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What did you observe with your classic telescope today ?

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#11701 Esso2112

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Posted 01 February 2025 - 10:51 PM

Chilly night tonight, but did get some observing in.  Tonight, it was a battle of two what I consider modern classics, though they were both made in 1989.  Scope 1 tonight was the “new” Questar Seven on a modern Crux 170HD mount.  Scope 2 was my Takahashi FCT-125 on a DM-6 mount.  Started both on the moon, with both yielding beautiful contrast and not a hint of color along the moons periphery.  I was using Questar Brandon’s in the Seven and ZAO-1’s in the Tak.  M42 was just as beautiful in both scopes with clear knots in the nebulosity.   The Tak kept right up with the big Questar.   The Trapezium showed the e star in the Tak, but I couldn’t see the f star tonight.   At first, the Questar was only showing 4 stars in the Trapezium.  Went in and got warm and then came back out.  Put the Questar back on the Trapezium, and there they were, both e and f stars as nice little pinpoints of light.  Much happier.   Spent some more time on M42 with the seven.  Then popped down to Sirius with both scopes.  Not a trace of false color in either scope.

 

i had the Televue Apollo 11 in a 2” diagonal on the axial port of the Questar.  Sirius showed a lot of false colors and was pretty ugly.  Went back to the Brandon 24mm with barlow and no false color.   The Apollo 11 is one of favorite eyepieces and I have never been disappointed with it until tonight.  It just doesn’t like the Questar.  I tried it without the diagonal and the view was the same.  Oh well, it shines in my other scopes.  Just need to remember to not use it with the Questar.  
 

Overall a fun night comparing two pretty amazing and very different classics.  


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#11702 davidmcgo

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Posted 02 February 2025 - 10:47 AM

Best night ever with my 10.25” Dall Kirkham! This scope is built around an old optics set I bought from Norm James in the SDAA some years back and he had bought them used in 1970.  I initially made a strut assembly with plywood and telescoping aluminum tube sections to work out the spacing  sand test the scope out and was impressed enough to do a Hastings tube with Parallax rings, laser cut mirror cell, Feathertouch focuser, cooling fans, and a flocked liner from Protostar, so it looks modern but optics are vintage.

 

 The forecast was for high humidity and mediocre seeing for my house from the NWS, so I chose to set it up on my old Losmandy G11 instead of the C14 since I don’t have a good battery yet for the C14 dew heater.  

 

It was pretty steady at the start, Venus and the Moon were in the same field of the finder scope.  In the 10.25”, the Moon was fabulously detailed with the Rhineland Valley very close to the terminator.  Lots of detail in Mare Crisium around O’Neill’s Bridge.

 

Saturn looked decent with the 14mm Pentax (320x) but a little wavy and ring close to edge on.  Neptune was in the same finder field as the Moon and Venus but wasn’t visible in late twilight in the finder but was able to sweep it up in the 10.25” as a little bluish grey disk at 230x

 

Jupiter has a shadow transit of Io with a lot of belt detail and a huge festoon in the Equatorial Zone.  

 

Uranus was a beautiful turquoise globe, really bright and colorful
 

Mars was really sharp.  As the night wore on I was mostly swapping between my 10mm and 7mm eyepieces (450x and 650x).  There were a couple of white spots in Amazonis, Syrtis Major was swing8ng into view and full of all kinds of shading and mottling.  I don’t like filtered views of Mars so my preference on a good night is to get up around 60-70xper inch to cut the glare down.  I had some moments where a 5mm eyepiece was useful (910x).  Swung back to Ganymede with this eyepiece and saw some mottling on it’s disk.

 

The Pup was plain as day with the 14mm, Sirius wasn’t even twinkling.  Eta Orionis, Theta Auriga, Zeta Orionis we’re all nice.  So was Zeta Cancri.  Center of M42 was a threat, E and F stars in the Trapezium just sitting there, with all sorts of detail in the nebula.  Caster at 650x was stunning.  Each star surrounded by one diffraction ring and huge separation between them like a set of ultra bright headlights.
 

Just a pure wow night where the air really stabilized and it was clear and not too humid.  I do regret not having the C14 up, but didn’t want to try to get it together in the dark and the initial weather forecast didn’t look good for it.  

 

Dave


Edited by davidmcgo, 02 February 2025 - 12:02 PM.

