John

The Orion Megavista eyepieces were made in Japan by Carton - a manufacturer with a great reputation.

Some nice ones there:

- Orion Megavista (quite sought after and the first that caught my eye)

- TMB Planetary 9mm

- TAL 25mm plossl

- 16mm Konig

The others are decent but not outstanding.

If those are left overs the others must be pretty good !

Nothing really.

It's just a hobby. If its annoying me I stop doing it for a while.

I had one of the non-GOTO EQ6's for a while. Very solid, very, very heavy. If you just want a dual axis driven mount they are quite good (although I don't image) but if you decide to upgrade to GOTO at some stage the motors and controller boards need to be replaced as well as the handset. Some of the old EQ6's around will have been upgraded to GOTO but the owner / seller will know that of course.

The older EQ6's are really quite old now though - 15-20 years perhaps ?.

£400 seems quite a lot to pay for one of the old, non-GOTO ones.

I can recall another importer of these eyepieces saying that you never quite knew what was going to be printed on them until they came off the boat and you opened the boxes.

Just now, cloudsweeper said:

^^^^^........still available, and I recently dropped the price to £49.00 (plus postage)!

Doug.

I used to own one of those. A really good high power eyepiece and 82 degree field of view as well

I believe @mikeDnight owned one as well and thought highly of it.

21 minutes ago, Gina said:

I hate to think hope much I've spent over the last decade.

You have nearly caught me up in post count Gina - and I've been a member for a 5 years longer than you have !

9 minutes ago, Shaun_Astro said:

These are nice, but they are £200+ without tripod, and with tripod wil weigh about 6kg, which is 50% more than the pronto or nano and double the price. I was hoping to walk for a while with that and the telescope and I'm a cheapskate. 

The omegon az baby looks good, but again with buying a tripod will be £300 nearly. Could just make a small copper pipe mount I guess. 

The Bresser nano looks like a mint az4 which I like. I guess it probably will be OK for lower mags only. 

Omegon AZ Baby for sale here (not mine !):

https://www.astrobuysell.com/uk/propview.php?view=163986

A good photo tripod would do fine.

I used to use a Dwarfstar with my TV ranger. Lightest of all I believe and pretty strong:

Here you go. See the post from @cloudsweeper a few posts down the thread:

The star chart will have a scale on it somewhere. Work out the diameter of the circles needed to represent the view that your finder gives using the figures that @Stu has given above and cut them out of acetate sheet or use soft wire (eg: garden wire) to make circles the correct diameter - this will vary depending on the star atlas that you choose to use.

There was a thread on the forum recently on doing this - I'll see if I can find it when I have more time.

1 hour ago, BGazing said:

I did not measure, but then again when I use it in mono I use it with PM2.5 and I do not have to remove extension on Tak.

Just use some barlow or (ideally) PM2.5 with t2 connection to ADC...if you happen to have one.

Below f/10 you will get astigmatism. I would bump up even those f/9 scopes (DL?) although it just might be enough.

 

Thanks for that.

I don't want to start having to use a barlow or powermate with the scopes - yet more glass to add to the light path.

Depends on the time of year and the type of eyepiece. Short focal length eyepieces I usually test on tight double stars, bright stars one and off off axis (to test scatter and internal light control), planets if they are around, E & F Trapezium, smaller planetary nebulae that sort of thing.

Low power to medium eyepieces I test on bright and fainter galaxies, rich star fields such as the double cluster are good for testing sharpness across the field of view,

I usually want to try some more challenging targets because that reveals issues quite quickly.

I also try the eyepiece in a range of scopes and under different observing conditions before reaching any conclusions. 

You can see why the reviews that I used to do for the forum took some time to produce !

I'm always a bit doubtful of conclusions reported when folks "first light" an eyepiece I'm afraid.

I use 6x30 right angle, corrected image finders with my smaller refractors, 9x50 with my larger ones and my 12 inch dobsonian. I also use an illuminated reticule Rigel Quikfinder to complement the optical finder on the dobsonian.

You can cut or make templates from acetate sheets or wire rings to represent the size of the finder field on a hard copy star atlas. The PC and mobile based planetarium type software has finder reticules that you can switch on which are useful.

