John

Seeing the difference between high performing eyepieces and very high performing eyepieces is usually down to getting a night of excellent seeing. So most often I've found that there are no significant differences. Then a really good night comes along and you start to notice a few subtle differences. And that's what you pay for

Well, that's my experience anyway.

The eyepiece is quite low down on Suiters "wobbly stack" of factors which impact sharpness and contrast.

3 hours ago, Zermelo said:

Great write-up, John.

I wasn't feeling too good yesterday so decided against going out - a decision supported by pessimistic forecasts, a very hazy moon and frantically twinkling Sirius - but it sounds like I should have made the effort. 🙁

I'm interested that you're getting value from the UHC on M42 and Rosette. I have the same Astronomic version, and while it's certainly made a big difference on some targets like the veil nebula, I haven't been able to detect any difference on M42 (and since it also dims the stars, I actually prefer the view without).
Possibly an effect of my smaller (6") aperture?

 

Thanks.

My scope last night was 102mm so not a big aperture.

I find the Astronomik UHC does make generally a difference on emission nebulae. It is not usually an "in your face" difference such as an O-III filter makes on the Veil, but a subtle enhancement of the contrast and extension of parts of the nebula, in the case of M42, the curved arcs of nebulosity that extend away from the "fishes mouth" seem to lengthen and their shape is more distinctive.

I have not had the Astronomik UHC all that long but so far it has made enough of a difference for me to want to keep it for use alongside my Lumicon O-III. Thats a better result than a few other UHC filters have had for me  

A family social "zoom" call was scheduled for yesterday evening and of course it coincided with the first clear skies for a little while. Family has to come first though so I popped a scope (my Vixen ED102SS refractor) out to cool down early on and got on with the virtual socializing. 

By the time I was able to get outside, the moon had dipped behind our house and Orion was well across the sky as well. I could see that the transparency was not the best and it got worse as the evening progressed, unfortunately.

So, as pushing for the more challenging DSO's was probably not going to prove productive I stuck mostly to binary stars, the brighter nebulae and clusters.

Starting with Orion I went for the binaries Eta Orionis, Rigel, 32 Orionis, Sigma Orionis (4th star barely visible tonight), Trapezium A-D with E occasionally and F a "no-show". Finally in Orion, Alnitak was a nice bright split.

Orion's brightest nebulae, M42 and M43 were clear and the much dimmer M78, the reflection nebula a couple of degrees above Alnitak was glowing softly. I put the 31mm Nagler eyepiece into the diagonal which gave me 21x and a whopping 3.8 degree true field of view. It was lovely seeing the whole of the "Sword of Orion" area in the same view and the Great Orion Nebula spreading it's "wings" amongst the pinpoint stars. The Astronomik UHC filter improved the contrast and extent of the nebulosity noticeably.

Staying with the big Nagler / UHC filter combination I moved into Monoceros and the cluster NGC 2244 which lies at the heart of the Rosette Nebula. A lovely open cluster without the filter but with the filter I could just make out the vague smoky "doughnut" form of the Rosette Nebula surrounding the cluster. I was pleased to see these traces of the nebulosity given the less than ideal sky transparency. The extent of the Rosette Nebula is around 2 degrees so you need a good wide field view to take it in plus a UHC filter really helps.

I switched eyepieces to something higher powered to have a look at the lovely triple star Beta Monocerotis.

Moving up into Gemini, Castor split into two bight "headlights" and then, putting the Nagler 31 back in, to the big Messier 35 open cluster and the smaller, less distinct, and much more distant cluster NGC 2158. Crossing the constellation of the twins, the planetary nebula NGC 2392 (The Eskimo) could be seen as a tiny glowing patch of light close to another star in quite a rich star field at 21x. Its interesting to observe targets that you normally use high powers on, at much lower magnifications to see them within the context of their home patches of sky.

Moving across to Cancer now, The low power, wide field was great to observe Messier 44, the Behive cluster with and then dropping down the constellation to pick up the fainter, delicate swathe of stars of the M67, AKA "The Golden Eye" cluster. Back to a high power eyepiece again to have a look at the triple star Tegmine (Zeta Cancri). It was clearly a 3 star system but the closer pair were touching giving a "peanut" or "snowman" appearance.

The sky transparency was clearly starting to dip now so, moving across to Leo, I was pleased to pick up the faint glow of the 9th magnitude galaxy NGC 2903 near the lions "nose". The only galaxy I was able to see during this session.

