russ.will

Exactly that. Russ

The more I look at the Baader Morpheus, the more they appeal and that in part is due to the dual 1.25"/2" barrels. On the face of it, it means I can bolt my ES 1.25" 2x Tele-extender into a self-centering adaptor and forego faffing with switching formats. With two (maybe three) EPs and the ES T-E I'm covered. That said, thoughts like this have been scotched in the past by R&P focusers that lack the travel to cope with the length of something additional in the focuser-EP chain. We'll see. What does worry me having had some TV Delos is the long ER. I did NOT get on with Delos as I found eye position fussy in terms of kidney beaning/blackouts, despite spending an enormous amount of time faffing with the admittedly huge range of eye-cup positions. I seem (historically) to get on with ER in the 12-15mm range and Morpheus is definitely in Delos territory. I note that the @BillP review mentions the Morpheus being particularly un-fussy in this respect, but I would be interested to hear from Bill or Morpheus users in this regard. Russell

This, but not the tiny FL EPs. I can remember one (stunning) night when views of >200x views were worth it and I had a TV 3-6mm Zoom. There's one I should have kept... One night. Not spending money on an EP for that and certainly not a brace or more! Russ

I had the ES100 9, 14 & 20mm at the same time as a 12" ES Dob and Meade 8" LX200 SCT. I Loved them. I loved that walk in view. I loved the neutrality of colour. I loved that people missed the point about seeing the field stop; the whole point was that you don't need to. I loved that not having to see the field stop meant not obsessing about colourful stars at the EoF, because who the hell wants to view stuff at the field stop anyway? I loved that switching between them didn't mean having to switch adaptors or rebalance the scope. Scratched that itch and not going there again. 100deg is too expensive, but glad I did it. Russ

Okay, I'm suspecting the Morpheus may have happened whilst I was AWOL. They appear to tick many boxes. Shame they don't do a 25mm. Russell

Don't be sorry, I've never been happier. Russ

Having walked (unwillingly) away from astronomy about three years ago (divorce etc, etc, but that was willingly!) I find myself ready to re-enter the fold. I'm not going to go mad this time. I had 12" Dobs (x2) a 5" achro frac, 80mm EDs (x2), 8" Newts (x2) and an 8" SCT. I went from Possls to BST Starguiders, through ES82s, Maxvision/Meade SWAs, Delos and eventually a suite of ES100s, not to mention an Ortho and Plossl (again!) binoviewer diversions along the way! What enforced abstinence has allowed me to evaluate more objectively, is what actually really worked; what really got used and as such was the best value in terms of time spent in use. Dobs did, so that argument is over, as is the fact that the 8" scopes coped with UK seeing better more often than 12" ones. F6 is easier on EPs than F5 and given that the SW 200p Dob looks somewhat parlous in bearing specification, the Bresser 8" Dobsonian will soon be inbound. It will also travel between Cambridgeshire and my house in rural Normandy* (divorce can pay off!) where the skies are darker than a Norfolk Star Party in a way that something larger can't. Coincidentally I cannot, during these strange times, predict when a visit to either can next happen... EPs? There does appear to have been a fair bit of development in the arena since I last visited and this time, I do not want an EP for every eventuality. A Panaview 32mm will fill the role of finder EP well enough. I had one in the early days and it was better than it is given credit for. I also had an ES82 30mm and it was awesome, but what an expensive, unbalancing lump for just finding stuff. I kept my ES 1.25" 2x Tele Extender (and a good Cheshire) as it was practically invisible in use and I figured this day may come. I was figuring that I may re-buy a second hand pair of ES82 8.8 & 14mm and Maxvision 24mm SWA (where'd they all go?) as when multiplied x2 they cover every conceivable 1.25" use. Then I saw stuff like OVL Nirvana at a fraction of the price I used to associate with SW Nirvana. What the hell is going on?!?! What have I missed and what should I be considering these days? Russ *I know it sounds grandios but honestly, it cost less than a decent static caravan on a decent site on the Norfolk coast and the wine is better and cheaper. Anyway, by the time the ex had the shirt off my back, I couldn't afford a house in the UK!