Here is my surprisingly often used Tele Vue Nagler 2-4mm zoom:

The Baader UHC-S was designed for small aperture scopes (smaller than yours) and does allow a wider bandwidth through than a "normal" UHC which makes it more like a broadband / skyglow type filter.

The Explore Scientific UHC is would be a better choice but an Astronomik UHC or a Orion Ultrablock is better again.

If you come across one, I have found the older Meade 4000 Nebular (that is how it is spelt !) Narrowband filter really quite good (better than the Explore Scientific) in my 100mm - 130mm aperture refractors. These are out of production now but turn up on the used market at quite good prices.

The Castell filters have a good reputation for their relatively low cost as well although I have not actually used one myself. As you can see from the chart here the Castell UHC is closer to the Astronomik UHC in it's band pass width and more "aggressive" (therefore more effective) than the Baader UHC-S:

https://www.365astronomy.com/castell-uhc-ultra-high-contrast-filter-1.25.html

Just be aware that the Baader UHC-S (if that is what you have in mind) is really a broadband filter. It has a much wider band pass width than other UHC's. I think a "conventional" UHC such as the Orion Ultrablock or Astronomik UHC would be a better choice.

I find an O-III pretty effective with my 100mm and 102mm refractors.

Thanks both.

The scopes that I would use it with are F/9 and F/9.2 refractors. A flourite doublet and a triplet. The ED120 is F/7.5 but inward focus will be an issue with that one - I only have around 30mm when at focus. The F/9 and F/9.2 are binoviewer friendly (not that I use one) without a barlow so I am hoping that I can just pop the ADC on and use it with those without a barlow or other adaptation ?

3 minutes ago, starboy71 said:

hi john, oh i thought at the start of this thread you said you have used the gorilla tape?..i got mine today so in the morn i`m gonna apply it...having a slight issue with the straight through finder moving in its bracket slightly...i may wedge some cardboard under it??..or lay some of this tape in the bracket?? any suggestions?

I'm so sorry - that was a typo (which I have now corrected). Since I HAVE been using Gorilla tape the mount has been firmly held to the scope.

Sorry for the confusion !

My finder clips firmly into it's bracket so I have not needed any additional fastening there.

Still easy to pick up with 11x70 binoculars tonight but I could not get it with the naked eye. Maybe when it's completely dark ?

Seems like an old friend now even though it's slowly fading.

I'd go for a UHC personally and add an O-III in due course.

I've tried a few CLS / Skyglow / broadband filters and found them rather innefective to be honest with you.

Strange - I don't find that I need any ties on mine not that I'm using the Gorilla double sided tape

A barlow isn't mandatory is it ?

One of our members owned one of those I seem to recall but I can't recall who it was

That sounds like the effect of varying seeing / transparency as you were observing and also you "getting your eye in" so to speak. Occasionally you get a piece of optimum atmosphere over you and the detail pops teasingly into view then you blink and it's gone again. Observing for a period of time gives you more chance of catching these moments.

These face on spiral galaxies are usually a lot larger than we can see visually but we might get the occasional glimpse of what our scopes can do if take somewhere truly dark and transparent. Seeing them is one thing, seeing some spiral form in them another and seeing the full extent of their structure something else again.

How do you know what you are seeing and are not seeing ? - I guess that is down to reading the reports of others using similar equipment and practice, practice, practice. Personally I like to be able to repeat an observation of a challenging object at least once before being sure what I've seen. Sometimes the subsequent attempts convince me that I didn't see it the first time and sometimes I get the warm glow of confirmation.

It's those little fleeting moments (and this goes for planetary detail as well) that keeps us "in the game" I reckon

The Horsehead Nebula is probably the most challenging target that I have observed. I guess I'd been preparing and practicing that for a few years before I was finally convinced that I had managed to see it. One of the least impressive objects I've ever observed but still mighty satisfying

Nice sketches - I'm sure they were both accurate at moments during your session 

5 hours ago, John said:

Having invested several £thousand in planetary scopes a few years back I guess it would seem churlish not to try a device for £100 or so at some point

 

On a practical note, how much inwards focuser travel do the ZWO and Altair ADC's eat up ?

I've seen a figure of 57mm for the ZWO but that sounds a lot to me

Thanks