John

1 hour ago, Zermelo said:

This thread encouraged me to have a try myself for the first time on Monday.   6" Newtonian with an average low power Plossl, Bortle 4 sky.
With no filter, I couldn't see a thing. Adding an Astronomik UHC was amazing - the Eastern veil was very obvious. Couldn't see the Western side though.

That's the way it was for me at the start. After a while I managed to tease out the western side and then later some of the elements in between such as Pickerings Wisp.

Well done for getting that all important first sighting. You will be back for more, I'm sure

2 hours ago, badhex said:

Good to know. Can I safely assume that the 35mm will be the same though? I'd love to see a direct comparison of the 40mm and 35mm.

One other question springs to mind - why did they discontinue the 40mm? Is it just lack of interest in those long focal lengths or some other reason?

Good question. I have the 30mm and 40mm of this line and they do vary in optical performance. The 40mm is a better corrected eyepiece in scopes faster than around F/8. I've not used the 35mm so I can't comment on how that compares with the 30 and 40mm.

@johninderby may well be correct on why production of a specific focal length has stopped.

I moved from the 16mm Nirvana / UWAN to the 16mm T5 Nagler and wondered why I did. Back then I was using a 10" F/4.8 dob.

Never used the ES 18 / 82 although I hear that it's one of the best of the ES 82's.

I use the Aero ED 40 in my F/7.5 ED120 refractor and it's pretty much sharp right across the field of view.

19 minutes ago, badhex said:

"Lowest, widest" is exactly what I'm going for! Indeed, I'm pretty sure a few of your replies to older threads were what made me think the Aero ED would be the best for my needs! I can't seem to find any of the clones/alternative brandings available for this EP either. 
 

Telescope Services in Germany have them but currently only seem to list the 30mm and 35mm:

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p2334_TS-Optics-35-mm-2--UFL-Eyepiece---69--Field-of-View---6-Element-Design.html

3 hours ago, old_eyes said:

How about this?

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/ovl-eyepieces/aero-ed-swa-2-eyepieces.html

I am not sure it is exactly the same (I have an older Skywatcher Aero 40mm and love it), but worth checking out.

I have one just like that. I'm sure it is the same as the Aero ED - they have been sold under a number of different brandings.

I find it an excellent "lowest, widest" eyepiece in all my scopes. It's even decently well corrected in my F/5.3 12 inch dobsonian although the exit pupil generated in that scope is rather over-large but that is not the eyepieces fault.

I've been impressed by my 40mm ED SWA 2 inch. My other low / wide eyepieces are the Ethos 21 and Nagler 31 so it's in good company.

Thanks for the interesting heads up Stu.

So cloudy here tonight that observing anything is pretty much impossible

If there are clear skies this sort of event is worth trying to see. Locating then watching a tiny speck of light crawling along against the starry backdrop is strangely enthralling

40 minutes ago, RobertI said:

That’s a great piece of advice - I’ll remember that one! 🙂

It is excellent advice - if possible always end a session on a positive note

I've observed through 20 inch scopes a few times. On one notable occasion, under dark skies, M13 and M51 were the targets. My goodness those views stayed with me for some years I can tell you

The slight downside was going back to view the same objects with my 10 inch scope from home - they seemed a little "lacking" for a while

It's a great experience to get even a moderate aperture scope under a really dark sky though. One year I had a 6 inch mak-newtonian at the SGL star party and had a fantastic night with my SGL friend Mark and his 6 inch newt going from galaxy, to galaxy to galaxy. 

7 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

never tried on a newt but likely issue you'd have is the 1.25 to 0.965 adaptor will mean the modern eyepiece is further out than an original 0.965 one would sit, essentially like having the focuser racked out more. So you may find there isn't enough in-travel available to get focus with the modern eyepieces. You may be able to solve that by moving the primary mirror up the tube or replacing the focuser with a 1.25-inch one or a combination of both. 

I agree with this.

It might be worth having a look at the drawtube of the scope to see if a 1.25" fitting can be substituted for the .965" fitting currently in place. This would be by far the best solution.

The 1.25" - .956" adaptors do take up quite a bit of focuser travel.

Great report Gerry

I think being able to adapt to the conditions is a very important part of creating an enjoyable session.

Until you put your eye to the eyepiece you never quite know what the conditions will serve up - having a plan B and being able to move over to that is much better than banging away on targets that will not be seen too well.