As the sky was turning more milky and the cold was starting to seep through my outer layers, I rounded off with the lovely golden pair of Algeiba (Gamma Leonis) and finally, as the fainter stars were fast disappearing, found my way to Iota Leonis below the lions belly. I used the Nagler 2-4mm zoom eyepiece to closely examine this interesting binary star. The stars are magnitude 4.1 and 6.7 respectively with a separation of around 2.1 degrees arc seconds (oops !) currently. They are just 79 light years away and the dimmer star is a G3 star, thought to be rather like our Sun. The brighter star is also a spectroscopic binary. These 3 stars are orbiting each other at a distance smaller than the scale of our solar system with the dimmer star orbiting the central pair every 186 years.

The split between the A and B stars was seen at 160x and a little clearer at 221x. I was pleased to get this result considering the deteriorating conditions and the relatively small aperture of the scope. I nice point to decide to end the session and head back into the warmth I felt.

I think the highlights of this session were Orions Sword / M42 at really low power with the UHC filter, seeing traces of the Rosette Nebula around NGC 2244, and getting a split on Iota Leonis.

Observing sessions seem to have been few and far between over the past month or so. I was very glad to be able to enjoy a few hours at the eyepiece again

17 minutes ago, johninderby said:

Always wanted to try one of these. Supposed to be the ultimate zoom eyepiece.

https://www.apm-telescopes.de/en/optical-accessories/eyepieces/zoom-eyepieces/leica-zoom-eyepiece-vario-8.9-17.8-mm-asph.-1.25

I bought one of those a few years ago. I used it with the Baader VIP barlow, as many do.

I thought it might take over from my Pentax XW's and Tele Vue's and the performance was excellent but somehow I didn't take to it

I think I found the business of working out the various combinations of T2 extensions plus the barlow element to get a wide range of magnifications started to annoy me. There was no mistaking the build and optical quality though and the AFoV was considerably wider than an ordinary zoom across the whole range.

I'm glad I tried one though, having read so much about them from owners on here and elsewhere

I think @Stu still has his ?

Great stuff Joe !

I'm glad you found M78 - I was observing it myself this evening with my Vixen 102 refractor.

16 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

That the fluorite model? if I am correct,  if so that scope’s optical prowess is legendary. Don’t ever give that one up, no way, I saw one for sale months ago in classifieds, I was desperate for it but it was over a thousand miles away and I couldn’t  bear having it shipped so I was sunk.

No, the ED102SS is an F/6.5 ED doublet with an FPL-53 element although Vixen never confirmed that.

The fluorite ones were F/8.8 and F/9.0.

3.8 degree true field with the "Terminagler" in the diagonal

Clear but a bit "milky" tonight so I'm giving my old Vixen ED102SS a short session on double stars. This scope is over 20 years old now. I've owned it for 14 of those !

Really versatile scope which can go from a 4 degree true field view to a sharp 200x plus.

Hoping to take this setup to darkest Wales later this year

Thanks for posting on this mount.

It is good to know about things that don't work so well. More useful in some ways than glowing reports

Have you some previous experience of DSO imaging ?

2 minutes ago, Astrodub said:

Yes that’s right native F stop is 6.3 I believe.

I think it is F/6. The aperture is 130mm and the focal length 780mm. Is this the scope ?:

https://www.apm-telescopes.de/en/telescopes/astrograph-refractors/apm-lzos-telescope-apo-refractor-130-f-4.5-52mm-3.7-inch-focuser.html

8 minutes ago, dweller25 said:

f/4.5 wow that’s fast.

That's with the Riccardi reducer I think David. The native focal ratio is F/6. LZOS make the 130 in F/9.2 or F/6 only.

They are superb scopes but I don't image with my LZOS 130mm F/9.2 so I can't help with that.

I think CA is often over-emphasized as an optical issue. As long as the scope I'm using is showing as much CA as it's spec (aperture / focal ratio / glass type) suggests it should then I'm OK with it. What I do find a problem is Spherical Aberration (SA). SA does scrub off resolution and contrast and limits the scopes usefulness at higher magnifications.

The TAL 100's were very good and low cost achromat refractors. This was mine from 1999 and it performed as well as the somewhat more expensive Vixen SP102 that I had owned previously:

The giant binoculars which are great for astronomy and not much use for wildlife - their close focus range is too far away and they generally can't be hand held.

