DhamR

Hard to tell the size from a photo, but could it just be an already bright star having a flare up?

Only other thought is a weather balloon.

If you can see the colours are straight (i.e. in the same order both ends) from one connector to the other then any RJ12 straight cable bought online should work.

My word the world of wide angle of view lenses is something else. 

The Nirvana seems quite fussy about eye location and definitely one for seated viewing, but I got the hang of "looking round the corner" to see to the edges of the frame. 

Seeing was poor and the moon was being a pain but the views of the beehive cluster actually took my breath away, it'll up there with the Plieades now on my list of regular stops. 

Orion was particularly affected by the moon but I saw more of the nebulosity than I had with the 25mm. 

The moon, whilst inconvenient took on a more 3D appearance than I'd seen before through the scope. It really added something. 

Definitely need a lunar/planetary EP now... 

Got a "through the clouds" look at the moon and confirmed, it's absolutely not a problem at night time. 

Have done a bit of research and found a post on "some website" that explains it really well visually.

Also explains that it should be less of an issue when the eye is dark-adapted, as your eye aperture is bigger:

I've received a used Nirvana-ES UWA 16mm today from the classifieds here and it's lovely thing (thank you seller).

Have tested it out on a neighbour's roof and the field of view is similar to the 25mm as expected, but so much bigger, much better contrast and colour, and it appears crisper too although hard to tell as I wasn't being too picky about focus when swapping from one to the other.

I struggled with what I assume is pupil constriction in daylight though, getting black patches in the opposite side of the view if I moved my eye off-centre or even looked towards the edge of the field (is this what's called kidney-beaning?).  Assuming this won't be so bad in the dark, but it was avoidable even if it is, just might not be very good for showing family/friends.

Can't wait to get out and use it.  Thursday night looks good 🤞 

I find the most annoying thing being the need to disconnect from home wifi and 4/5G.

Also find I lose phone battery very fast outside in the cold

I've been thinking of setting up an old phone purely as a syncan remote, nothing else installed, all services stopped, etc., with just synscan setup.

I use my android phone to control my heritage 150p virtuoso and with brightness down and "vision comfort" on I have no issues with adaptation. 

I can get two xcels second hand for the price of two bst's brand new, warranty, box etc. Plus if I go with the starguiders I have my pick of focal lengths. That's the only thing stopping me really. 

BSTs feel like the unimaginative option though 😂 

Struggling for responses from the seller on the Nirvana I've been looking at. 

Someone else is selling the Celestron X-Cel LX 25mm for a good price though, which is appealing. The UFF was mentioned in here but not the x-cel range. Any thoughts? 

This Angle/FoV business ontop of the magnification factor is making my head hurt.

I'm using https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/?fov[]=10054|67|||1||&fov[]=10054|68|||1||&fov[]=10054|806|||2||&fov[]=10054|105|||1||&fov[]=10054|806|||1||&fov[]=10054|122|||1||&solar_system=moon to get a feel for the range I'm looking at.

16mm Nirvana

Even if the edges are a bit iffy, it'll help finding things, and I feel like the immersion factor is pretty cool. FOV-wise it seems to replace the 25mm that came with the scope, which is my most used EP.

Next decision is based on things I'm seeing available second hand really, thinking being I'm not sure how I'll get on with them, so if I buy second hand I shouldn't lose too much cash if I dislike them.

Barlow the 16mm Nirvana

This (in my head at least) will reduce edge iffiness, and concentrate on the central portion of the EP where it's good, at the cost of light collection, maybe a bit of vignetting.  Will it mess up my idea of parfocality? Will I need to rack the focus back in to use the barlow?

8mm Starguider

Alternative option - well loved EPs from what I can see, would be a slightly higher power replacement of the 10mm, but mag (ignoring angle of view) sits bang on the barlowed mag of the 16mm Nirvana.

You'll also see a 40mm Plossl on there, but only because I've seen one going and wonder what that size exit pupil and light-catching ability would be like.

Definitely seek out the Orion Nebula (M42) if you want to see something other than a dot of light.

18 hours ago, Louis D said:

Did you mean the Nirvana 16mm UWA?  If so, my understanding is that it is decent at f/5, but not outstanding.  Remember, these were selling here in the US under some brandings for about $65 6 or 7 years back.  Don't expect 16mm Nagler T5 performance in your scope.  Also, remember it only has about 10mm of usable eye relief; so you won't be able to use it with eyeglasses.

If you can pick up a used one for roughly 65% of new, I'd say it's a pretty good deal.

Missed this earlier, is it only the edges that suffer at f/5 or across the range?

Thank you, very much appreciated.  I like this field view, so whilst I was possibly going to go more mag first this will (with a barlow) be an upgrade on both my existing EPs.

Unless anyone can see anything obvious wrong with that approach.

I don't tend to wear glasses when viewing, can't get close enough with my current EPs, so this won't change things from my perspective.

Are the edges notably poor?  I'm guessing I'd still see a huge improvement from the stock 25mm Super.

