John

Vixen NPL plossls are good quality and quite reasonably priced. The GSO plossls are also good quality for their cost - often branded Revelation in the UK.

I've owned other brands plossls that have been OK but the above seemed a bit better than OK for their cost.

Worth bearing in mind that with the plossl design, the eye relief is around 75%-80% of the focal length so below around 8mm the eye relief can get a bit tight for some.

The ones to avoid would be the really low cost ones  - there are some listed on e.bay (new) at less than £20 per eyepiece.

23 hours ago, LCG said:

Thanks for the advice...    I managed to catch Saturn briefly with the Hyperion + Barlow and with the small FoV it was moving out of view quickly, so thought a fixed EP at high mag with wide FoV would give me an improved image for longer...  Hmmmm, some points to consider....

I know the problem. That's one of the reasons that I use 100 degree eyepieces with my 12 inch dob.

Yes, I saw those in the Hyginus Rille last night as well.

Similar looking feature but with a quite different formation cause. The moon is a fascinating place  

Great observing Mike. I need a 12 inch aperture to see that feature and only then when the seeing is very good and then 250x - 300x magification. You must have superbly acute vision

The Baader Q-Turret 2.25x barlow gives 1.3x if the lens element section is screwed directly into the bottom of the 1.25" eyepiece barrel on their Classic series eyepieces.

The actual amplification given with other eyepieces depends on the distance between the last element in the eyepiece and the barlow lens element - the greater the distance, the more the amplification factor is.

As you can see, the barlow elements need some room up inside the 1.25" eyepiece barrel so designs which use a lower lens set within the barrel are unlikely to ba able to accommodate it.

27 minutes ago, badgerchap said:

The problem with the 12" has always been stability rather than optics. The NEQ6 just isn't up to the job of controlling that beast. A sparrow farting within 50' seems to be enough to set it wobbling!

Ah, yes I understand now. On a dobsonian mount the 12 inch F/5's are very good for visual observing. Not for imaging though !

9 minutes ago, johninderby said:

This looks like an update to the Nirvana 28mm 2” eyepiece with a different eyecup to the old version.

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p2757_Astro-Professional-28mm-UWA-82--2--High-Perfomrance-Eyepiece.html

Old style Nirvana 28mm

https://www.365astronomy.com/SkyWatcher-Nirvana-UWA-82-deg-28mm-2-inch-Eyepiece.html

That is a good re-design taking on the shape that Tele Vue have used on the 31mm Nagler. The Nirvana 28, when I tested it, was a very good eyepiece but the eye cup (face cup !) did take some getting used to !

Last night I observed the crater chain near the crater Davy known as the Catena Davy. What a fascinating feature - there are 4 larger craters in a line and lots of much smaller ones joining those together in a line right across a plain and up and over a rampart as well.

Resolving the smaller craters in the chain was challenging and needed high powers and steady moments.

The formation of this feature is thought to have involved a multiple simultaneous impact strike by a fragmented body. It must have been an amazing event as it happened !

What other similar crater chain features are there to explore on the Moon ?

This is Catena Davy as the observer sees it (good conditions, high magnification) and also, below, an amazing oblique image from NASA's Lunar Mapping and Modeling Programme:

A good 8 inch SCT can be very satisfying.

Slightly surprised that your 12 inch newtonian was not also delivering excellent views though but the SCT format is much more compact of course.

The only filter of this type that I have used was a William Optics VR-1 minus violet filter which I tried with a Skywatcher 150mm F/8 achromat. The filter did reduce the violet halo surrounding the lunar limb by about 50% I reckon. The price for that was a pale lemon / yellow tint to the whole image.

In the end I decided to try other means of correcting the CA in these scopes.

1 hour ago, JeremyS said:

..... But I like the broad approach that SGL takes.....

 

So do I

1 minute ago, bomberbaz said:

No John. I fell for this when I saw it annnnnd, well you know how it goes from there. 😆

 https://www.taurustelescopes.com/en/taurus-t350/

Very, very nice Steve. 

Lunar illumination does need to be "right" to get the most out of them. Last night was pretty good with the craterlets appearing as tiny pits with ramparts. Under more direct illumination they appear as bright spots which I think makes spotting the smaller ones much harder.

1 hour ago, bomberbaz said:

......will see how it performs when my new F4.8 dob arrives. #spoileralert

Orion Optics by any chance ?

