John

There is an HEQ5 that lies between the EQ5 and EQ6 in capacity, which is not show in Alan's pictures.

The so called EQ-4 has been seen in lots of brandings over the years. I feel that it has no greater capacity than an EQ3-2 (to give the mount the Skywatcher name) and possibly even a little less.

The sticker will say:

TELESCOPE

D=200mm F=1000mm

Coated Optics

Made in China

The mount is an EQ3-2 / Skyscan 2001 or clone of. Orion Optics used to supply a version of it and called GEM 1.

The scope is a more recent Explorer 200P. The mount is not really up to that scope.

19 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

I can’t see it at all either without an O-III filter from my garden (bortle 5)

My locality is rated as Bortle 5 by "Clear Outside". Maybe that's an average figure and parts of the sky are better than that

35 minutes ago, jetstream said:

For info- under dark skies this image represents how I see the Veil in an 8" 0r 10" scope under dark skies and with the right OIII. It points out the value of travelling to dark skies.

ps not my image- its Knisely's

That's pretty much the difference I see when using my 12 inch dob at home

If you got for the lightweight alt az mount option (eg: the Pronto, Porta etc, you are going to be restricted to around a 130mm aperture newtonian really.

There always seem to be trade offs to make: aperture vs portability, price vs quality, etc, etc.

 It is possible to source or make 6, 8 or 10 inch aperture ultra portable dobsonians but these either require good DIY skills / facilities / knowledge of scopes or a fair budget:

Here is a 6 inch ultra light dob project from a member here @astrolunartick:

The 25mm BST Starguider is not the best peformer of that range, I agree. I had one and it worked OK at F/7 but showed quite a bit of astigmatism in my F/5.3 dobsonian. The 30mm Vixen NPL is a nice eyepiece and sharper across more of the field of view - I liked the ones that I've owned:

A very good scope. Pretty much the same as the Skywatcher Skyliner 250PX and there are a lot of fans of that scope on here.

The Orion 10 inch will show deep sky objects better than the TAL or the 150mm refractor can because it gathers more light. On the moon and planets it might be a closer call between the 150 refractor and the dob but the 10 inch dob will not show any false colour of course.

Hope you enjoy it !

If hand held observing is something you intend to do often, the 11x70's make that a bit easier.

The Skymasters actually operate at a slightly reduced aperture due to the prism design I believe - about 65mm ?

Not sure about the Opticrons in that respect.

Interesting eyepieces the Baader Classic Orthos for a touch under £50 a punt. I reviewed them for the forum a while back:

18 minutes ago, StarFiveSky said:

Is it possible to unscrew the dobson base and replace it with a classic AZ tripod? I really don't want to carry a chair & table or bend my back 150° down on the ground  to look through a cheap eyepiece. 

You can put these optical tubes on an alt azimuth mount such as the AZ-4 or Vixen Porta II (latter shown below):

16 minutes ago, Stu said:

Ah yes, missed that bit! 🤣

Galaxies need dark skies as you say, but filters, particularly the more narrowband ones will show a real difference even with LP.....

With nebulae, but not with galaxies ?

I suspect that's what you mean though

8 minutes ago, Stu said:

Regarding the first comment my skies vary between Mag 4.5 and 5 NELM. You may have seen comments I made saying I had good views of the Veil the other night using the Lumicon OIII in my Heritage 150p when the skies were Mag 5 NELM with good transparency. It probably would have been visible at Mag 4.5 NELM but much more challenging I’m sure and with less detail/contrast. Dark adaptation helps a lot too, so an observing hood is useful when in light polluted conditions. The overall brightness of the view is dimmed with a filter, but the contrast is increased....

 

Quite right Stu - such filters do help with nebulae under LP skies - in some cases at least you see something !

My post should have made it clearer that galaxies won't benefit in response to @Colossal Plossl's comment on the visibility of the Andromeda galaxy.

They do look lovely, don't they ?

I fitted a 2 speed Moonlite to my 12 inch dob and had similar fun with the fixing holes. I wonder which scopes they do actually match ?

Will the new owner miss having a 2 speed focuser do you think ?

Deep sky filters such as UHC and O-III  don't really help with galaxies and clusters. Nebulae are the targets that they enhance, some more than others.

Filters won't really make much difference if you have lots of LP.

I have only used the Astronomik O-III filters, not the ones that they are now making for Tele Vue but the latter are getting excellent feedback from experienced observers. Worth the price difference ? - your call I guess !

