I popped awake at 1:30 am for a nature call and stepped out of the van to clear skies.  Since I wasn’t hopeful for astronomy on this outing all I had brought was my vintage orange tube Comet Catcher and an Omegon Mount Az Baby and an old lightweight Davis and Sanford tripod.  Spent about an hour with a 26mm silvertop Plossl and had great views of all the bright Messier clusters from Gemini and Auriga down to Monoceros, plus Canis Major and Puppis.  M42 looked fabulous, all the M clusters were nicely resolved and enough sky around them for context.  Also picked up a tiny 18x view of M51, NGC 4565, M65 and 66 in Leo before the cold wind drove me back to bed.

 

This was my first dark sky trip with the Comet Catcher.  I think I need to wear glasses with it or get an eyepiece to fit one of the TeleView astigmatism correction lenses for my dominant eye.  My non dominant eye handles the  big exit pupil much better but I can’t hold the view comfortably enough for Milky Way sweeps.

 

Tonight finally looks like a decent night at home and Thursday until midnight or so, so I will be setting up the 1973 C14 in a little while.

 

Dave

Edited by davidmcgo, 01 January 2025 - 03:48 PM.

[Defenderslideguitar]

On the night of December 29 I had clear skies and a seeing of at least 8. I decided to do some observing with my B&L 4000 SCT. It is a well collimated telescope but shows a bit of astigmatism at high power. I would give the optics a C-. Nonetheless I had a good time observing the Orion doubles Rigel, Zeta and Eta, Gamma, Sigma and Iota Orionis plus M42. I was able to split Eat and Zeta at high magnification. Jupiter was very nice with the 6mm UO ortho showing several belts and some details. Mars was more difficult but the polar caps were visible. The images of Jupiter and Mars were taken with a 2X Barlow and ZWOASI224mc camera. It was not that bad for C- optics. Jupiter was a a high altitude when the image was taken. I had intermittent clouds coming from the north with a nice mild cool breeze and 70 degrees. The B&L 4000 mount is the best feature. It is solid and the tracking is good enough for these images. Not bad for a 40 year telescope. 

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Happy New Year    Hey did you get power back on P.R.?