John

Great report ! Oh, for the clouds to clear here as well 🤞 it's been a pretty crummy run of weather for the past week or so. I think I can fit 1.25" filters into the eye cups of my 11x70's. I have Astronomik O-III, H-B and a UHC in that fitting so I wonder which combo of those would give the best results ?

Thanks Callum - this looks very interesting

There are a lot of good and quite easy to see DSO's that are not on the Messier list. Messier concentrated on the parts of the sky that comets were thought most likely to be seen in, because that is what he was after. His list was just to remind him of stuff which might be mistaken for a comet. I think that the Caldwell List is probably a more useful one for the budding deep sky observer.

Looks very useful - where is your whitby ?

Thanks for all the bright ideas folks I very much concur with @Paz about the difficulties of handling these things in the dark. Most of the eyepieces that I use filters with have large, heavily convex lenses close to the bottom of the barrel too so there is another opportunity there to put a mark where you don't want it when attaching the filter Why do we muck about with this expensive gear with cold hands, in the dark and when we are a bit knackered towards the end of a session ? Answer: because we are astronomy nutcases, thats why !

I paid for this one myself as well. If my other half asks, it fell out of a cracker, OK

It is. My collection is much more modest in terms of number because I have not found coloured filters that useful so I don't have those now. I have a neutral density moon filter for outreach sessions and UHC, O-III and H-Beta filters in the 2 inch and 1.25 inch sizes for nebulae enhancement when observing. So just 7 filters. I have a single polarising filter for use with my Herschel Wedge but I keep that in the case with the wedge.

Yes that is a good feature. My filters are Lumicon, Astronomik (x3) and a Meade 4000 so 3 different box designs and sizes

That is a very nice present Louis

🤣 Some of the photographic filter cases that I've seen look as if they might do the job and are pretty low cost so not much of a risk. I've not found anything specifically for astro as yet though.

Thanks for your suggestion though. I didn't make the visual / imaging thing clear in my initial post

Thanks for the replies so far I am probably making things more complicated by preferring to keep the filters in their original plastic boxes

Mars will next be larger than it currently is in September 2022. It reaches opposition in December that year. Until then it's going to be tough to observe and getting tougher.

I have a number of different deep sky filters in both the 1.25 inch and 2 inch sizes. They are in their plastic boxes but those vary in size depending on the brand. In the past I have kept them in my eyepiece cases but they are now full of eyepieces so I'm looking for a better arrangement than the old wooden cigar box that they reside in just now. So I'm interested to find out how other members store their filter collections. Photos are warmly welcomed

Hello and welcome to the forum. Here is a more recent thread on the 300P Synscan dobsonian which may help on the general portability / practicality of these scopes:

2 inch eyepieces with very, very wide fields of view and focal lengths of around 20mm work well even in moderately light polluted skies. I have a 31mm ultra wide that I could use with my 12 inch F/5.3 dob but the 21mm hyper wide gets much more use under my Bortle 5-ish skies.

I usually go straight from 21mm (75x) to 13mm (122x) when using my 12 inch dobsonian. The next step is 8mm (199x) then 6mm (265x) and then 4.7mm (338x) and that is the set that I most often use with that scope. I've found having more options at higher powers (ie: closer focal lengths) more useful than lots of low / mid range magnifications.

Be prepared to spend as much as the scope cost on eyepieces or more even, unless you are very disciplined. Which we all are, of course !

Superb Mike, really superb

🤣

Popular upgrades to a stock dob are: - replace straight though finder with a right angle, correct image one. To save back / neck ache. - add an illuminated reticule finder alongside the optical finder. Telrad or Rigel Quikfinder are popular. - replacement focuser - the Bresser dobs come with a better stock focuser than the Skywatchers though so not such a priority on the former brand. - cheshire eyepiece and / or laser collimator / other tool to ease collimation. - eyepieces (whole new topic ) The tube, mirrors and mirror cells of my Orion Optics 12 inch F/5.3 dob are still original

That was my thought Louis.

I'm around the same latitude as you. As I said in the opening post, my challenge this winter is to spot the Pup star with my FC100-DL and my Skywatcher ED120 because I've not managed it with those scopes as yet. The challenge just now is to see any stars at all - it's been pretty solidly cloudy for the past few nights

I've used my 100 degree eyepieces in an F/4.8 10 inch and now my F/5.3 12 inch and I've not found coma intrusive or bothersome. I'm sure it's there but not to the degree that I feel compelled to start using a coma corrector Maybe we need a thread called "Favourite optical accessory other than an eyepiece ?"

It depends on the scope being used. I usually find myself skipping straight from 21mm to 13mm in my 12 inch dobsonian or from 24mm to 14mm in my refractors. I do have nice 17mm eyepieces but I don't find they get a lot of use in my scopes. I believe that the Morpheus 17.5mm is probably the best in that range so I can understand the temptation though.