John

3 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

Very nice, thank you, but where's the 16" SCT?        🙂     

I'll photoshop one in !

The mount might break though .....

1 minute ago, Peter Drew said:

Not mounted on the 16" yet.  The scope looks the same as those in the adverts.         🙂

 

 

 

 

Have one of mine

1 hour ago, Stardaze said:

I'm hoping the click lock system when I do buy one at the end of the month will take the sloppy fitting out of the equation too.

Are you going for click lock on all the connections ?

An aluminium tripod does not help. I found the Porta I worked well with my F/6.5 102mm refractor but when I put the 100mm F/9 on it, it was not at all stable. The lenght of the tube makes a lot of difference to stability and vibration due to the lever arm forces that the long tube generates, which put a lot more strain on the mount axis and the tripod hub.

If your 100mm was F/5 the Probably work just fine.

Those simple laser collimation rigs work well. If the beam stays on the same spot at about 10 metres for a full 360 degree rotation of the collimator you are good to go !

My understanding is that the main advantege of the laser method is that it is less prone to errors introduced by sloppy eyepiece fittings etc.

When I've used the laser collimation method, the shadow of the "donut" has been a bit indistinct. I found reducing the lighting in the room helped to see it more clearly. My laser collimator does not have an adjustable brightness - it's either off or on !

My method, when I use it, is similar to this one:

http://www.smartavtweaks.com/RVBL.html

Some barlows work better than others and some not at all. Cheap ones seem to do quite well !

This is my zoom setup:

Nice shots !

I've only relatviely recently discovered that the mobile phone camera is capable of producing some pretty good lunar and solar images just held steadily to the eyepiece and leaving the phone firmware to do it's thing. I even managed to snap Venus and Mercury this way during the recent conjunction of those two planets.

I've found a zoom eyepiece and simple (cheap !) e.bay phone clamp works quite well. The zoom eyepiece can be adjusted quickly and the mobile cameras digital zoom helps fill the screen as well.

I'm not going to turn into an imager any time soon but it's simple, quick, cheap, does no need wires and power supplies and can add to the fun of lunar observing 

On 01/07/2020 at 21:54, parallaxerr said:

All in all very happy, a success. Yes a Berlebach without the extension would probably perform better and is still desirable, but has dropped down the priority list a little now!

Glad you have improved things

If you wanted to go a bit further without going as far as a Berlebach, you could consider an EQ6 2 inch steel tripod or perhaps a CG5 one (as you have the HEQ5 - EQ6 "converter" in the shape of the pillar).

These 2 inch tripods are both taller and quite a bit more stable and sturdy than the 1.75 inch steel tubed HEQ5 ones. a quarter inch does not sound a lot but it makes a surprising amount of difference to the setup and of course the mounts performance. A lot less £'s than a Berlebach as well.

Just a thought

My 150mm F/12 - EQ6 - Meade Giant Field Tripod combo weighed something like that. I feared that it might crack the patio slabs !

Not an alt-az setup though so I can't post a pic here

This might help. It goes further than you need to but the part about the corrector is relevant:

https://astromart.com/reviews/telescopes/show/disassembly-of-an-sct-childs-play

Wonderful setup Matthew

70kg - "grab and groan"

1 hour ago, Ricochet said:

A thread I think well worth reading is http://astro-talks.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=1483 which attempts to give measurements for the aberration size for quite a large selection of eyepieces. The 16mm Nirvana is listed under United Optics UWA(N) and the author agrees with you, the 16mm is poorly corrected. 

According to the above website the Luminos is a touch better at f4 but about even at f10. 

That is a very interesting link

I can't honestly recall what scope I used the 16mm UWAN in

I have read elsewhere that it is considered the weakest of that 82 degree range but I didn't think of it as poor and it did compare well to the 16mm T5 Nagler that I replaced it with. I would have compared the two in the same scope during the short time that I owned them both.

At the time I did kind of regret the additional funds that I had spent acquiring the 16mm Nagler.

I have also used and owned the 28mm Nirvana and the 4mm and thought those very good eyepieces, perhaps a touch better than the 16mm ?

Sorry that you did not get on with this eyepiece @Ags and sincere apologies if my reports on it misled you in anyway

Perhaps Ernest will be a better guide than me for your future purchases ?

