John

I keep forgetting to look for Comet Pons-Brooks 🙄 By the time I remember that it's worth a look, usually by reading an excellent report such as @mikeDnight's above, the dratted thing has dropped below my horizon in that direction ! I must make a note to myself to look for it early in a session 😉

After an early look at Orion with my ED120 refractor, the sky went cloudy and has only just cleared again ! I'm currently having a look at the Hickson 44 galaxy group in Leo's "neck" region also known as the Leo Quartet. I've spotted two of the members of the group, NGC 3190 and NGC 3193 and a 3rd, NGC 3185 might be possible if I keep at it. These objects are 90-100 million light years distant. I'll have a go at the Leo Triplet later as well.

I think the law of diminishing returns will apply to the difference between a 24mm UFF and a Panoptic 24mm. If you can get the 24mm UFF rather than the NPL 30mm then it's worth it. I'm very fond of Tele Vues so I have the 24mm Panoptic, and the 19mm as well. Sweet little things compared with the 14mm Delos🙂

I have compared the older "flat top" style William Optics UWAN 16mm to the 16mm T5 Nagler and found them roughly comparable in scopes slower than around F/8. In scopes faster than that the Nagler's better edge correction showed it's worth. At F/5 the differences were marked. What I don't know is whether the UWAN 16mm is the same optically as the Nirvana 16mm being discussed - I thought it possibly was, but maybe not ?

That is a Meade / Bresser / Explore Scientific finder mount. This sort of finder fits it: You can replace those with a Skywatcher compatible finder mount which will fit a wider range of finders. One of these or something like it: RVO SCT Universal Finder Base - Rother Valley Optics Ltd

Not quite in action yet but with high hopes - my oldy but goldy (literally !) ED120. This is one of the originals and I'd guess it's 17 years old now. The focuser has been swapped to a Moonlite to add a splash more colour to the ensemble 😁

Personally I think you would still want something around 13mm focal length for mid powers and also a "lowest / widest" eyepiece so perhaps a 30mm such as the Vixen NPL 30mm ? Even better would be something like a 24mm UFF but I'm assuming that your budget will not stretch that far at the current time. I'm also assuming that you stay with the 1.25 inch fitting for now as well. See what others suggest - there are usually lots of good opinions on eyepiece choices forthcoming on here 🙂

In my opinion, the 10mm and 18mm Baader Classic Orthos perform as well, in pure optical terms, as eyepieces that cost £100's more. So if you can live with the smaller field of view and eye relief around 80% of the focal length, then they, and other orthos such as the Fujiyamas and Astro Hutechs, will do a great job for you. The wider fields of view are nice to have but not essential by any means. Many folks are happy to use "standard" field of view eyepieces (ie: 40-60) degrees). A viable alternative, again in my opinion, would be one of the Svbony 3mm-8mm zooms which seem to me to perform as well as good quality fixed focal length eyepieces but you effectively get 4-6 (depending on what you use) focal lengths for your £100 (approx) investment.

Antares is a nice one to split as well - possibly harder than Sirius, depending where in the word you are observing from.

It was my 12 inch dob that first showed me Sirius B, quite a few years ago now, when the separation was less than 10 arc seconds. It took a lot of sessions to get that first split but since then I've done it many times and more recently with my smaller aperture scopes. It never seemed an "easy" thing to do though, even with 12 inches of aperture. The seeing conditions had to be really steady and Sirius relatively clear of the surrounding rooftops with their heating plumes during the time of year when Sirius is well placed (of course 🙄)

I had to let it go earlier this year 🙁. We have 2 lively grand children here often now and refractors can be tucked safely away but a 12 inch F/5.3 dob invites lots of attention, inevitably. I had a good decade or more with the scope though so I can't really complain 🙂

Powermates are simply superb. I've not used them for imaging but for observing they just get out of the way and you only see the boosted magnification. I have owned many barlows and a couple of ES and Meade Telextenders but, IMHO, the Powermates set the pace for others to try and follow. And you pay for that, of course. The barlows that I've used that might compete with a Powermate in terms of optical quality are the Baader VIP barlow and I believe the Baader/Zeiss barlow is very, very good as well. But barlows do impact focal position and eye relief whereas Powermates (and Telextenders) either do not, or do so less. Ditto with vignetting when used with some longer / wider eyepieces.

Orion Optics dobsonians are quite a bit lighter than the chinese made ones. My OO 12" F/5.3 weighed about the same as a chinese 10" F/5. It was pretty easy to put out and pack away. Not quite grab and go but about as close to that as a 12" scope can get !

It certainly looks like a refractor telescope in the hard case - maybe a 127mm Explore Scientific triplet refractor like this: ?

I was impressed with the 3 that I tried: Vixen SLV Eyepiece Report: 6mm, 12mm and 20mm - Member Equipment Reviews - Stargazers Lounge There was some talk of internal light scatter from a lens retaining ring in an early manufacturing run but I can't recall which FL that was 🤔

It's off topic but there is / was I R Poyser: IR Poyser – Telescope Makers | Makers of fine Brass Telescopes in the traditional style And also we had Moonraker Telescopes: Moonraker Telescopes - Home And, again in the past, Skylight Telescopes. All niche instruments, I guess. A topic for another thread perhaps ?

I used to have that set - with the T6 13mm instead of the T5 16mm. Because my scopes were shorter focal length than the C8 I also had the T6 7mm, 3.5mm and for a time the T6 2.5mm but that did not get much use. Very fine eyepieces in my opinion. I don't wear glasses and found the eye relief OK for me. Others may vary in that though.

Your rough ones are around 10x better than my finished works Mike 👍

Jon Issacs posted these thoughts last year on the CN forum: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/888547-question-regarding-30mm-eps/?p=12895994

Al Nagler kindly loaned me this a few years back to trial - I must give it a go sometime, when I'm feeling strong 😉 (I should have posted this in a months time !)

They are a bit special - it feels like a little "event" just carrying it out and putting it in the scope ! 😁

Cracking eyepiece, those TAL 25mm's 👍 Best stock eyepiece ever supplied with a scope I shouldn't wonder.

Lightweight 70mm setup this evening because of the uncertain conditions. In between the clouds the scope showed some nice views of various targets in and around Orion, Gemini, Cancer, Leo and Ursa Major. In particular I was pleased with a nice display of the 3 stars of Beta Mon at 105x, M81 and M82 showing clearly at a paltry 14x, Rigel's companion at 100x and I even managed a glimpse of NGC 2903 in Leo so that is around 30 million light years away. The 70mm F/6 ED objective seems well figured. Although the Pup stayed in it's kennel (quelle surprise !) Sirius showed some nice diffraction rings and a clear airy disk rather than the blaze of light that you sometimes get. Looking forward to taking this setup away to dark skies later in the year 🙂

Uncertainty over the conditions tonight has led to a very lightweight approach. I can carry this 70mm setup in and out with one hand 🙂 In between the clouds, the views are rather nice 👍

I tried all the Vixen SSW's a few years back. They were good but had some flaws particularly with regards to eye positioning and outer field performance I thought. Your mileage may vary of course 🙂 Vixen SSW Ultra Wide Angle Eyepieces: Review - Member Equipment Reviews - Stargazers Lounge