Well, I asked around and had phone/email convos with a couple of dealers. Stock is obviously a problem with OVL closed, but the Helios Stellar II 20x80 seemed to be the best balance of price, performance and weight. I would of sprung for the Apollos but I couldn't really find any content to suggest it was worth it, even if you accept the law of diminishing returns that we all too readily do. Some of the money saved is already diverted to a trigger-grip ball head, dew shields and I'm still quids in. Result. Russ

Smashing. I wouldn't want you to run out of stock choice! Gotan itchy debit card here. Where? Divorced the wife, but interim arrangements lacked a garden. Once that was sorted, the new 'we' got a house with a garden and a house in avery dark part of Normandy. The latter may sound a bit grand, but it cost less than a caravan on a decent plot on the Norfolk coast. Of course, it's out of bounds at the moment.... Russ

@FLOAre you answering emails? I sent in an enquiry about Helios observation binos this morning. Russ

Hi, long time no see! Long story short; got divorced and sold scopes (12" Dob, 127mm frac, ED80, ES100 eps, mounts, etc) due to lack of space or garden. The new 'we' now have a village edge house on the Fen Edge and a very rural, very dark (darker than Kelling, at least) house in rural Normandy. Fiscal commitments have me running scared of going scope again (at least for now) because I know what I'm like and I need money for stuff like staircases, pointing, patios, etc. So I'd like something that allows me half decent views of fuzzies, will at least pick out the moons of Jupiter and can be slung in the back of a car and taken away for the weekend, without taking up too much load space, which brings me to binos. Assuming a top end budget of £400 and that I have a decent Manfrotto tripod what is recommended? Celestron and Helios 20 or 25x80ish have caught my eye, but with the memory of pin-prick precise stars of the ED80 and Baader Orthos, are binos at this price going to send me running screaming? Then I see things like the Bresser 6" Newt/Dob and think that with a brace of well chosen plossls and the ES Tele-extender that I kept, I'm getting a more versatile tool for similar money and not much more room taken up now I can leave a tripod at home... Help! Russ

I read the reports on the MWAs with anticipation and was similarly disappointed by what I read. But lets leave the Meade marketing blah, blah out of the equation for the moment. A 90deg AFOV EP with 15mm ER is a desirable result and remains so at the price, despite the label on the tin. I'd be keen to hear more reports on how well corrected it is in an F5 scope and whether other owners are bothered by the EFOB. It seems to me that reports by one owner, particularly sensitive to EFOB and another who was disappointed by the AFOV (can't really disagree with that) essentially stunted all further interest. However, it seems to me that if you accept the actual AFOV and that EFOB is something that the same user found unacceptable in some well thought of TV EPs, then the MWAs could still be very good value in F5+ scopes. Russell

That seems reasonable to me. I can't see on earth why you would ever want to introduce plastic into a system that requires collimation - It will make collimation easier, but it will also ensure you need to collimate on a regular basis. On another note, I think the additional light shield is a great addition. Most Newts are a good six inches short of preventing incident light falling directly on the EP, never mind the inside of the focuser tube. I've put light shields on all my Newts and reckon it makes a bigger difference than flocking. If you build a full circumference shield, it's pretty handy at warding off secondary mirror dewing too. Russell

As I stated above my 8" Newt was so far out as to be comical. You can't assume because even based on our sample population, statistically you'll be missing 25% of the primary mirror. Russell

And that's another good reason. Time is, for many people short. Dump a GOTO Mak in exactly the same spot every night and you'll be slewing from one target to the next in minutes, not using multiples of those minutes prodding around the skies. For those with the time and patience, go Dob, but lets not assume that is the case for everybody. It's not. Russell

