John

First clear skies for ages though I'm not sure it will last !

Jupiter is looking excellent with my 100mm refractor at 180x and that's straight out of the house with virtually no cool down time.

The Great Red Spot is still rather smaller and less red than in previous years and has just passed the central meridian of the planet. Lots of cloud belt detail and two nice barges on the N edge of the N equatorial belt add a nice touch

Its good to actually be observing something !

I use my O-III filters with my 102mm refractor and they work excellently. The Veil nebula, with this scope and filter is one of my favourite deep sky targets.

I have tried quite a number of different filter types over the years including coloured ones, lunar ones, planetary ones and various broadband, narrowband and line filters for the deep sky. The ones I have ended up with for nighttime use are excellent quality O-III, UHC and H-Beta filters for nebulae. The H-Beta is limited in it's use but has shown me the Horsehead Nebula. The O-III and UHC filters (branded Lumicon and Astronomik) really do enhance the contrast of a range of nebulae, the O-III significantly so. I have the O-III and UHC filters in both the 2 inch and 1.25 inch sizes.

When I am observing the sun in white light with my Herschel Wedge I use the required neutral density filter fitted within the wedge and a single polarising filter on the end of the eyepiece.

I tend to prefer not to use a filter (except for solar observing of course) but when I do I want it to make a real impact so I've stuck with those that have done that for me.

Filters won't correct CA but they can filter some of it out so it does not reach the eye.

A UHC is usually the one recommended as a single filter option. If you can make it a good one, eg: Astronomik or Tele Vue Bandmate II then they can be really effective on nebulae. I've found the lower cost ones have somewhat less impact in all honesty. These filters can improved the contrast of nebulae. They have no real impact on star clusters or galaxies.

For a few years I just used an O-III filter instead of a UHC (that was an Astronomik) and found that I did not miss the UHC much. I have both now though. O-III's have more impact but on a slightly smaller range of targets.

I have not used the one that FLO are selling but I have used a similar one a few years ago with my 12 inch dob it it worked pretty well.

The downside for me was that it raised the eyepiece height by around 80mm which meant that I needed a small step for observing when targets were above a certain height in the sky.

In the end I decided to let it go, but it did work and tracked quite accurately at high powers.

13 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

Life is too short for me to waste any more of it chasing eyepiece  Nirvana..I'm now just trying to make more of what I do have, than fretting about what I don't !

 

 

Very well put Dave - I feel just the same now

This should be an interesting thread

SGL for certain, assuming that can count as "equipment"

Probably my 12 inch dobsonian in terms of hard equipment. It has shown me more "firsts" and "wows" than any other item of astronomy equipment that I've owned and those are what keeps me in the hobby.

I found my observing took a significant lift when I got my copy of the Pocket Sky Atlas as well. My mum gave me it for a birthday about 10 years ago - thanks mum !

I think those are the 3 things that have had the biggest positive impact on my enjoyment of astronomy over the past 40+ years.

The slightly worrying thing is that I could have probably saved myself about £10K and still have had just as much enjoyment

The length of the scope tube is just as important as it's weight with regards to how well a mount will handle it. My 130mm F/9.2 triplet refractor is 9.5kg so well under the weight limit for the HEQ5 but the length of the scope put the mount and tripod under a lot of strain and it was pushed to it's limit I felt, even for visual astronomy.

3 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Cool! I have 502 and 504.

We can have a "show us your LZOS serial number" as well now !

Mine is #020 from 2006:

Great looking scope - the quality of the finish looks excellent as well

I bought two "forever scopes" back in 2016. It's been fun finding out what these legendary brands instruments are actually like to own and use 

They have not really revolutionised my astronomy though

Just now, Franklin said:

 

Yes I get that, my skies aren't very dark either. I was just looking at the Tak 6x30 which is most likely a very, very good finder optically. But why straight through?

I felt the same so I now use a 6x30 RACI Skywatcher finder on my Tak in the Tak finder mount. Not quite Tak quality but it does the job fine:

I use 6x30 RACI's with my 100, 102 and 120mm refractors. The 130mm refractor plus the 200mm and 300mm newtonians / dobsonians get 9x50 RACI's plus a Rigel Quikfinder.

Of course I can switch them around if I want to but I prefer to dedicate finders to a particular scope so they are in decent alignment from the off. The penalty for this is that I have quite a lot of finders !

Dubhe / Alpha Ursa Majoris seems to be another double star that comes into the "very hard" category I think. Maybe easier than Procyon though ?

According to the Stella Doppie database, the current split is .81 arc seconds and the A + B components are magnitude 2.02 and 4.95 respectively so a significant brightness difference to add to the challenge. There is a magnitude 7 C component at 370 arc seconds separation as well.

Last time I tried it was with my 130mm refractor and I thought that I might be seeing indications of the B star but it was very vague and pressed right up against the airy disk of the A star - inside the diffraction ring. 

I have recently washed the primary mirror of my 12 inch dob so I'm hoping that will give be a better chance with this one, if the clouds ever clear that is

1 hour ago, lunator said:

Magnus

To give you an idea how difficult Procyon B is have a quick read of this thread

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/374993-one-step-beyond-sirius-procyon/#comment-4065839

Cheers

Ian

Just to bring that up to date - still no split of Procyon by me whatever I've pointed at it

Anyone else managed it ?

I'm looking forward to Sirius A & B again though. As Mr Spock says, the coming few months are a great time to tackle this challenge 

3 minutes ago, IB20 said:

The SSWs seem such a strange range of eyepieces at a questionable price point. They don’t seem to get much love at all and I’ve read multiple reports about them having fussy eye placement.

Personally If I’m buying a ~£250 eyepiece I’d be buying a Pentax XW and lose 13°.

Yes, I was a little disappointed overall with the Vixen SSW's as I indicated in my report on them.

It was great of FLO to loan me a set - it would have been expensive to have to buy them to do that review and then to sell them on, no doubt at a loss, afterwards.

I think I've owned or used most of those.

The LV's were the original long eye relief alternative to the plossl and were "the thing to have" back in the late 1980's. They are still nice eyepieces although later develoments in coatings leave their light transmission lagging a little compared to current alternatives. The NLV's followed them, still Japanese made but with more sophisticated twist up eye cups. Vixen chose a chinese manufacturer for the latest SLV versions of these and to my eye these are the best performing of the series apart from a shiny internal spacer on some of the very early production runs.

The LVW's are Vixen's answer to the Tele Vue Panoptic / Delos / Pentax XW's and are very fine super wide eyepieces with long eye relief as well.

Vixen also produced the ultra-wide SSW range which was an interesting development from them.

For what they are worth, here are some reports I've posted on these Vixen eyepieces over the years:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/217971-vixen-slv-eyepiece-report-6mm-12mm-and-20mm/

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/78165-comparing-baader-hyperions-to-the-vixen-lvws/

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/255080-vixen-ssw-ultra-wide-angle-eyepieces-review/

Vixen also had some 2 inch wide angle eyepieces which were called NLVW's.

Yes, I should have mentioned using a manually operated air blower first to clear any debris in my post.

I use one of these:

10 minutes ago, Dave scutt said:

Nice postman just brought me this thanks to callisto it survived the trip across the sea

I used to have one of those under the Bresser branding. Nice refractor - real "big" refractor feel to it

I use the Baader fluid and their micro-fibre cloth (which is washable). I bought this kit some years ago and it has lasted for ages. If you can avoid taking the eyepiece apart, I would although it is feasible with the simpler designs (eg: Kellner, Plossl, Ortho):

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astronomy-optics-cleaning-protection/baader-optical-wonder-fluid.html

Always apply the fluid via the cloth rather than directly to the eyepiece lens (the instructions say this). It is all too easy to apply too much fluid which can then work it's way between lens elements though capillary action.

I've recently sold an EQ5 deluxe mount - it seemed pretty solid I must say. When I've owned them in the past (or clones of them) I've put quite long and heavy refractors on them (visual only) - up to a 150mm F/8 and the mount seemed to cope OK. The Celestron CG5 version has a bit more capacity because it comes with a 2 inch steel tubed tripod which is both sturdier and taller (good for refractors !) than the stock EQ5 tripod.

The dual axis EQ5 motor kits seem easy to fit and work well for visual. If I had a choice I would try and find a Vixen GP though. They are very similar to the EQ5 but built in Japan and very smooth and precise and I feel have a slightly higher capacity.

The tripod I used with the EQ5 below was a Tele Optik hardwood one which is superb but like hens teeth to find, unfortunately:

I believe the Celestron Ultima Edge eyepieces are the same as the APM UFF eyepieces:

https://astrograph.net/epages/www_astrograph_net.sf/en_NZ/?ObjectPath=/Shops/www_astrograph_net/Products/AGAPMUFF30

I have not used them personally though.

This Starfield 102mm F/7 seems to be the 2021 equivalent to my circa year 2000 Vixen ED102SS F/6.5

One day it would be very interesting to see how far things have come in the 21 years between the scopes

Refractors of this specification are just so versatile, with the ability to go from a 4 degree true field to 200x plus with just an eyepiece change and so many affordable mounts will hold them solidly and stably, at least for visual use.

A combination of a 10 inch dobsonian and a refractor like the Starfield 102 F/7 can provide a lifetime of observing potential 

I watched the moon rise behind thin cloud over the reed beds in the Somerset levels earlier this evening. Quite atmospheric. Mobile phone did not really do it justice but it's better than nothing: