John

No filter used either, or ADC, presumably Note to self: Give the 12 inch dob a chance as well

I've only owned / used one Tak LE and that was the 30mm. Hope you enjoy the 5mm

Nice report Stephan These lowish cost zooms can be rather good ! My 7.2-21.5mm zoom plus the Baader 2.25x barlow lens is more often than not my first choice with my refractors and often the only things I use. I've a case full of Tele Vue and Pentax eyepieces doing very little just now

I've tried all sorts of filters on the planets (including Mars) but for me, I have always preferred the filterless views I even splashed out quite a bit on a Tele Vue Planetary filter a few years back which seemed to get rave reviews from a couple of well known observers but that didn't do anything for me either. I notice that TV dropped their planetary filters after a couple of years. They used to do a general Planetary filter plus a couple specifically for Mars. Perhaps people found much less expensive coloured filters at least as good ? This opposition I have a couple of what I believe to be the best planetary scopes in their apertures available so I'll have some fun, filtered or unfiltered

Probably won't be noticeable. Modern glass and coatings reduce lost light from additional elements to very small levels which would not be noticeable visually. Light scatter might be slightly increased though.

If the 7mm Nirvana does not give good sharp images of double stars at 171x with your 150mm F/8 scope, I would be suspecting the collimation or conditions rather than the eyepiece. The Nirvana is close to Tele Vue Nagler in optical quality. If you are resolving equal brightness pairs down to a 1 arc second split with a 9mm eyepiece you are already doing very well indeed. Getting better than that, a whole lot of things need to come together in my experience.

Why is it that dust storms seem to coincide with favourable oppositions I wonder

Great that others are getting these lovely views as well I'm too shattered to wait up for Mars though. I'd forgotten how much effort is involved in moving house, or even helping someone else move house

Yes, the 4 Galilean moons of Jupiter are showing nicely tonight and I've spotted 5 of Saturn's moons as well. Congratulations on your first views of Jupiter and Saturn. You will remember them for a long, long time

Without a diagonal mirror or prism between the scope and the eyepiece the image will appear upside down and left - right reversed.

Saturn is excellent here as well

Additional, additional: The GRS seems smaller than in previous years. I have seen this mentioned by other observers but it is noticeable to me tonight. It does have a brick red tint though. Also, the SEB is quite thin and the South Temperate Belt seems wider and darker, extending N to almost brush the S side of the GRS. Fascinating how the Jovian features change, night to night, week to week and year to year

Additional: There is a feature in the S side of the NEB which is currently right in the centre of the disk. It is dark and elongated, a major barge I think. Nice to see, I've not seen many barges lately Looks a bit like the one in this image (not mine):

I saw clear dark markings (probably Syrtis Major and other features) and the South polar cap with my ED120 refractor at around 200x about three weeks ago. Your dob should be doing as well I would have thought. Unless a major dust storm has sprung up on the planet since I observed it last. That can lead to a largely plain orange disk even at opposition

I've just put my Tak 100mm out for an impromptu look at Jupiter. No cool down time at all and yet the giant planet is showing excellent detail in it's belts just now. GRS crossing the disk as well. The S side of the NEB is really complex and very uneven. 2, maybe 3 festoons showing well and much structure with in the main equatorial belts and the lesser ones to the N and S of those as well. High powers not really needed either - Jupiter is crisp and contrasty at 120x tonight. I will apply more when Saturn shows. I was not intending to observe this evening after a tiring day helping my son and his wife move house but I'm so glad that I popped the scope out

The Meade UWA gives an 82 degree field of view and the stars will be properly shown over most of that field of view. The Skywatcher 66 degree 6mm would not show properly corrected stars across it's smaller 66 degree field of view - there will be distortion in the outer 30% or so of that. That is what you are paying the additional money for - an ultra wide field of view which is quite well corrected all the way across, even in an F/5 scope. F/5 is quite a challenging focal ratio for wide and ultra wide angle eyepieces.

Should be even better in a mak - slower scope, less challenging for eyepieces.

I think he can post in whichever image section he likes

Mine sits flush to the tube and has stayed solid. The scope lives in the dining room when it's not in use with both the finders removed Other forms of adhesive tape are available.

Yes. They are very often recommended on here as a good upgrade to the stock eyepieces.

Hi Mike I've not used a DeLite so I can't comment on those from practical experience. They are reputed to be a tiny bit better performers than the Delos so they might have a very slight edge on the XW's in terms of optical performance as well. I'm very happy with the 5mm and 3.5mm XW's in my F/5.3 12 inch dob but I don't use a coma corrector. I did own the 4.7 and 3.7 Ethos SX's for a while but eventually found that the XW's were delivering perhaps slightly better performance in terms of light scatter so I, rather reluctantly, let the Ethos SX's go. I tend to go for the widest field that I can when using the dob though, for the reasons that @rl mentions. I suspect you would be very happy with the optical performance of either the XW or the DeLite so the AFoV difference is the deciding factor. Would you miss 8 degrees ?.

This is my 12 inch F/5.3 dobsonian secondary support arrangement. Obstruction is 21% of primary diameter:

Something around 6mm or 5mm (180x - 200x) would be a useful high power. Maybe 250x on good nights and the right targets. 300x and more just will not get much use wherever you are. You will also want some mid range magnifications - most observing is done at low to mid range power.

What are they ? (the OP is new to astronomy)

The magnifications over 250x will be used very rarely so I would not give a priority to eyepieces that deliver those very high magnifications. Do you have the F/5 1000mm focal length newtonian or the F/6 1200mm focal length dobsonian mounted newtonian ?