Thoughts on the Nirvana 18mm?  I've seen a used one and thinking of snapping it up.

According to the various field of view visualisers it'll give a very similar field to my 25mm, but I assume it'll be a large step up in quality and ease of viewing

On 17/01/2022 at 16:49, Mr niall said:

Agreed! Its a real treat to get somewhere dark. I live in bottle 5/6 too and I can see the sword 1 or maybe 2 nights a year just about - and even then it’s marginal.

That's mad because I'm in a bortle 6 area and can see the sword with naked eye on most clear evenings. Certainly well enough that my red dot finder is all I need to get onto the brightest bit of orion's nebula first time.

I'd say spending upwards of £100 on one eyepiece would need a lot more thought about it than £50 even if in real terms it just means budgeting to upgrade over a longer period.

Is there a particular EP which it's worth spending more money on?  I assume from conversations it's the wider end, but worth asking? 

Wow, a lot to read through and digest here:

- I think a zoom might be an annoyance with the helical focuser if I'm honest, the focuser really is the worst part of this scope, and I haven't had much success with ptfe tape, even a single layer makes things too stiff, and causes shredding so I cleaned it all out. (I don't want tape falling down my tube).

- All that info from @bomberbaz is really interesting, I hadn't figured that you could get more mag AND wider FOV from the same lens.  Will definitely bear that EP in particular in mind, as I'm happy to spend a bit more for better quality up to a point, but especially if it reduces the need to buy an additional EP.

- I guess this is what I meant by having nothing to compare things too.  I am straining to get close enough to both EPs, so more eye relief and wide FOV would probably make things a lot more comfortable, particularly when showing things to others.

Thanks everyone.  Sounds like the BSTs are highly regarded in the other FLs, but if anyone has alternatives worth looking at that would be great.

Agree with those suggesting the 10-22 or 15-85. Both excellent lenses, oft compared to the L lenses but for crop sensor cameras. 

The 50mm is great for capturing a lot of light but at f/1.8 it's soft, and but the time it sharpens up around f/3 or 4 you might as well be using the zooms. 

I'm starting to think about eyepieces for my SW 150P Heritage, probably won't bite the bullet for a little while, but want to start a bit of research.

I'm surprisingly happy with both the 25mm and the 10mm that came with the scope.  More so the former. But from comments prior to purchase I was under the impression I'd hate the 10mm and it doesn't seem to be that bad (although I've nothing to compare it to).  I've had issue with my eyelashes applying grease marks to the upper lens of it (I'm not a lady, just a man with pretty eyes ) so the eye relief is one complaint.

Another is that it's not par-focal with the 25mm, and because I'm a novice, I like switching from one to the other as I move around the sky to help find objects.  Whilst I've got go-to in the Virtuoso mount, I'm trying to encourage myself to find things manually where possible (Orion's Neb is/are easy enough with the RDS, but I've enjoyed star hopping to the Andromeda galaxy).  Also the beauty of the scope is that it's grab-and-go and I don't always want to spend time aligning it, especially on partially cloudy days.  So what I'm currently doing is focusing the 25mm flush to the bottom of the focuser, and then suspending the 10mm part-way in the focuser, however when holding it in with the two thumb-screws, there's a little play, and I'm always wary I'm fixing it at a slight angle, which I'm guessing makes more and more difference the shorter the f/l. 

I've started looking at threads on here, including Warthogs excellent "Bare Minimum" thread.  I noted that because the scope is an f/5 dob, I should consider using a barlow and a 6-8mm EP to hit higher powers, so I was looking at the below for rough numbers:

- good 2 x Barlow
- 6-8mm for High Power with above, and Med-High without.
- 10mm Med-High (I have a 10mm so can leave this for now)
- 15-20 Med-Low
- 25mm low (which again, I already have - although at 35 years old, is it worth maybe eeking a bit more exit pupil out of my eyes before they get old?)

I'm a glasses wearer, but I'm only mildly shortsighted, and have a mild astigmatism.  I prefer viewing without my glasses as my eyes/brain seem to work around the astimatism after a minute or two, and focus is handled by the scope.  But as the focuser on the Heritage is, frankly, a bit annoying and sloppy, I'd love my EPs to be par-focal - is this even possible?  Does a barlow mess this up?

Happy to be punted to other good threads on the topic if that's easier!

I'd go into Settings > Apps and Permissions and pre-emptively give the app location access in there then try again.

Alternatively I'm sure I've seen on here you can manually enter location info into the app, it just has to be in a specific format.

Excellent choice given their preference for nuts.

I'm going to assume for my own immature amusement that that means flamethrowers and comedy falling anvils.

I was looking at M42 last night and thought it was pretty good from here, I couldn't see the wings at all, but the central patch of bright nebulosity was clear and green even at 10x.  I saw a bit more light weirdly if I slowly panned the scope left and right over the view, seemed to trick my eye into seeing more detail than I could in the stationary image.