Thats a nice series, as well as Jules (didn't know they ate french food ;-) )
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Regarding the quote
"A lot of the samples I see in the astroscoping gallery are fairly poor IMHO but if the poster is happy with them that that is all that matters I guess."
What has that to do with anything, really????
The discussion was about GLASS quality, and the astro scopes are well ahead as Daniel (and others) have shown with tests.
If I get a blurry pic or try to shoot 100m with hot air, I says things about ME, and not that the scope's resolving power/glass quality etc.
When I was inspired by Pauls shots of robins, blackbirds etc, (back when I decided to buy my first scope wich was not the celestron) he shown what could be achieved with these setups, glass quality wise. I took me a couple of years and a change of scope until a came anywhere near that. But I always knew (frustratingly) that it was never the quality of the GLASS, but ME that was faulty.
And the astroscope gallery is for sharing bird pics, and though some may not be "perfect" in some peoples eyes, it's a capture of a behaviour, of a moment, of one's first BIF (try that without three arms) etc, that are valuable.