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#11703 CHASLX200

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Posted 02 February 2025 - 10:50 AM

Jup at 600x and Venus at 700 pow wows. 8 seeing for once.


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#11704 Bomber Bob

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Posted 02 February 2025 - 01:44 PM

When the Seeing is 8 my old C8 does Great!!  Not as calm as Christmas Eve, but at least as clear, with a "low" of 42F - very gradual temp drop...  Paired my Carton 101 F5 with my C8 -- lovely views of Crescents at 20x (RKE 28) with the RFT.  Debbie was impressed, too.  

 

Jupiter at 375x (AT P-3.2):  8 Belts, some striations w/in the North Polar Region, and Io's Transit -- just to name a few.  Very large White Oval in the SEB easy at 80x (AT P-25), but I lost the orange in the NTB -- had to back off to 300x (R-4) to enjoy all the colors.

 

Mars at 400x - 500x stole the show:  Again, Utopia is jet black, with varying thickness, and scattered crooked fingers pointing south.  No moisture haze over Tharsis - dang it.  But Hellas rising was very prominent.  I noticed that the Sands Of Mars in the C8 are flesh-colored -- none of the tangerine + rust that I see in my Meade 826.  Intermittent hints of ice / haze in Hellas, but I think that was my brain adding to rather than actually seeing.  My Brain also created a Canal from near Utopia running just south of the equator... 

 

It's much much easier to use my sketch pad with the C8:  I brace the case on an arm of my favorite lawn chair.  Didn't realize I'd been at the eyepiece for 2+ hours until Debbie checked on me...


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#11705 Jay_Reynolds_Freeman

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Posted 02 February 2025 - 06:44 PM

I had first light of a newly-acquired Takahashi Teegul last night, February 1. Scruffy seeing and considerable sky brightness combined to make the session short and not very memorable, but at 42x I could glimpse the Petavius Rille in a three-day Moon. M42 and M43 were very colorful at the same magnification, I could easily see four stars in the Trapezium, and I logged a few other Messier objects.


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#11706 davidmcgo

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Posted 02 February 2025 - 11:38 PM

I set up the C14 this afternoon and was checking out Venus and Jupiter while dinner was in the oven,  Once it got to Sunset, there were a lot of high clouds coming in from the southwest.  It ended up not nearly as steady or transparent as the previous night but I still got really nice views of Jupiter with the increased aperture really bringing the colors of the belts, festoons, and red spot to life more than the 10.25” can.  With Mars being lower in elevation I did have issues for a while with heat plumes inside the scope distorting the image a bit too much for the 12mm Brandon   I need a wider roll of Reflectix to cover this beast.

 

Dave

 

 

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#11707 ccwemyss

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Posted 02 February 2025 - 11:44 PM

I found that I also needed to make a reflectix back cover. I have a CF dewshield and the reflectix goes all the way up that too. Works great!
 

Chip W.


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#11708 vineyard

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Posted 03 February 2025 - 11:05 AM

Have been enjoying using my Ceravolo HD145 on planetary - including trying it out as an imaging scope.  Last night was mostly spent on Mars and Jupiter.  I'm torn between using it to image more, or just enjoying it visually - I will probably do both!

 

(If you click on the Jupiter it'll take you to astrobin where there's a 10 minutes of rotation video too - the planet moves fast)

 

get.jpg?insecure

 

get.jpg?insecure


Edited by vineyard, 03 February 2025 - 11:07 AM.

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#11709 Bomber Bob

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Posted 03 February 2025 - 04:58 PM

BIF:  By the time I finished with Mars, the Moon was behind the sky-scrapers (okay, tall state gov't buildings), and Orion was on the meridian.

 

Got 6 stars in the Trapezium at 200x (LV-10), A-D + E & G.  F was too iffy to count.  I forgot to try M79 -- my first "faint" globulars all those decades ago.  M35 & M37 were stunning!  Eskimo wasn't as big, bright, or detailed as in my 826, but I call it a win on a night with a waxing Moon present.


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#11710 CHASLX200

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Posted 03 February 2025 - 07:33 PM

8  to 9 seeing now and trying out the 10" F/6 Newt. Thing is insane sharp. No mirror is gonna one up this Ed Stevens blank.


