John

40 minutes ago, Second Time Around said:

Good point.  However, in my refractors I don't need to go up to a full 2 inch diagonal.  Instead I use the excellent Baader T2 prism that's intermediate in size, and have no problem.  The APM zoom also works well in my OOUK Dobs in either 1.25 or 2 inch mode.

I was thinking of the earlier posters 72mm F/6 refractor.

Speaking for my requirements, while optically very good, I wanted to use the APM zoom with my Tak FC100-DL in which I use a Baader T2 Zeiss prism with a 1.25 inch adapter fitted (as I do with my 1.25 inch eyepiece set) but found that it needed more inwards focuser travel in that mode than I wanted to use. 

In 2 inch mode the APM zoom worked fine with my other scopes and the Tak of course, if I chose to put a 2 inch diagonal in it.

I'm glad I was able to borrow the APM zoom to see what it is all about though 🙂

I had borrowed an Svbony 3-8mm zoom at the same time and that one ticked a few more boxes with me so I bought one of my own.

Anyhow, lots of options have been explored in this thread - I hope that has been some help to those who are considering options 🙂

If you go for the APM zoom be prepared to use a 2 inch diagonal with your scope, if you don't already. The APM zoom is much better used in 2 inch mode because in 1.25 inch mode it needs a lot of inwards focuser travel to reach focus. More than many scopes have available.

Otherwise, it is a good zoom option.

When I look back at astro equipment brochures / catalogues from the 1980's I realise a) how little choice there was back then and b) how high the prices were back then !

Today's situation means that more thought needs to go into buying decisions but we do have the likes of SGL and other forums to help in making these decisions.

On balance, I think the situation is pretty good today 🙂

I bought a Tele Vue Planetary Filter a few years back, before they were discontinued. With the TV branding it was not inexpensive !

When I used it on Jupiter I found that it did slightly enhance the visibility of the more obvious jovian surface features however that seemed to come at the expense of making the more subtle features harder or impossible to pick up 🤔

Eventually I decided that I preferred the unfiltered view.

There is a Windows untility called Recuva which is surprisingly good at retrieving deleted files. I use the free version:

Download Recuva | Recover deleted files, free! (ccleaner.com)

Off topic for a weather discussion thread though, but there you go 🙂

There are some quasars bright enough to observe without electronic assistance. I've seen the brightest, 3C 273, with my 100mm refractor and several more with larger apertures.

I have a travel scope similar to yours (70mm ED refractor F/420mm in my case). My main eyepieces for my regular scopes are Pentax XW, Delos, Panoptic, Nagler and Ethos but for travel (and outreach) I have the Baader 8-24 zoom, a Maxvision 20mm SWA for 3 degree+ true fields and the Svbony 3-8mm zoom for higher powers. These 3 are more readily packable and obviously less costly than the Tele Vue / Pentax options but still decent performers. The Svbony zoom gets used a lot in all my scopes in fact - a very useful, and useable, eyepiece 🙂 

I've seen Mercury often with binoculars but from where I observe it is difficult to get a telescope on to it due to it's low altitude and plenty of obstacles around my horizons to get in the way.

When I have observed it with a scope, seeing the tiny disk with a clear phase is a nice reward 🙂

Eyepieces are a very personal thing. I can't say that I have come across many (any ?) that I actually hated through. Some seem more natural to use than others and that is influenced by a whole range of factors such as observing preferences, scope type, glasses wearer or not, and even facial shape. 

The Delite is the one Tele Vue range that I have yet to experience so I can't speak for those. All the other ranges I have generally got on fine with (even the Radians) so I guess that I would probably like a Delite as well 🙂

I think you have to find out for yourself what floats your boat and what does not - thank goodness for the 2nd hand equipment market 👍

Also, I think tastes change with time / experience. I didn't really hit it off in the past with the Nagler zoom 3-6mm (despite trying 2 of them) but over the past few years I've grown very fond of the 2-4mm version of the same eyepiece. Go figure, as our US friends have a habit of saying 🙂

Lovely @Stu 🙂

There is little or nothing to rival a FeatherTouch. And I didn't used to be too fussy about focusers ! 🙄

1 hour ago, Don Pensack said:

Do not use this type on an eyepiece with a conically tapered undercut--the rods will bend out of their holders and it will ruin the binding system.

At worst, they will catch, making the eyepiece extremely difficult to remove.

Thanks for the warning. I don't think any of my current 1.25 inch eyepieces have such barrels but I'm sure to have used some that do have conical barrels in this adapter at some time over the 7+ years I've owned it. I don't recall any problems but I am be forewarned now and aware 🙂

It seems to me that practically all ways yet devised to hold an eyepiece into a focuser tube have some drawback or other. Or is there a perfect design that few know of ?

