How much of an improvement can i expect to see?

[Arminovski]

Hello

I've been using an evostar 120 achro for about 8 months now. It's my first "real" telescope and I've been very pleased with it. I've seen details on planets, some double stars and even some dso-s. I do however observe from a very light polluted place, somewhere between 6 and 7 the Bortle scale I Think. All that with the supplied skywatcher 10 and 25mm modified achromat eyepieces and a 2.25/1.3X barlow. Last night was a typical night where the best I could see was close to mangnitude 10 stars. I hunted down the Crab nebula for the first time ever (at least that's what I think I did,  magn. 8.4 I believe) and it was barely visible; a faint smudge in the 25mm eyepiece. Not visible with the uhc filter. So that is my sky, roughly...

Based on the above, how much of an improvement can I expect to see with a Baader Hyperion mark III zoom? Would it be worth it or would I end up seeing roughly the same stuff? I figured it would give me about the same quality of views or better as a set of plossl eyepieces for the same cost. Additionallly I would avoid changing the eyepieces in sub zero temperatures and that zoom isn't something that I would change any time soon... It will maybe also help me figure out what kind eyepieces I would want in the future (or not)

The second question is: Does anybody have the ts optics uhc filter and can compare it to the Baader uhc-s? Any difference?

The third question is: I find it really tedious looking through the supplied finder and diagonal when I want to find stuff on the sky. How much does the performance suffer with a prism diagonal (Amichi?)? Or should I invest in a correct image finder instead? Or both?

Please share if you have any other suggestions.

Thanks in advance

[nightfisher]

I can help out about a finder, get a 9x50 and put the mounting shoe a little further "up" the tube, this will be a massive improvement

I can only guess that the badder zoom will be a good improvement but i have not used this ep myself

[John]

The Baader Zoom is a nice eyepiece. It won't actually show you stuff that your current eyepieces don't already but it will show them perhaps a bit better, with more contrast and sharpness. It's great between 20mm and 8mm but rather narrow at 24mm so you will still need a low power eyepiece around 30mm and a higher power one at around 6mm to get the most from the scope. I ought to mention that some owners have reported some problems with the zoom action in very cold conditions though.

I've owned the TS UHC filter and the Baader UHC-S. The TS UHC has a slightly tighter band pass width so stars are dimmer but nebulosity contrast is increased a bit more over the UHC-S. Both good filters but the TS UHC is that much more effective overall I feel. These filters work well on nebulae but not other deep sky object types such as galaxies and clusters.

Prism diagonals tend to reduce the quality of astro views so are best left for terrestrial viewing I feel. A right angled finder is a good upgrade as is a red dot / illuminated reticule zero power finder such as the Rigel Quickfinder.

Hope that helps

[swamp thing]

As John has said, don't expect eyepieces to work like magic wands. Better eyepieces will bring slight changes in contrast and sharpness but we are speaking slight here.

Not sure if they've fixed the problem the Baader zooms were having in the cold weather (they became very stiff indeed). If not I would hesitate to recommend them to someone that is looking for a convenient cold weather eyepiece like yourself.

[Lowjiber]

Here's something that may help you decide. I assume your scopes focal length is 1000mm.

The Baader Zoom is very nice with quality lenses. Like all zooms, as magnification is increased, the AFOV at that setting decreases. Here's a screen shot of the various zoom "click stops" with the mag and TFOV. There is a graph of the data too.

Clear, Dark Skies

[Lowjiber]

Note: I mis-typed the following sentence... "Like all zooms, as magnification is increased, the AFOV at that setting decreases."

I should have said the AFOV increases. In other words, the AFOV at 8mm is the widest, and it's the narrowist at 24mm, as the data shows.

My bad.

[Arminovski]

I would just like to say thanks to all and sorry for my slow replies. I don't expect magic wands If I get some improvement then that will be really cool. I don't have big expectations either. The biggest thrill I ever had was when I first saw Jupiter and its atmosphere with the H12/H20. I'll look through anything. ))  I went for the baader zoom but didn't have time/good skies combo to try it yet. I'm still thinking about if I need anything bigger than those 24mm and my SW25 mm. I really want baader aspheric 31 mm but I'm not sure if I really need anything that big (and expensive) so I thought to test first with vixen npl plossl 30 mm.  Does that make any sense?

[Polar Bear]

I use the Baader zoom and to my mind it is a good eyepiece for the price. 

Where it excels is that once an object is found you can zoom in to see if the view improves without having to change EP's. 

I have found this very useful on Nebula where you can immediately see if you get an increase in contrast. 

Paul