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#11711 highfnum

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Posted 03 February 2025 - 07:38 PM

more images from "pesky"

Cometron jr

 

moon and jupiter

Capture 2025-02-03T17_50_12jbcometronmn.jpg

 

Capture 2025-02-03T17_49_07jbcometronmw.jpg

 

Capture 2025-02-03T18_31_25jbcometronjbstE.jpg


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#11712 CHASLX200

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Posted 03 February 2025 - 07:47 PM

Jup and moon are nuts tonite.  Even a 2.8mm Tak the moon holds up good but that is getting kinda high on the pow wow. Jup looks the best in a 7 and 5mm Delite.  Mars showing easy detail as well. M42 with E and F easy to see.  This is the first time i have used the scope since i got it about 6 weeks ago and sea fog is moving in.


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#11713 CHASLX200

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Posted 03 February 2025 - 07:48 PM

Looks good as mine would never focus new.


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#11714 Airship

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Posted 03 February 2025 - 10:17 PM

Catching a little moonlight before the clouds roll in...

 

Jaegers (2-3-2025)-2.jpg

 

I spent some time with Venus, Jupiter, and Mars as well along with the Trapezium, Sigma Orionis, and Beta Monoceros. 

 

I have entered the use it, use it, use it phase with the new scope to work out the kinks and the procedures to set it up and take it down. Despite its size, it is a remarkably easy system to work with. The heaviest component is the tripod, and I have a cart for that. Easy peasy. I also checked to see if I could reach focus with my Meade 2" 56mm Super Plossl and Celestron 2" 70mm Kelner, yes on both. Woohoo!

 

 


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#11715 Bungee

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Posted 03 February 2025 - 11:29 PM

I was setting up a new scope (more on that later) to catch an early Moon when some friends (with their kids) stopped by to hay their horses. Turns out the older boy got a scope for Christmas and knew what I was up to. Chores being done, I invited them to join in and added the Unitron. With the Moon and Venus in view the boy begged to look through the C8. I set it up on Jupiter with a new-to-me Edmund Scientific 8mm, and to my surprise, I could see the red spot! First time ever.

 

As excited as I was to see the red spot, it couldn't compare to watching this young family eat up everything I could throw at them. New scope, Unitron, C8, Saturn, Venus, Moon, Jupiter, Mars. Great night. 


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#11716 highfnum

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Posted 04 February 2025 - 01:21 AM

Chaslx200. Neither this one

6 hrs of collimation is what did it

that's why reputation was bad

 

Jones bird very sensitive to any minor misalignment

The optics are ok 



#11717 CHASLX200

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Posted 04 February 2025 - 06:47 AM

Chaslx200. Neither this one

6 hrs of collimation is what did it

that's why reputation was bad

 

Jones bird very sensitive to any minor misalignment

The optics are ok 

Mine would never get close. I just got my money back.


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#11718 highfnum

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Posted 04 February 2025 - 07:14 AM

Chaslx200.

this is from original sept 1957 article

by R T Jones 

 

RTjonesalignF.jpg


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#11719 deSitter

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Posted 04 February 2025 - 07:58 AM

Chaslx200.

this is from original sept 1957 article

by R T Jones 

 

attachicon.gif RTjonesalignF.jpg

It is a general problem with small sub-aperture correctors, for simple geometric reasons of scaling.

 

-drl



#11720 Bomber Bob

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Posted 04 February 2025 - 01:26 PM

Thanks for The Moon Pix -- those 3 craters were interesting...  I did a big scope-rotation yesterday, and hoped I'd get to use my Tinsley 6, but... Nope.  A high-altitude impulse started pushing through around 00Z.  Lots of clear air, but motions shot up.  Before that, I had my C80P at 180x (LV-5) locked on The Moon:  The center crater had what looked like a cluster of a half-dozen "eggs" on the floor.  As the seeing degraded, I said a few unkind words, and brought out my C8...

 

I got my best views of the GRS & belt colors with a Radian 8 (250x) - pushing to 500x with the R-4 got a colorful Beach Ball.  Mars at 400x (LV-5) was only slightly more detailed than at 270x (N-7), but I stuck with it until the crazy air pushed east.

 

I did get occasional hints of pink in the GRS at 180x with the C80P, but not enough to say it's confirmed.  Most likely, my own form of CA...


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#11721 CHASLX200

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Posted 04 February 2025 - 07:02 PM

Chaslx200.

this is from original sept 1957 article

by R T Jones 

 

attachicon.gif RTjonesalignF.jpg

Not sure if it was collimation as the thingy inside was missing.



