John

A 1.6mm eyepiece will be totally impractical with a scope such as an 8 inch schmidt-cassegrain. It will produce far too much magnification to show any sort of decent image of anything, planet or otherwise.

A 7mm eyepiece would be the shortest focal length that would be useful.

The planets do look small with scopes, even at high magnifications.

4 minutes ago, rl said:

Bausch and Lomb Criterion 4000. Mid 80's vintage, built without any regard at all for quality control, optically an utter dog of a scope.  Diffraction patterns like a thumbprint. Strangely the mechanics we actually quite good. 

 I kept mine for 10 years knowing I could not sell it on with a clear conscience.  Eventually I binned it down the local tip and actually relished the sound of breaking glass as I chucked it in, knowing I had an excuse to go and get something decent! Put me off SCTs for life.

I very nearly bought one of those from BC&F. And a little later the 6 inch version.

So glad that I didn't

Perhaps a subject for another thread "Scopes that were so bad you chucked them away" !

Here is a strong candidate

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bresser-8850600W9H000-Junior-Linsenteleskop-50-600-AZ-Pink-Telescope/254668357536?hash=item3b4b6abfa0:g:scIAAOSwq3pfIEue

I think the Halley mania was a one-off (at least I hope so). I believe Meade and Celestron relaxed their quality standards to meet demand. Not sure about other manufacturers though.

It will be the dealers that get it in the neck if standards are relaxed though. Our consumer rights are quite a lot better today than they were in 1986, especially if buying online.

If you want to sell them please use the classifieds section of the forum.

Thanks

8 minutes ago, Robindonne said:

I received a dm immediately after posting that photo. That certain person/member told me, no matter how much John wants to pay for it, he pays more.... 
 

 

 

I've already owned one a while back  17mm is now covered in my collection by these two

That's a whole lot of aperture for very few £'s

The views will be superb if the clouds allow. Globular clusters in a 10 inch scope look amazing !

6 hours ago, Geoff Barnes said:

Blimey, they only rate the XW at 12 and the Ethos and Delos at 15/16 out of 20! 

Certainly leaves a lot of room for improvement in performance but one has to ask how on earth that could be achieved. 🤔

A number of factors go into that overall rating - ff the Delos / Ethos were 30% less expensive as the XW maybe they would have got 18/19 out of 20 ?

I'll have to have another read and see if I can understand exactly how those scores are derived. Any fluent French speakers around ?

It would be interesting to tot up just the optical performance ratings and see what the result is.

The surprise for many might be the Tak and Nikon scores. Both those eyepieces get great reviews from those who own them.

On 26/07/2020 at 14:15, fireshipjohn said:

Interesting regarding the earlier mention of AliExpress mounts, they seem to come in 2.5", 4" and 6" varieties.

These get mentioned in this thread on another forum. Not too positive though. Hope those were atypical examples

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/719533-manual-alt-az-mounts-show-us-what-you-have/?p=10369641

Very interesting. Thanks

I think your exposure needs to be a lot longer (minutes rather than seconds) and then a lot of them stacked to get more detail than you have got. 

3 minutes ago, Merlin66 said:

The green "glow" is coming from the Swan bands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_band

I believe cyanogen (CN) involved as well, eg:

https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/05jan_machholz

Quite a nice night here. Comet Neowise is still hanging in there. Once found with 11x70 binoculars it is just about still naked eye visible here tonight, but only just and I don't think I would have picked it out without optical aid to pinpoint it's position first.

Nucleus still showing that noticeable green tint which is apparently a reasonably common phenomenon and due to cyanogen gas surrounding the nucleus becoming ionised.

I got a hasty snap - nothing brilliant compared to many of the superb shots that have been taken but it will have to do for me tonight

40 minutes ago, Don Pensack said:

..The 10mm Delos is a fantastic eyepiece.  Here is a review of top 10mm eyepieces:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130829052725/http://www.cieletespace.fr:80/files/InstrumentTest/201306__6_oculaires_10mm.pdf

We would all benefit from more reviews that are as comprehesive as that

No problem as far as I'm concerned

I do have too much kit, I know that

I blame Steve at FLO for "turning my head" towards Pentax XW's - he loaned me the 10mm !

Such a good choice of eyepieces around these days - you probably can't go wrong

It was spectacular for around 12 days which is better than any other comet has been for the past 20 years or so. It probably deserves a quiet patch for around 6,700 years to recuperate

Congratulations on getting it.

I think looks are the very least of my concerns when choosing an eyepiece.

I found the 10mm Pentax XW a touch better than the 9mm Nagler T6 when I compared them a few years back. I was a great fan of the T6 Naglers back then (had all of them, even the 2.5mm) and I was a little surprised that I found that I preferred the Pentax 10mm XW. The T6's are still lovely eyepieces though.

I mention this because of course the XW's and Delos are very, very similar in performance.

The Nagler has 12mm of eye relief vs the 20mm of the Delos and XW but I don't know if that is important to you.

I expect someone will mention the 9mm Morpheus as well in due course. Oh, he has already !

Anyway, that's my 1p's worth

I don't know what the drives and controller are worth I'm afraid

I bought my mount undriven and without a tripod for £100 if that is any help.

2 hours ago, Robindonne said:

 

Euh John....what happened to your long term memory?😅

I found what i was looking for.  Thx to forum back in 2008😅

Believe it or not, I don't read every post made on here !

Glad you found something useful.

20 minutes ago, Steenamaroo said:

How about an old black Vixen GP, wood pod, with dual motors and pretty old-tech controller + Astro Master (basic goto?)
Trying to push it into £250 delivered territory - @John I understand you're a vixen fan?

I have one of those GP's. They are very good but not in the same league as the EQ6 in terms of capacity. More like an EQ5 plus a bit.

It would cope with the 200mm F/5 for visual observing but I have my doubts if it's up to the needs of imaging with that scope.

Was this visible through the eyepiece ?

Where is Morgantown, NV ?

(sorry, I'm UK based)

If it was an astro object (eg: a comet) it would be effectively at the around the same distance as Jupiter so you would not need to re-focus ?

The photo is way out of focus on Jupiter but the artifact has sharp edges ?

I would suspect an optical artifact.

We need to know a lot more information about the equipment used and the circumstances of the image (time, conditions, location) etc before reaching a definite judgement though.

I use a zoom eyepiece often but I would not want it as my only eyepiece. I would also want a 25mm - 32mm fixed focal length eyepiece for low power observing with a wide angle of view. The zooms have their narrowest field of view at their longer ends. Depending on the scope I would be using (you have not said what you will be using) I would also want either a good quality barlow lens or a fixed focal length eyepiece of 6mm or shorter to give high magnifications.

Of the zooms I've owned (at reasonable prices) I've found the Baader 8mm - 24mm and the Hyperflex 7.2mm - 21.5mm better quality than others I've used. The best quality zooms of all are Leica, Pentax and the Tele Vue Nagler zooms which do match the optical quality of excellent fixed focal length eyepieces but those cost a lot more money.

That handle (the one in the top photo) was actually designed for another mount - the T-Rex alt-azimuth that Kokusai Kohki used to market.

As it happens, it does fit a number of other mounts that use the 35mm spaced clamp fastening holes.