Personally I found 8x56 a good all round spec. I took a pair of these (Opticron's) on a trip to Australia a few years back and they proved good for wild life and had enough light grasp to be useful for astronomy as well. Very hand holdable as well

The true field of those is around 5 degrees I think.

15 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

All this cold observing talk begs a question, are cold winter skies typically better when speaking of seeing conditions? 

I've read a lot of reports from folks based in Florida on another forum who seem to have amazing seeing quite often and can usefully use very high magnifications with their scopes. So perhaps for seeing cold weather is not a pre-requisite ?

Maybe it is more significant for transparency though ?

9 hours ago, Epick Crom said:

I'm sure it must have seemed strange to you! That's why we are the land down under😁

Viewing the Magellanic Clouds and the globular cluster 47 Tucanae with 8x56 binoculars was a superb experience. Hope to be able to repeat it when things get back to some sort of normality

1 hour ago, Nikodemuzz said:

There is a lot of truth in your post.

It is easy to get sucked into the vortex of comparing, reading reviews and discussions and contemplating things that are essentially minor details. All the while talking yourself into getting products that you want, rather than what you need. Or what would match one's skill level. Reading this thread from the beginning you can observe how my own targets and budget drift. I'm quite aware of this, and have read my earlier posts just to remind myself of it. 😃 In terms of value, you are probably very correct, and I would think that the Pareto principle applies here as well. Meaning that one can probably get 80% of the performance of the high end scopes with 20% of the cost. That 80% would possibly be enough quality that it would never become a limitation in my astronomy hobby. And yet, accepting all of this, I'm still considering owning one of the high end units.

To be in a position to even consider such an investment, or investment in a hobby of any sort during these times means that one is indeed fortunate, and in a privileged position compared to many others. I think that for many people who are lucky enough to have a steady job despite the pandemic, things have changed quite a bit. Suddenly you might have a lot of free time in the evenings. There are no costs related to hobbies, travel, eating out, or basically anything besides the basics, which means that you might actually have a bit more disposable income than before. One can observe this from the comments of the astro gear vendors. I believe FLO is breaking sales records, and some of the scope vendors have described an "avalanche of new orders" during past months. The fact that nobody has stock isn't only because there has been production disruptions, it's also because people are buying a lot of new stuff. It is a bit absurd all things considering, and on the other hand very understandable.

All makes a lot of sense

My experience would suggest to me that 90% of the performance of the high end scopes for 50% of the cost is realistic but such figures are subjective of course

The problem with a big dob, even if driven, is that shorter people need a ladder, which can be tricky in the dark. They tend to hang on to the scope, which does not work out well !

My society has an 18 inch newtonian but that is hardly used for outreach for similar reasons.

The 12 inch SCT is much easier to share with people, the eyepiece being in a convenient position.

I was very, very lucky when I did this a couple of years back - I got the Sun

I'm just getting around to sorting out the billing arrangements for it's use. Look out for something in the post shortly. Only a couple of quid per person per annum but 7.8 billion consumers so a nice little earner 

Direct Debit preferred

A steel tripod under the EQ3-2 mount will improve things (I used to have an Evostar 120 on that arrangement and it was not too bad) but an EQ5 would be better still.

If you do decide to look for just a tripod upgrade, the EQ3-2 mount has the same tripod fitting as the EQ5 and HEQ5.

Once I had the Helios 150mm F/8 refractor on one of those aluminum tripods so you can imagine what that was like to try and look through

1 hour ago, Carl Au said:

Only a few short years ago you didn't find many folks out there with a Tak, wow how things have changed. If money is no object and since Tak's appear to be the gold standard, and no doubt rightly so (I have never seen one for real, nevermind looked through one) then no doubt a Tak will be the one you buy and will love ever minute of using it too I imagine, of course you will why wouldn't you?

Like a lot of the boys and girls on here I am going offer my opinions on the scope I have just bought, or at least one made in the same factory. The Technosky, TS Optics, Altair Astro range of refractors are in my opinion the best value for money in 4 and 5 inch ED scopes out there. The optics are extremely good, I mean really good for a sub £1000 refractor. I know I ended up having to but a 2 inch star diagnonal, a finder and a flight case (I highly recommend the purpose built case which TS in Germany sell to go with them, but it is still less than 1,500 quid for what is a quality refractor with an excellent build quality, the R&P rotatable focuser really is a nice piece of work. I am sure whatever you will buy will be amazing and I am all for buy once and getting it right. To be honest I couldn't really afford to buy what I have and I feel very priviallaged to have been able to do so at all, I know not everyone is as lucky as me, especially in these most troubling of times.