46 minutes ago, PeterW said:

Best filters for this... I got some CLS filters for light pollution reduction, but maybe not narrow enough??

Peter

I'll be using the 1.25 inch filters I currently have: Meade 4000 Nebular UHC type and an Astronomik O-III. I do have an H-Beta in 1.25" as well but I doubt that will be effective with the binoculars 

2 hours ago, jonathan said:

... I expect that to get the best for glasses wearers an eyepiece would have to be designed for it, meaning that non-glasses wearers would be at a disadvantage. 

Tele Vue designed the 40mm version of their plossl expressly for glasses wearers I believe.

To some extent I feel that the Explore Scientific 92 degree eyepieces favour the glasses wearer, especially the 12mm.

Thank you all !

My 11x70's plus the two filters will be taken to dark skies in Wales shortly and, clouds allowing, I'll be able to "see for myself"

Binoculars are often the best way to see Mercury. Nothing fancy, 10x50's will do it just fine.

I don't know how often it can be done but one of my society members did it a few weeks ago.

I wonder if the primary mirror could be shimmed slightly to improve the collimation ?

Just now, Ships and Stars said:

I have indeed. I started using UHC and OIII together before I went to UHC and Nebustar II and was able to see the Veil with 15x70s quite easily under a fair bit of LP.

The OIII will block a lot of light with 70mm of aperture, so don't expect miracles of course, but it does work. Same old caveat applies, the darker the better, especially using filters on binoculars.

With the NAN and Pelican, I realised I never had a decent view until I saw it a few weeks ago with UHC/OIII in the 15x70s, it was practically glowing under 21.15 skies! 

Filters can make a massive difference with binoculars, all the large areas of nebulosity in the Milky Way are that much clearer.

Thanks very much

Next clear dark night and you can guess what I will be trying !

I've recently found that the soft rubber eye cup of my 11x70 binoculars will safely and neatly hold a 1.25" filter just in front of the eye lens and with some eye cup shielding above it.

I've been thinking about picking up a 2nd 1.25" UHC filter to match another I already have to use with the binoculars. I do currently have a nice 1.25" O-III filter though and have been wondering what the effect would be of using a UHC on one side and the O-III on the other ?

Has anyone tried this ?

Thanks

My Vixen SP102M was in Bresser branding. They called the scope the Uranus model. Mine had a very early GOTO system, the Skysensor Mk 1. I owned this back in the late 1980's:

Congratulations on this challenging binary !

I first managed it a few years ago with my ED120 refractor, sketched it and then repeated the sketch earlier this year. The movement in the position angle is quite marked:

9 minutes ago, Kon said:

Thank you. For the collimation would you use a laser one or without it? I have seen different opinions.

Personally I get on better with a cheshire collimator.

7 hours ago, Dantooine said:

Now that’s on its way, the apm 3.5mm looks a good option for rare nights without a massive outlay... does this ever end 😱

It could go on and on, there are the Nikon Nav HW's and Docter 12.5mm which are reported to be a step up again from the Ethos in performance

And the TV Apollo 11.

Got to stop somewhere though !

Hi,

I think for me the top 3 would be:

- A Telrad or Rigel Quickfinder to sit alongside the optical finder

- A cheshire collimation eyepiece

- A good star atlas such as the Sky & Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas or for more help in finding things, the good old book "Turn Left at Orion"

Hope that helps

The highlights of the 2020 observing year:

- Comet Neowise

- Mars at opposition

I had a few decent moments with Jupiter. GRS was not difficult to see. Saturn gave me more though. Some really nice periods with even the crepe ring popping into view and that wonderful 3D look that Saturn has with the ring system curving behind the disk and the planets shadow falling onto it.

Previous nights had been the other way around or both mediocre.

Mars is looking good already. Will look even better a bit later.

52 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

Had to be done 😀

One point Don mentioned is the soft cap on the bottom. As the bottom lens is quite bulbous, you could squash it in and touch it I guess. I happened to have a harder one in a drawer so have swapped mine. I’m careful anyway so probably wouldn’t have been an issue.

That's a good point - the Myriad 100's had those and it was rather too easy to leave a mark on the bottom lens.

Contrats on the APM 20 / 100 @Dantouine. I'm sure it will impress greatly