1 hour ago, Franklin said:

Agree- Don't overtighten your clicklocks!

The Svbony 3-8mm zoom does need to be held slightly more firmly than some zooms though because the zoom action click stops are quite "hard". I wonder if that was why @JeremyS had the issue with his Baader Clickstop 🤔

The Baader Click Lock that I use is the T2 - 1.25" Baader one and it works brilliantly IMHO. It uses a different gripping system to most adapters with longitudinal rods that press against the whole length of the eyepiece barrel. No snagging on undercuts.

I have used the 2 inch Click Locks but also felt they were rather bulky although they worked well enough for me.

I have had quite a few sessions over the past few months but most of them have been quite short, some very short indeed. It seems ages since I had a really long observing session (ie: several hours) covering numerous targets. 

To balance that, the outer planets have been much better placed this year and some of the views of Jupiter in particular have equalled some of the best I have seen in many years.

I'm fairly sure that I'll stick at simple observing though. I don't fancy that EAA is for me and I don't feel drawn to imaging. 

When I was playing with Chromacor CA/SA correctors in refractors a few years ago, centering of the Chromacor on the optical axis of the scope was an important part in securing the maximum impact on CA and SA reduction. To achieve this the recommendation was to use an adapter with 3 set screws set at 120 degree intervals so that you could fine tune the centering of accessories. Moonlite adapters have 3 set screws but there might be others around as well. Chromacors may have been a bit fussier over centering than a laser collimator or cheshire eyepiece though 🤔

I've owned 2 Orion Optics newtonians, a 10" F/4.8 and a 12" F/5.3. I am just an observer but didn't find tube flexure an issue with either scope even with very heavy eyepieces such as the ES 17mm 92 degrees which weighs over 2.5 lbs. 

I have occasionally read that imagers have had issues with tube flexure in OO newts though.

I didn't find the primary springs an issue but mine were older scopes which did not have OO's current mirror cells fitted.

I was very tempted and I already have the F/6.5 Vixen version and an excellent F/9 fluorite by some other brand 🤔

39 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

Indeed. £10 Plossl and Ethos perform quite similarly on a cloud bank. One of nature's levellers 😊

 

Likewise Takahashi and Tasco 😁

I don't get any pleasure from the ownership of quality stuff unless it's used frequently 🤔

I can't be the only UK based observer who has been wondering lately what the point of a fleet of nice scopes and a couple of cases of good eyepieces is, given the weather that we have had over the past few months 😬

I guess I'm starting to wonder if these conditions will become more "the norm" here 🤔

Given the eyepieces you already have I think I would be considering a good fixed focal length 6mm eyepiece for 250x which is likely to be the upper end that is useable reasonably often with the scope.

Something like a Vixen SLV 6mm would cost no more than an ES 2x focal extender (possibly less) and provide excellent high power performance.

After rain pretty much all day today stars started to show though thin hazy clouds at around 10:30 pm tonight tempting me out with my 100mm refractor to clear my head following the usual Xmas excesses.

The seeing was surprisingly steady and the Orion binaries put up a good show and I also panned the scope a little eastwards to catch that magnificent triple star Beta Monocerotis. What a superb sight !

Beta Mon is well worth searching out even with a small aperture scope. The 3 components are readily seen at 80x and upwards magnification and 150x shows them really well.

Here is how to find this binary star:

It is a cracker, I promise you. Herschel called it the "wonder star" 🙂

5 hours ago, Don Pensack said:

.....With a 1200mm focal length, the true fields should be ~1.73° versus ~1.66°, so your point is valid--the 4.2' difference isn't significant....

 

Phew !!! - I was worried there for a bit 🙄

Seasons greetings Don 🙂

We have nauseous clouds down here - I'm sick of the sight of them ! ☹️

26 minutes ago, DAT said:

 It but would be interesting to see how a tv panoptic (35 & 41mm) or Pentax (40mm) performs. I have managed to get a great view of the double cluster with the SL 30mm uff and an even better view of each cluster separately with a TV delite 18mm, I wouldn't want to loose much quality by increasing the TFOV

A hyper-wide eyepiece such as the APM 20mm 100 will show very nearly as large a true field as the 30mm UFF does but with 50% more magnification. This can be very useful under skies with some light pollution:

Over the years I have found my 21mm much more use for observing fainter DSO's than my 31mm under my bortle 5 skies. The longer FL eyepiece is not often used unless I want the widest possible true field.

The above applied to my F/5.3 12 inch dob and my current F/5.9 8 inch dob.

I have owned 40mm wide field eyepieces but found them more useful with my refractors which have slower focal ratios.