Here is a good piece on the deep sky type filters:

https://astronomy.com/-/media/import/files/pdf/8/c/7/0805_nebula_filters.pdf

A Heritage 130 dobsonian a zoom eyepiece and a folding chair and small table could be pretty portable I guess:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/heritage/skywatcher-heritage-130p-flextube.html

If you can get under truly dark skies you don't need a large aperture scope to get some wonderful views of the deep sky.

These filters only improve the views of nebula. For galaxies, find the darkest skies you can.

With a 130mm I would go for the full UHC rather than the UHC-E. I use "full" O-III and UHC filters with 100mm apertures to good effect.

Looks like @Stu agrees with me 😀

3 hours ago, jetstream said:

My highly recommended Orion Ultrablock earned the nickname Ultra JUNK... worst filter ever. I threw it out.

With filters other than the former Lumicon, current Astronomik and the new Televue the issue is huge sample to sample variation IMHO. Totally a crap shoot- actually craps has better odds than getting a good off brand filter IMHO.

The Orion Ultrablock is a fine example of the crap shoot you mention. I've seen tests showing large variations in pass rate and width. Some are decent, some are pretty much useless.

I had one years back which was OK. A more recent one I tried didn't seem to do much at all

I have mine at the same angle as the focuser. You just loosen the finder a little in it's mount, turn it so the eyepiece is at the angle you want and then re-set the finder in it's mount. You will probably need to re-align the finder with the main scope again after doing this.

I do this with the RACI finders on my refractors as well.

2 hours ago, alex_stars said:

Hi all,

the Hyperflex does sound like an upgrade option in the "sharper and more contrast" segment. Eye relief is a bit less but at 15mm still very comfortable I guess. (Not sure if my Seben is actually at 20 mm).

Now regarding the suggested 7.2-21.5 Zoom, I seem to find a confusing variation of specs on different sellers homepages:

• Skywatcher Hyperflex 7E1: 60-40 FOV, 7 lenses - 4 groups, weight 190 g
• Auriga version: 60-40 FOV, 7 lenses - 4 groups
• Orion version: 60-40 FOV, 7lenses - 4 groups, weight 170 g
• Omegon "premium" version: 53-40 FOV, 7 lenses - 4 groups
• TS-Optics "premium" version: 53-40 FOV, 7 lenses - 4 groups, weight 170 g
• Lunt Solar Systems version: 53-40 FOV, 7 lenses - 4 groups

Hmm. All the above are reported to have 15 mm eye relief.

And then there is the other version, Hyperflex 7E2 with a 9-27mm zoom range, 60-40 FOV, also 7 lenses - 4 groups, and a reported eye relief of 18 mm. This 9-27mm zoom I found also from Auriga, where it is labeled with 15 mm eye relief. And nobody seems to know anything about that as I read:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/204638-skywatcher-hyperflex-9-27mm-zoom/

Does anybody know why there are different FOV specs for the 7.2-21.5 zoom? Interestingly the 53-40 FOV ones are consistently higher priced....

 

 

Specs are often quoted inaccurately I'm afraid. Even the Baader 8-24 zoom has proved to differ in actuality from the Baader specs in terms of field of view offered.

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Here is a link to the instruction manual for the scope that you have been given which might help:

https://nimax-img.de/Produktdownloads/33297_1_Anleitung-EN.pdf

You also have a number of additional accessories which we can help with once you have the basics of how the scope is set up.

8 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

Is anyone else using Ethos in 1.25” mode? Seems strange to me that they need extra extension / rings for best 2” adaptation, especially given the price point. Was there a concession in there to make them dual sized? 

In my case, I only use the barrel extensions to enable me to use 2 inch filters with the 13, 8 and 6mm Ethos. Otherwise the 2 inch barrels work fine with no extensions IMHO.

27 minutes ago, iPeace said:

As this seems to me to be in response to my own remarks, I happily and wholeheartedly defer to your judgement on the matter. Let it be so, that the Hyperflex is an improvement over the Seben.

In the interest of our original poster Alex, and his quest for improved planetary performance at 12mm, I personally wouldn't recommend the Hyperflex (which I did like very much, myself) as a significant upgrade to his Seben. However, if you would, I would be happy and interested to know.

Specifically, has the unbarlowed performance of the Hyperflex grown on you?

No deference needed - we can simply agree to disagree on this

Eyepieces between 30mm and 5mm in focal length will all be useful in your scope.

The BST Starguiders are good although there is some variation in quality across their focal lengths - the 25mm is probably the weakest although still a decent eyepiece.

Exit pupil is calculated as eyepiece focal length divided by the focal ratio of the scope. So all 8mm eyepieces will deliver the same exit pupil with your scope, as an example.