Totting up the current cost, I'm getting a touch over £1500 for:

- The mount

- A Losmandy / Vixen clamp

- 2x 3.7 kg counter weights (my intended scope is 9.5 kg)

- Counterweight bar and mounting plate

- A Berlebach Uni 28 tripod in EQ6 fitting.

Does that sound about right or have I double counted something ?

6 minutes ago, HollyHound said:

Is it me, or does the AZ100 take some design cues from this mount ? Looks really substantial 👍

No more Alt/Az mounts for now, I have too many already 🤣

Not sure what the design commonality between the AZ100 and the T-Rex is. The quality of engineering is comparable as is the price (but you get a tripod with the T-Rex) and the load bearing ability is similar. No counterweights needed with the T-Rex so a lighter overall setup but no dual scope option with the T-Rex. 

The T-Rex is out of production now - they rarely show up for sale so I pounced on this one when an SGL member offered it for sale earlier this year. Best Alt-Azimuth mount that I've ever used with the mighty 130mm F/9.2

Some better pics of my T-Rex with the 130mm F/9.2 on board:

Look forward to your report Peter.

So glad that they have sorted things out with these since the problems that I had with the early ones that I was sent.

I've seen some amazing lunar images taken with the ED150 on another forum. I always though these scopes had a lot of potential despite the early issues.

One of the the reasons for the price difference is that FPL-53 glass costs about twice as much as FPL-51.

59 minutes ago, Stu said:

Would a lot not also depend on the scope it was being used in, and whether the eyepiece was amplifying or cancelling out the field curvature of the scope? Longer focal length newt very different from a shorter focal length frac in that regard.

I think you always have to consider the scope alongside the eyepiece; I often see comments like ‘the XXmm eyepiece in the range is the best’ but surely that depends what focal length and type of scope it is used in?

Very true Stu.

The eyepiece is actually quite low down on the "wobbly stack" of factors that affect what we actually see.

22 minutes ago, Ags said:

@John I am thinking of our contrary feelings about the Nirvana 16mm. You say it is comparable to the equivalent Nagler, while I find it unacceptable. I suspect the reason may be my eyes are unable to compensate for the field curvature.

 

It's possible that the Nirvana has design changed since I had the 16mm UWAN (which was the version I owned for a while). Also it was now quite a few years ago.

I went from the 16mm UWAN to the 16mm Nagler T5 and could not see a lot of difference but that's just my take.

I don't wear glasses when observing and back then did not use them at all for anything. I use them for reading now.

I think the best we can do is to caveat each report / opinion with "Your Mileage May Vary, and Probably Will" and leave it at that !

31 minutes ago, Ags said:

I do find eyepiece reviews so difficult. We can't see through other people's eyes....

 

I agree. When I used to do them it took hours of observing over several sessions before I would reach any conclusions.

And even then it could only be a report of what my eyes, my scopes and my skies and my brain were producing.

I did have an advantage that I had the eyepieces loaned to me so I had not paid for them out of my own pocket and also that FLO (who loaned me them) never sought to influence what I reported in any way at all.

There is no substitute for finding out for yourself though, if that can be arranged

Very sharp eyepiece, the Nagler T5 16mm. "Honey I shrunk the 31mm"

I've not used the 4mm SLV.

I did review the 20mm, 12mm and 6mm for the forum a while back and thought them excellent. I compared the 6mm SLV at some length (ie: over several sessions) and found that it matched the Baader Genuine Ortho 6mm in performance and was more comfortable to use. I was rather surprised at this because the Baader GO 6mm is one of the best 6mm eyepieces that I've owned or used but there was no doubt that the 6mm SLV was providing comparable views:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/217971-vixen-slv-eyepiece-report-6mm-12mm-and-20mm/

I've seen measured data on the light transmission of various eyepieces and there is some variation (as you might expect) between the designs which might also contribute to the perception of one being dimmer / darker than another. Of course a dark background sky is desirable but not dimming of the intended targets, especially faint ones !

The range was between 88% and 98% of visible wavelengths.

9 minutes ago, GazOC said:

Does anyone make a 1.25" only Crayford or R&P focuser? I'm guessing not but it could be an option for people who wanted to move away from the stock focuser without wanting the extra weight of a 2" focuser on the back of the scope?

There is the Feathertouch for the Lunt HA scopes. Could that be adapted ?:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/specialist-focusers-borg-tele-vue-lunt-gso-rc/feathertouch-125-dual-speed-focuser-for-lunt-50mm-solar-telescopes.html

I think Moonlite might have something similar ?