It's a question that comes up regularly, but what is the difference between a Barlow and a telecentric amplifier (TA), otherwise known as a Powermate, ES Focal Extender. Meade Telextender, Bresser SA Barlow, etc? A telecentric amplifier does give a 2x magnification, just like a Barlow but that's where the similarity ends. A Barlow is a negative doublet (Smyth lens) that causes the exiting light rays to diverge and hence deliver the image amplification. If you move the EP further from the Barlow the magnification increases, whilst taking the Barlow nose-piece off and screwing it onto the EP will [generally] give 1.6x magnification, assuming we're talking a 2x Barlow. In the FE/Powermate/TE/SA Barlow (the latter isn't a Barlow, which is a confusion) the negative doublet is followed by a positive doublet that turns the exiting rays back to parallel - ie, telecentric. Because the rays are parallel, the distance between the EP and the amplifier elements is [broadly] irrelevant as the image amplification was done internally, between the TA lens elements. In practice, this still means that the effective focal ratio of the scope is doubled - It's a common misconception that the EP focal length is halved - but unlike a Barlow, the eye relief of the EP in use is unaffected. In other words, you insert an ES FE in the scope and the EP behaves exactly as it did before and the scope has effectively doubled in focal length. The down side is that double the number of lens elements costs more, but whereas a Barlow (which has other uses because of what it does) tends to feel like a second-best-to-an-additional EP, the ES FE simply feels like you have an extra EP. In visual terms, it's a less intrusive and more transparent solution and a more transparent device. So the Barlow is second best? Well no, not all of the time. For the reason why, you only really have to look at Televue Naglers and the clones thereof. They weren't the first (contrary to popular forum lore, but they're certainly the most successful) to use the idea, but what Unc Al realized was that whilst it was easy(ish) to create a wide field EP, the difficulty was in creating them at shorter focal lengths with an eye relief usable by humans AND with a well corrected field of view, especially in fast scopes like large Newts. Essentially, what he did was create longer focal length wide field EPs and then fit them with a Smyth (Barlow) element in the nose. Thus, you got an EP that acted as a shorter effective focal length, but had greater eye relief than it would have without the Smyth element. Very cool. In fact, this is the source of the reason why Naglers (and there derivatives) are renowned as well corrected in fast scopes. The Smyth element does increase eye relief, but as per a Barlow, it effectively increases the focal length and therefore focal ratio of the scope. As we know, a slower scope is less prone to aberrations, but in this case, it's the EP that is effectively delivering it. Your Nagler is better corrected, because it effects a better correct scope. So, this is also what your Barlow can do. A 20mm EP in a Barlow (and TA) will give a better corrected view than a 10mm EP, all other things being equal. This is handy, especially if you like your Orthos and Plossls which tend to have ever shorter eye relief with decreasing focal length. A Barlow can be partnered with a longer FL EP to give an effective shorter FL EP, without the need to glue your eyeball to the EP it emulates. Whereas a TA uses up it's focal length in the focal path, a Barlow does the opposite and pushes the focal point outward - It adds optical path length. How is this handy? Well if you have a binoviewer that uses up 110mm+ of focal path, the scope (refractors in particular) may not have enough space available to rack the focuser inward to compensate. A Barlow, or at lest the doublet element from the nose of it, screwed into the Binoviewer is enough to push the focal point outward and get you that focus point back. That's just one example. The important point is that whilst a TA is, as long as it has room to work, a generally superior device, there are times when a Barlow has qualities all of it's own. A good example of both will be a one off purchase and both will deserve space in your EP case. Buy right first time and you may find they remain a constant, whilst your prized EPs come and go..... Russell