#11722 deSitter

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Posted 04 February 2025 - 10:03 PM

First light for a near-mint ETX-125 - very happy. Toured the Solar System. Caught Saturn through the tree limbs - could see the last remnant of Cassini and the black between the crepe ring and the ball during bursts of excellent seeing at dusk. Venus was spectacular and absolutely colorless even with a prism. Moon was jaw-dropping - concentrated on the Apollo 11 landing zone using my RACI diagonal - which seems to be at least as good as my 3x as expensive Tak diagonal. The latter is starting to annoy me. Ariadaeus Rille was incredible! Fun ended there. Mars was presenting its blank hemisphere so that was a bust. By the time I got to Jupiter the air was boiling a bit. No satellite phenomena, no red spot. The satellites were nice little colored disks. Scope performed fine at 200x (40x per inch). I think the 105 is a shade better but I'd have to check again in better seeing. Finished up hunting for Trap E and F and briefly saw both in my RACI, but only saw E in the Tak diagonal. It may have been down to seeing. I think I'm going to do a comparo of my Meade #918A prism next time. The Tak has serious internal shinies that I need to fix. As of now it's on probation :)

 

The RACI is branded Astromania and I think it is made by GSO. I never expected it to even come close to the Tak. Highly recommended.

 

-drl


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#11723 CHASLX200

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Posted 05 February 2025 - 06:57 AM

First light for a near-mint ETX-125 - very happy. Toured the Solar System. Caught Saturn through the tree limbs - could see the last remnant of Cassini and the black between the crepe ring and the ball during bursts of excellent seeing at dusk. Venus was spectacular and absolutely colorless even with a prism. Moon was jaw-dropping - concentrated on the Apollo 11 landing zone using my RACI diagonal - which seems to be at least as good as my 3x as expensive Tak diagonal. The latter is starting to annoy me. Ariadaeus Rille was incredible! Fun ended there. Mars was presenting its blank hemisphere so that was a bust. By the time I got to Jupiter the air was boiling a bit. No satellite phenomena, no red spot. The satellites were nice little colored disks. Scope performed fine at 200x (40x per inch). I think the 105 is a shade better but I'd have to check again in better seeing. Finished up hunting for Trap E and F and briefly saw both in my RACI, but only saw E in the Tak diagonal. It may have been down to seeing. I think I'm going to do a comparo of my Meade #918A prism next time. The Tak has serious internal shinies that I need to fix. As of now it's on probation smile.gif

 

The RACI is branded Astromania and I think it is made by GSO. I never expected it to even come close to the Tak. Highly recommended.

 

-drl

They are cut above scopes.  My first 125 was with M42 on the tube and U.S. made. 600x on the moon like nothing.


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#11724 Bomber Bob

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Posted 05 February 2025 - 04:11 PM

I got in a short but systematic & educational Side-By-Side last night between my 1972 Takahashi TS-65S / 1000 & Celestron (V) C80P / 900 on Jupiter & Mars.  Which scope shows more fine detail?  Which scope shows more belt colors?  Seeing was a solid 8 / 10 - clarity down a bit, but calm air surface to FL420 (by calm, I mean the air column winds were from the same direction, & > steadily per 3K feet).

 

COLORS:  Between about 55x - 70x per inch, the C80 will show reds & browns on Jupiter.  I intentionally paired it with the TS-65 rather than an 8" scope so I wouldn't be influenced by all those colors.  I also kept the back porch light ON, and refreshed my Cones with its indirect light.  Zones are white in the TS-65, and pale gold in the C80.  GRS is light red-brown.  NEB & SEB are dark brown.  Thin NTB is a medium brown.  These features are shades of gray & black in the TS-65.

 

DETAILS:  Both scopes at 200x, the TS-65 has superior resolution on The Moon, Jupiter, & Mars.  Planetary Limbs are sharper, and background space is blacker.  Utopia is almost a glossy black in the TS-65 -- fantastic contrast with the pure white Cap.  Sirenum is a flat black.

 

So, a quality 3" refractor can show a few colors on Jupiter.  < the CA, and the colors... aren't as pretty, but are closer to natural.


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#11725 starman876

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Posted 05 February 2025 - 04:24 PM

I observed today it was to bright out and would have to wait until it gets dark.  However, it is cloudy so I think viewing is a bust lol.gif




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