I had a 10 inch F/4.8 Orion Optics for a while. I didn't feel the need to use a Coma Corrector with that even with Ethos eyepieces. I suspect that I'm less bothered by coma than I am astigmatism.

Baader 24mm - 8mm zoom plus a 30mm Vixen NPL ?

That would cover pretty much all the observing bases.

You don't really need a barlow for visual with a 2000mm focal length scope.

20 hours ago, Scott said:

No argument from me

I suppose that is the challenge.

Imaging centered sessions might be of limited interest to observational astronomers and observation centered sessions may well not attract the imagers.

Would mixed content sessions work - something for all ?

I reckon imaging is the dominant sector of amateur astronomy and probably this forum currently, in which case I can understand why topics relating to that will be the mainstay of these sessions.

Perhaps "Stargazers Lounge" needs to be re-titled ?

1 hour ago, markse68 said:

It was lovely wasn’t it! How many craterlets did you count in Plato with that beast John? I wasn’t getting enough contrast last night to count- I could just about make out some were there but maybe my eyes were tired but I couldn’t separate them

I got 8 craterlets last night. The "big four" and the "little four". My best is 11 with this scope.

Useful guide to them here:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/34841-guide-to-plato-craterlets/

Very good report and comparison Steve

I know I can only go so far in terms of detail when taking snap shots of the moon with my old mobile phone at the eyepiece of my scope and I reckon I've more or less reached the limit here.

I wanted to try and capture the Hadley Rille and the Apollo 15 landing site that was showing so crisply though the eyepiece of my 12 inch dob.

This is the best that I could do. I've put an old NASA map extract of the landing site area next to it with the point at which the Lunar Module landed marked with a red arrow on each image.

Considering this was taken at about 400x magnification with an undriven dob and a cheap camera bracket I'm actually quite pleased with it. The eyepiece view was a lot crisper than this - probably one of the best views of this area of the lunar surface that I've had for a while.

For scale, the crater that sits on the Rille below the landing site (in the pictures) is Hadley C with a diameter of 6km.

I guess I'll need to upgrade the mobile phone if I want to do better !

Just a quick post to mark the superb seeing on the moon this evening.

Plato craterlets, Vallis Alpes central rille, Catena Davy craterlet chain, it's all up there and steady at 300x - 400x with the 12 inch dob right now

55 minutes ago, mih said:

Yes, i am quite a bit. Which one of the two would you say is better in general? The ED80 has a focal length of 600mm.

I think I would be ok with the planet problem, i think DSOs are what interests me

You can't compare them - totally different strengths and weaknesses.

If DSO's are more interesting then a larger dobsonian is both much less expensive than your budget and will do the job better on DSO's and will do a decent job on the moon and planets as well.

4 minutes ago, Asmodeus said:

Was looking at this for a good all rounder https://www.wexphotovideo.com/baader-mark-iii-hyperion-8-24mm-clickstop-zoom-eyepiece-with-225x-barlow-1557712/ 

Any opinions?

I've owned the Mk III and Mk II Hyperion zooms. Not used the barlow though.

They are probably one of the best zooms around unless you pay big bucks for something like the Leica ASPH zoom.

Pretty close to the optical quality of fixed focal length eyepieces such as the BST Starguider, Hyperion non-zooms, Celestron X-Cell LX's etc.

The instantly variable focal length is very useful.

The true field is a bit narrow at the 24mm end so I would want a wide field 26mm - 30mm eyepiece to go with it.

2 minutes ago, mih said:

Right. I found an Achromatic refractor AR152 AIR-SPACED Doublet, 988mm focal length. Thing is it is not ED

Good for deep sky but not so good for planetary use due to CA. But I sure you realise that given the advice that has been provided

Also heavy as Stu says.

I think you need to think things through more carefully. You seem to be all over the place with your choices at the moment ?

I agree very much with the above post.

A 6mm and a 5mm, without a barlow would be useful eyepieces to have but the very high magnifications just won't deliver.

With the barlow lens, your zoom should be more than enough.

If I was going to add an eyepiece it would be at the other end - perhaps a good quality 26mm - 30mm wide field to offset the zooms rather narrow angle of view at the 24mm end ?

1 minute ago, mih said:

What is the optimal focal length for an ED80. I found one with a 600mm. Is that good?

It is a popular focal ratio (F/7.5) with an ED 80mm scope because it's suitable for imaging as well as visual.

You do realise that your 150mm newtonian will out perform such a scope on practically everything though ?

An 80mm ED is a nice "grab and go" alternative though.