For the price I would say money well spent. I have been recommending them for awhile and people really like them.

 

I hope the 9mm I ordered doesn't have an undercut drawtube, although I have a spare smooth chromed brass one. I read somewhere that someone had sold all their TV Plossls and replaced them with GSO's after using a couple. I'm interested in trying the 9mm, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating lol!

 

I'm pretty sure the GSO Plossls are made in Taiwan.

 

The 9mm GSO Plossl looks decently made and from what I can tell from daylight tests is quite sharp and bright with a well contrasted image. Not bad for under 30 quid! They are made in Taiwan. I was disappointed at first to discover that it has an aluminium drawtube with an undercut.



So I experimented with a spare Japanese brass drawtube.



It was then that I noticed that the original drawtube, apart from being slightly longer than the Synta ones, actually has a tapered lower lip. This is basically like modern TeleVue undercuts.



It even worked perfectly in the Baader Helical focuser which is usually the test for undercuts. Previously, only TeleVue EP's or smooth barrels have extracted well due to there being three set screws.



So I reunited the GSO with its original drawtube and tried it in every adapter I have. I discovered that the GSO is as easy to extract from a compression ring as TeleVue EP's. So I'm going to leave it with its original drawtube for now.



No more dewed eyepieces for me either!

 

Live launch on NASA-TV:

https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/#public

Scheduled for 10:01AM EST.

Dave

 

Brilliant ... erm ... what's that in GMT Dave lol?

 

It is 10:06AM here now - and 3:06PM where you are. We are +5hrs.

And they just aborted the launch until tomorrow - 13sec. before launch - due to confusion about thrust-vectors on the 2nd. stage.

Dave

 

Yes, I was watching.















These are screenshots I made with Vivaldi's new screen grab function, they are not in chronological order.

 

Oh, Mak -

Do say 'hello' to the last person the Cat dragged in - Jetstream. A well-known member of 'that which shall not be named.'

He's out of Ontario. As I am wishing I was, too!

Yipes!

Dave & Raul

 

I thought the user name was familiar lol.

 

"If we build it - they will come..."

Well, I hope they "lightthis candle" and launch that rocket tomorrow. It's the first launch out on that particular launch-pad - which is the same pad that all the Apollo-missions to the Moon lifted-off from. I was 9 when Apollo 11 took of with Armstrong & company aboard for the first lunar-landing and walkabout. Which I remember vividly to this day.

The greatest concern and disaster scenario was the possibility that the Moon's surface was dust, and the LEM (the Lunar Excursion Module) would sink like a hot knife through butter. Never to be seen again! There's a song by Ed Sander's of The Fugs-fame that isn't on youtube: "Beer-cans on the Moon." And that disaster did indeed happen, though on a different mission.

"Looking, Looking, Looking...Looking at the Beer-cans on the Moon!"

Dave

 

According to the site:

'The next potential launch opportunity is Sunday at 9:38:59 a.m. EST. It would be an instantaneous launch window to allow the cargo-laden Dragon spacecraft to reach the International Space Station.'

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacex/2017/02/18/sunday-launch-time-93859-a-m-est/

 

Sounds exciting, I expect jpegs lol.

 

Got first light with the 9mm GSO Plossl with a twilight Venus and Mars. Venus was very bright and I also used a TS Optics (GSO) Wratten 56 Green filter.



The phase was very apparent on Venus.



There was no chance of seeing Uranus due to conditions, but the light haze did help with the Venusian glare.

 

Thanks for the schedule update on SpaceX, Mak. I'll plan to check-in for that.

Hopefully - they'll have had time to read the instructions by then.....

Dave

 

It was probably a software problem as they were running Vista I think lol.

 

That looks good, Ray. I saw this one at Agena; http://agenaastro.com/celestron-1-25-universal-t-adapter-2x-barlow-93640.html What caught my eye was the T adapter threads allowing for prime focus photography. I know nothing on that subject as yet, but I haven't seen another Barlow with this capability?

 

I'm not sure who the OEM of the Celestron T-adapter/Barlows is, I have a couple of them, one old one with a smooth brass draw tube.

I'm pretty sure this TS Optics is GSO: http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop...rated-T2-thread---photo-adapter-for-Newt.html