I threw an opinion into the mix in the beginners forum the other night and decided I should expand on my reasoning here. Even somewhere as benign as SGL, you still have to remember this IS the internet. That means opinions repeated enough by people with large post counts, gain credence as fact among the rest of the forum. It does not hurt to challenge that, if only to get people thinking, as long as you do it in a reasoned way. So..... What got me thinking was the humble 8" Dob. For instance, I've noticed that the most recommended scope for a beginner is an 8" Dob; 10" if there's a sniff of the OP having a bit more to spend. The thing is, a rake of this recommendation appears straight off the bat, without further quizzing of the OP, but for most newbies, I think it is wrong. True, a great many people started there and went on to bigger (some might say better) things, but a lot do not. You don't have to be Poirot to notice it's also the most sold scope on Ebay, along with the EPs it came with; reasons (excuses) of needing the space, etc, being given. The ratio of 8" Dobs for sale on Ebay is greater than on here. A lot of people don't stick with it long enough to achieve the fifty posts required for access to the classifieds. Why? Because if you don't know your way around the skies, you'll find it really hard to find stuff and you'll break your back grovelling around doing so. It is also a scope that will likely be way off the mark in collimation out of the box and be harsh on the rather basic EPs* it came with. When I started, my Explorer 200p only showed half the primary when looking down the focuser. They really can arrive that far out of whack and dealers these days are driven by price, so they are extremely unlikely to have seen more than the outside of the box you've been shipped. Few would actually check the scope and if they did, most people would whine they're too expensive. Service costs. So, if you do find something on your first light with your new scope and then pop in the 10mm MA it came with, it will look rubbish. De-collimate your scope with a half decent EP and have a crack at Jupiter. It's not impressive and that's as easy as it gets. For a n00b, it's confusion time. In other words, it's not the most intuitive scope, it has a built in steep learning curve just to get it to work and requires immediate upgrades just to get near what this, admittedly capable scope in the right hands, can deliver. The 8" Dob is best suited to someone who has at least used binos, or a friend's scope. That way, they'll have advice on hand. So my contention is that, in this push button, battery driven age, the ideal beginners scope is a 127mm AZ GOTO Mak. I can hear the hackles rising, so let me justify this. I'm not interested in the cries of 'It needs to be level, it needs to be pointed North!'. That involves a bubble level and the one star everybody knows. People who get the date format wrong should RTFM! Anyway, if this is tricky, how are they going to get along with a Planisphere? No, the learning curve is minimal and when the crisp little optics and it's long FL, which is easy on cheap EPs hits a target, it's going to be a sharp view. If it doesn't hit the target first time, the erstwhile n00b will slew around a bit and unless they're complete attention deficient, will hit the target. This is my point. Getting the first few targets a newcomer sees to be clear, is the hook that keeps them engaged. Jupiter will look good in a Mak. Saturn at any size when sharp is unforgettable. The moon will look amazing and M42, M57, globs, etc, will be good enough to show people there's a universe out there they hadn't even considered. I know an 8" Dob will do these subjects better, but it's not exactly Wow! territory. There are plenty of atmospheric UK nights and particularly from suburban locations, where a 5" Mak might actually do these subjects better. Now I know that hardly anybody reading this will still have their first scope, but if one of these had been, it would still be a great little grab 'n' go, plus a handy mount for an 80mm ED/Apo for the same purpose, plus white light solar, etc, etc. Nobody who starts in the hobby with an 8" Dob stays there. In the long run, rationally, the humble 5" Mak GOTO is a very handy little weapon on a number of levels and one that has uses further down the line. Russell * One of the scopes I bought at a time when my collimation learning curve had long since flattened off, came with the usual 10 & 25mm MAs. For a laugh, I thought I'd give them a go. You know what? In a 300mm F4.9 Dob, they weren't that bad. The deficiency I recalled, was in fact, mostly mine in terms of collimation - It was far easier to blame the EPs and post yet another 'What EP for a n00b' thread....

I thank you for these kind words, but my opinion is just one of many and I'm far from experienced. I've tried to outline some of my glacial thought processes in the post above. I'll try to do more of that in future. :) Russell