 All I am saying I guess is that these scopes are worth looking at, why they cost as little as the do is something of a mystery to me? You could even buy a 6 inch and have plenty of money to spare for those eyepieces you have been looking at for weeks? 

Some very good points there Carl

I've been in this hobby for around 40 years now and up until 2016 I had not owned or even looked through any of the what are considered premium brand scopes. In the Summer of 2016 I came into some money with no strings attached to it so decided to "see for myself" by purchasing a top end refractor. After some consideration I went for a Tak FC100-DL and then managed to get a great deal on a pre-owned TMB/LZOS 130mm F/9.2 triplet. So I was able to squeeze two premium scopes out of my budget.

These are still the only scopes of this class that I have observed with so it has been an interesting experience comparing them with my other scopes and comparing what I've been seeing with reports on here from others who own similar quality instruments.

One thing that has surprised me is how well my "lesser" scopes have compared with the premium ones. Yes, there are differences, but they are generally subtle and the seeing conditions that I'm generally observing under probably act as an equalizing factor as well.

I do really enjoy owning and using these top end telescopes and don't regret purchasing them at all but I'm not under any illusions any more that they are key to my continued enjoyment of astronomical observing. I'm sure that I would have enjoyed astronomy just as much and seen just as much without owning them 

7 minutes ago, Epick Crom said:

Thank you John, I will try your method first chance I get! Yes it's upside down for me here Down Under but all good🙃. I will try my low power 68 degree eyepiece. Thanks

We were in Australia for a month in 2018 and it was odd for us to see Orion rising "on his head". Soon got used to it though !

I use this "star hop" to locate M78. Other way up for southern hemisphere observers of course !:

I look for the pair of stars like two "eyes" peering out of a faint surrounding halo of nebulosity. Not a distinctive target really. It's a reflection nebula so filters don't really help.

M78 is about 3 degrees from Alnitak so you would need a very wide field of view to see them both at the same time. 

26 minutes ago, Capt Slog said:

My list wasn't inclusive, but yes, i have seen M31.

I didn't get any 'stock' eyepieces as it was a second ( third? ) hand scope, which i bought for £60 (this fact is a continuing joy to me).  It did come with a poor 10mm to which I added a poor 4mm (it's okay for the moon) and a reasonable 20mm Plossl.  I would like to get something better, a decent 25mm would seem a good choice.

Someone that I know who has the same scope bought a Vixen NPL 30mm (a plossl design) and really likes it as a low power eyepiece. The trick is to find one in stock !:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/vixen-eyepieces/vixen-npl-eyepieces.html

Though they do cost more, a wider angle eyepiece such as the Explore Scientific 24mm 68 degree is great under moderately light polluted skies because the higher magnification that it delivers gives a darker background sky so faint targets stand out a little more.

I think the reality is that galaxies beyond a small number of "easy" ones (M31, M81 and M82 and very few others) and many nebulae are actually hard to see objects.

Even the much talked about ones such as the Leo Triplet really do not jump out of the sky at you unless you observe under really dark skies and have some experience of what you are looking for in the eyepiece.

When I'm doing an outreach event, I rather dread being asked to show case a galaxy other than one of the really bright ones because I know, even with my 12 inch scope, that many folks will see either nothing in the eyepiece or something barely distinguishable. Sometimes even my astro society colleagues have struggled to see the target !

While the star charts might list a galaxy at, say magnitude 8, the actual surface brightness, that is the difference between the background sky and the galaxy itself, is often much, much less than that. Any light pollution serves to dim that contrast variation down as well.

Practice will gradually start to deliver more results but these will be in the form of noticing a small patch of sky that is a little brighter than the rest or a sliver of faint light that is visible when you look slightly away from it (averted vision). This is what most galaxy observing in moderate aperture scopes under the sort of skies that many of us observe under, is about.

Much of the excitement about galaxy observing is the realisation that the barely detectable smudge that you can just about make out but you are not 100% sure you can even see, is actually the combined light of stars thousands or hundreds of thousands of light years away.

I've seen ETX 125's mounted on equatorial mounts using a pair of tube rings and a dovetail bar. Like this: