John

So would I. Welcome to the forum

It's a pity that they have 100 degrees AFOV printed on them in big white letters. Keeps the marketing people happy I guess.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/08/cost-of-building-work-on-uk-homes-to-rise-as-price-of-materials-soars

I think those fall short of the full claimed AFoV as well: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/595495-omegon-panorama-ii/

Hello and welcome to the forum. They are reported to be good eyepieces but their apparent field of view falls a little short of 100 degrees I believe. They seem to be measured at around 88 degrees. Is this the one you have ? https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/486454-15mm-meade-mwa-is-in/?p=6368899

My solid tube 12 inch dob cools quite quickly. It can be used to observe at lowish powers on DSO's practically straight out of the house. After around 30 minutes high power views are really pretty stable and by 40 minutes I can really push the magnification to look for that fine lunar / planetary detail. My 130mm triplet refractor seems to have a similar cooling time. The smaller aperture refractors are somewhat quicker as you would expect. The Tak 100 seems to need very little cooling - I've split quite tight double stars with that scope straight out of the house. I keep all my scopes in the house.

Nice report Rob Zeta Herc can be a really tricky blighter to split. The secondary star can look like a "bump" in the diffraction ring rather than a definite star. Like a thin snake which has swallowed an orange

I had a couple of clear hours late last night, which was a nice surprise, but otherwise it's not been great

It would be interesting to rig up some sort of variable aperture stop (like a camera lens has) and then play with the effects on resolution / airy disk / diffraction rings of various apertures on the fly.

Also, this website gives you information for a location you specify: https://theskylive.com/sky/constellations/corona_borealis-constellation

If you use the Stellarium planetarium software (which is free) you can enter your location then play around with dates / times to see how the position of constellations and other objects varies. You can download this software here: http://stellarium.org/ Welcome to the forum

I've not compared the views directly between my 12 inch dob and a refractor on Izar for some time but you could be right. Another experiment to try

Oddly enough, the image reminded me of this from the opening sequence of one of my favourite TV programmes:

This happened a few days ago on Mars. The little drone / helecopter Ingenuity made it's 5th flight and the first where it flew to a new landing site some 129 metres from the Perserverance rover. Quite a remarkable image IMHO:

Really quite close to naked eye visibility for this nova here tonight. I can see a pair of mag 4.85 stars just below the position of the nova and possibly the odd glimmer of 4 Cassiopeia but I can't claim the nova. If it brightened by half a magnitude that would do nicely

Well I've had a go at Izar tonight with my ED120 refractor at full aperture (no problem at all at 125x) and more interestingly with the aperture stopped down to 52mm using the central aperture of the objective dust cap. Izar was split !. The airy disks were larger and the secondary star very close to touching the primary's airy disk but there was a definite gap between the disks. The secondary star was on the inside edge of a very fine single diffraction ring created by the brighter star. The magnification used was 225x - 300x which would be a bit silly for a 52mm aperture scope but seemed to work for this target. I was also slightly surprised to see the clear colour difference between the stars despite the small aperture. I found this image online which nicely captures what I'm seeing although my view also includes that fine diffraction ring as well: I was pleased as well as a little surprised by this result. I suspect that it confirms that my ED120 has a good quality objective but also that splitting Izar can be achieved with very small apertures. While the scope was stopped down I had a go at some other doubles: Gamma Virginis: Split Epsilon Lyrae: One pair just about split, the closer pair touching. Delta Cygni: Dimmer secondary star not clearly seen. Maybe just a vague hint of it ? Iota Cassiopeia: B and C stars very dimly visible. All 3 components seemed to be split though. Interesting experiment !

Was this naked eye Magnus ?

Tonight I reckon the nova is very nearly as bright as 4 Cassiopeia so it must be getting close to magnitude 5.0 I would think. I can't quite see it with the naked eye - if it were higher though, I think I could. Atmospheric extinction is probably just scrubbing enough brightness off to keep it requiring an optical aid at present. The nova is easily visible with my smallest binoculars which are 8x25's.

Judging by this thread, you could do a lot worse than investing in some of the Baader Morpheus eyepieces:

If it was me, I would go for the 12.5mm. I think you may well find that the 14mm is a bit too close to the 17.5mm to get a lot of use. As eyepiece focal lengths get shorter, the mm increments can get smaller as well while still being useful so 12.5mm - 9mm will make sense.

I'm the same - a number of my best laid plans have changed because something interesting "came up" The Noblex was worth changing things around for though, I'm sure. Out of production now as well.

Yes - it's F/5.3. I do often find shorter focal length eyepieces useful with the scope as well. Down to 4mm. Rarely anything shorter although I do have options down to 2mm if I want to be really silly

Indeed Dave. A while back I ordered one of the nice looking William Optics dovetail bars from FLO: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dovetails-saddles-clamps/william-optics-vixen-style-dovetail-plate.html I was a little surprised when I found that it was just a bit narrower and my APM clamps would not clamp it securely. Luckily this was obvious before I tried using it with a scope. FLO of course took it back and gave me a full refund and also added the note to the product listing. You do wonder though why the designer of these bars decided that a little narrower was a good idea when you consider what they are used for I use an Altair DT bar now with the Tak and that's fine and a secure fit. I'm also quite content with the Tak tube clamp design.

I like the twin knobs on the ADM clamps for that reason. If you accidentally loosen one, the other still grips at least some of the dovetail bar.

I had that happen with my Vixen 102 ED a few years ago. I was very lucky with that because the fall was onto a stone patio but somehow the damage was restricted to the end of the dew shield and the focuser. I was able to patch it up reasonably easily. Horrible noise though, a scope hitting the floor