I seriously couldn't remember what most of that cost, which is probably just as well. Mind you, a lot of it was bought second hand and a lot of it was bought from the USA. Even including VAT and import duty, plenty of the EPs landed brand new for what you can get for it second hand over here. Plenty of the decisions were based on purely wanting to find out what all the fuss was about and/or, as a result, having to let something go to balance the books. Thus, there's quite a lot of that list I at least miss, if not regret selling. Two examples would the the ES82 and Maxvision EPs (sold to fund TV Delos) and the AR127-L & EXOS 2 GOTO (Sold to fund LX200). With all the fuss about TV EPs, I thought I'd go for what's renowned as the sharpest EPs they've ever made - Delos. I also reasoned that as you're not using the outer edge of an UWA most of the time, I wouldn't mind regressing to an SWA. Also, my eyes aren't getting any younger, but as it stands I'm a little long sighted with the merest hint of astigmatism. Maybe a long ER would be handy for what will inevitably mean glasses on viewing in the future? In reality, the sharpness advantage is negligible and mostly right at the edge of FOV, just as well, because that edge now spends more time in view. Two and this was a more personal thing, I just couldn't get comfortable at an EP with arms length eye relief. Despite the fantastic screw and fold up eye-cup combination, I never found a position that stayed comfortable from one subject to the next - By which I mean, DSO, Moon and Sun. I could just seem to set them and leave them. This may be just me, but they were my EPs to use, night after night. So, looking back, I pondered what I had used and enjoyed most. That was UWAs and EPs with 13-15mm of ER. In reality, I had pretty much exactly that in (most of) the ES82s, so that was a regret. However, in deciding that the Delos weren't keepers and not being one to look back, I decided to try out some Mega Wide Angles (hereafter MWA). There wasn't a cat in hell's chance I was going to spend Ethos money and SW/WO appear to be retreading the mistaken path they did with the Nirvana/UWAN clones - Namely, they've left out probably the most useful FL out of the lineup; What is the problem they have with producing something in the 11-14mm range? That left the Meade XWAs or the ES100s. I actually don't care what the EP looks like, but some ferreting around t'internet was turning up ES100s at better prices and some good discounts too, so that was that. By the time I'd outed some soon to be redundant Maxvisions too, I think the change from Delos to ES100 stood me in at about £220. I've not had a first light with the 14 & 20mm yet - those massive ES boxes hold some serious cloud - but I did manage to squeeze in two decent sessions with the 9mm and it was absolutely superb. You almost get the entire moon in the FOV of the 9mm (in the LX200 8") and that is one vertigo inducing, impressive sight. The image is absolutely crisp, right up until about the last 5% (if that) of FOV and by then, you're snapping your eye tendons to see it, so it's irrelevant. Treat the extremes like you would your own eyes ie, enjoy the sharp panoramic view in front of you, but when you want to see something right off to the side, you turn your head. You don't stand there trying to look around your own nose. Wither the glasses? I'll deal with that when it becomes a necessity, not before. The AR127-L and matching EXOS2 GOTO are firmly in the camp of regret selling. When I bought the LX200, I had gone to see an LX90 12" and a CPC1100. They were both in very nice nick, but the 12" ACF on the LX90 is a bit under-mounted, whilst the lighter Celestron felt solidly mounted, but was made of plastic. The problem started when I spied an absolutely pristine LX200R 8" in the show room. The R was the briefly used annotation for the first ACF optics. It was also only used whilst LX200s were made in the USA - Under the ACF banner, production was shifted to Mexico. Everything from the solid aluminium knobs with butter smooth action, to clutches that locked up tight with finger tip pressure said quality. Grabing the forks, or OTA showed zero backlash and a view at the eyepiece that settled almost instantaneously. Prising the (metal) dust cover off revealed optics that weren't just clean, they looked new. The clincher was that it had the Meade electronic microfocuser already fitted. This is not some aftermarket afterthought. It is like having an electronic crayford. It connects into the base of the scope and is operated from the GOTO handset - No extra handsets, no loom of wires. In subsequent use, I've noticed very, very little mirror flop, but with the fine focuser, it is obviously zero. This is a quantum leap over a Starlight upgrade fine focuser, which still requires you to actually touch the scope. No, this is an integrated SYSTEM. It was £300 over budget, but I wasn't leaving without it and that's when the fate of the Bresser was sealed. The regret is that I really liked the versatility of that scope. It was as happy splitting doubles as it was burrowing into the moon and was surprisingly good on DSOs. Not quite 8" Newt good, but better than a six, mostly because of refractor contrast. Especially once I'd had it professionally collimated (one of the best value upgrades you ever shell out for - A whole £40 in this case) it was remarkably CA free. Sure there was a hint around the lunar limb and cranking the mag on Vega started to show a bit of colour, but I've looked through scopes with ED inscribed on the lens cell that were worse. The R&P focuser was slightly agricultural, but that same long focal length (F9.4) that keeps colour at bay, also gives you more depth of focus to play with, so it was less of an issue than you might imagine. However, even that basic focuser, knobs and all, was aluminium. The OTA tube is aluminium, not bent steel. the dew shield is aluminium, not steel or plastic. The lens cell is aluminium and unbelievably, not only has the usual push-pull screws for collimation, but a ring of screws around the outside for centering the lens elements. Some well thought of Apos can't even offer that up and it plays right into the hands of a professional collimation. All in all, when you pick one up, you feel like you got your moneys worth and that makes it a pleasure to use and touch. I like this in anything I buy. I know plastic knobs turn just the same, but you can't ever love them. There's one of these on UKABS at the moment for £190, which is a complete steal. The EXOS mount is better known in a former life as a Meade LXD75; a mount that suffers slightly from the reputation of it's fore bearer, the LXD55. It's another EQ5 class Vixen GP clone, but unlike the more popular alternatives, it comes with 2" tripod legs and that makes a difference when they're fully extended. The LXD75 was an evolutionary upgrade, but crucially all axes on this mount run on hefty roller bearings. The worms were well adjusted out of the box, with very little detectable backlash. Bedding in introduced a touch, but this was easy to adjust out. So, like the AR-127L, nothing revolutionary to be seen, but well crafted and properly screwed together when it leaves the factory. What does set it apart from the Synta competition is the handset (a Meade Autostar #497), which is far more fully featured. There's too much to go into, but I'll give a couple of examples. There's a little red torch in the end - Nice. You can tell the handset what scope is on-board. If your scope isn't Meade/Bresser, pick the best approximation. Why does it need to know? If it knows it has a long frac on board, it knows to avoid destroying it's motors driving the focuser of a long frac against the tripod legs. You really can set it slewing and turn your back on it. I was very sad to see that package leave, but it was bought by one Mr. David Lukehurst - yes the highly respected maker of handcrafted bespoke Dobs - and so it was nice to see it go to a good home. I asked him, given that he has access to what are obviously premium instruments of almost any configuration, what he wanted with a 5" frac. He said he wanted something that was quick to be ready for use and would cope with a suburban atmosphere and sometimes less than ideal viewing conditions. You see chaps, a 12" Dob isn't the answer to everything and that bombshell was from the horses mouth! That said, having met the man, talked astro (in-so-far as a rabbit in the headlights of such experience and knowledge can) for an hour, I'm convinced I will get another Dob. The LX200 is surpassing my DSO expectations based on previous 8" Newts, but there's really no replacement for displacement at lower powers. From what I know of the scopes I've owned, it won't be Chinese, it will be made from premium materials and if I'm going to that cost, it will be large and I know who it's coming from. I won't be parting with the LX200, or the 80mm Apo to own it though. This one is going to require saving for. Russell

I've only been doing this hobby seriously for about four and a half years. For some reason, I decided to list everything I've owned in terms of the major items - If you included freebie EPs, cables, adapters, etc, I'm sure the result would be even more scary. Skywatcher Explorer 200p Williams Optics Zenithstar 80ED II Skywatcher Startravel 80mm Skywatcher FlexTube 300p Auto Bresser AR-127L Orion Optics UK VX-8L Explore Scientific 305mm Ultra Light Dobsonian Explore Scientific ED80 Triplet* Meade LX200R 8"* Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro Synscan Bresser EXOS 2 GOTO iOptron Minitower v2.0* Rigel Quickfinder Telrad Altair Astro 10x60 RA finder Williams Optics 8x50 RA Finder* Skywatcher Panaview 32mm 2" Revelation Superview 26mm 2" BST Explorer (now Starguider) 5, 8, 10, 12, 15, 18 & 25mm Explore Scientific 82 degree 8.8, 11, 14, 18 & 30mm Baader Genuine Orthoscopic 6, 7 & 9mm Explore Scientific Maxvision SWA 16, 20, 24, 28, 34 & 40mm* Televue Nagler 3-6mm Zoom Televue Delos 8, 12 & 17.3mm Explore scientific 100 degree 9*, 14* & 20mm* Meade Series 5000 UWA 6.7mm* GSO 20mm Plossl* Vixen 20mm NPL BST Starguider 15mm (x2) Williams Optice 25mm WA (x2)* TS Binoviewer* Generic 2" 2x ED Barlow Explore Scientific 1.25" Focal Extender* GSO 1.25" 2.5x Apo Barlow* Lunt 1.25" Herschel Wedge* * means in current ownership. At the time of writing, that's and average of 2 scopes and 7 eyepieces per year!