John

While you wait for replies, you might want to have a look through the posts in this thread that I started a  few years back. It may well cover some of the topics that you are interested in:

I got these with my old mobile and ED120 refractor a few nights back. Thats about as far as my imaging goes !

3 hours ago, fate187 said:

Oh and btw a clarification: I don't want to diminish the SLV. I like those eyepieces a lot. Its just, that with direct comparison I was able to discern visual differences in favor of a (more expensive) morpheus. This lead me to research further for another brand/type of eyepieces for my purposes

Have you tried a Pentax XW ?

Just now, LegendBL said:

Hello fellow stargazers and planetgazers xD Im also new here and Im searching for the right Barlow lens. I have seen many on the internet, some are way cheap and some are just too expensive. There isn't any in between. So I would like you to tell me is there any brand that you know of that is good quality and not too expensive. Thanks

What scope and eyepieces will you be using the barlow with, or is it for imaging ?

Very good - thanks for the "heads up" Jeremy

Another excellent UHC filter is the Omega DGM NBP but I don't think FLO stocks those.

1 hour ago, dobblob said:

What sort of fool would believe ZERO negative feedback out of 1700? 

 

They usually use hacked e.bay accounts with excellent feedback scores. So that element is probably genuine but has no association with the fraudsters who are now using the account of course.

IMHO great "Horsehead" eyepieces are either the 20mm or 25mm Tele Vue plossls. The light transmission on those is really high from measurements I've seen. Higher than most other comparable eyepieces. I also reckon the 18mm Baader Classic ortho is good for this task.

"every little helps"

That is a Skywatcher EQ5 fitted with a dual axis drive system. There is a GOTO system that can be fitted to it:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-mount-accessories/synscan-pro-goto-version-3-upgrade-kit-for-eq5.html

9 minutes ago, Aled B said:

is there a way of knowing what magnification you would require? e.g distance by magnification?

No, it does not work like that.

Generally deep sky objects are observed at low to medium magnifications. Some deep sky objects are very large in the sky so very low magnifications are used. Some are very tiny so higher powers work on those.

How "deep" you can see depends really on the darkness of your skies and the aperture of your scope.

The Astronomik is more effective. I have both. The ES works though, it's just that the Astronomik has a more effective band pass with sharper cut offs and therefore the contrast of nebulae is slightly more enhanced and the stars more tightly defined.

I can't put a figure on the difference or what that is worth though

The ES UHC will give you a fair idea of the potential of these filters. They only have an impact on nebulae though, as you probably know.

55 minutes ago, parallaxerr said:

I should have mentioned the weight. The Omni with Crayford and finder weighs in at 6kg. Do you know what your ED120 weighs John?

My ED120 with the Moonlite focusser, 2 inch diagonal and 9x50 RACI finder is 6.5kg.

52 minutes ago, fate187 said:

Four weeks ago I got a new 6mm SLV to accompany another 6mm SLV I already have for some time now. I also asked Don very recently via PM on Cloudynights with pictures regarding shiny spacers in the eyepieces. See this picture: This is what you see after unthreading the bottom 1.25" barrel. The top arrow marks one small very thin shiny edge. Worse is below marked with two arrows, which is the space directly below the eyelens and is easily seen looking from top, sightly sideways.

 

Do both the 6mm SLV's you have show this or is it just the newer one ?

Good report and I'm glad you are pleased with this setup Jon

I tried my ED120 on my AZ-4 a few times but overall I found that combination did not work for me other than at low to medium powers.

I reckon your pillar adds a bit of stability though, and the strap from the central tray to the ground helps as well. These things might make all the difference.

I do like the rugged simplicity of the AZ-4 mount. 

If the light from neighbours shines into your bedrooms I believe you can complain to the local authority about it.

It has to start with a letter to the neighbours though even if you have no faith that will work. Copy the letter to your local councillor and show that you have done that on the letter.

I started out with a refractor smaller than those. I would have given my right arm for an 80mm !

My old (1960's) Tasco 60mm had good optics (Japanese) but a wobbly mount and poor eyepieces. It still showed me lots of things including a few of the brighter galaxies. More than enough to get me hooked on the hobby !.

I still have it up in the loft.

This 2 inch 28mm 82 degree eyepiece has appeared on the TS (Germany) website:

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p2757_TS-28mm-UWA-82--2--High-Perfomrance-Eyepiece.html

Looks like the re-working of the Nirvana 82 degree 1.25" eyepieces has now extended to the 2 inch 28mm as well.

I've used the older design (also used to be sold as the William Optics UWAN) and it was a very good 82 degree low power eyepiece. The drawback with the old design was a very wide dish shaped eye cup (face cup !) which took some getting used to. 

The revised eye cup and the taper to the top barrel section of this new design should prove easier to use I think. Price is good as well, for an eyepiece in this class.

This is the old design when I tested it alongside my Nagler 31 and the Pentax XW 30:

This is the new shape 28mm / 82 :

Low cost / wide angle / well corrected across the FoV in scopes faster than F/6 = pick any two.

I've owned the Revelation / GSO super wides in 30mm, 42mm and 50mm. Fine in an F/10 but the star definition in the outer part of the field of view falls apart quickly when the scope focal ratio gets below F/8 or so.

The 32mm Panaview is better and the 30mm Aero ED better again but still have some issues. Probably liveable with though.

3 minutes ago, Star101 said:

I think the thread drifted slightly

 

Due to enthusiasm, I'm sure

I've observed a couple of quasars - the brightest is in Virgo so well placed at the moment. Here is a good piece on those:

https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/12-quasars-for-spring-evenings/

Just a tiny dim pinpoint of light but impressive when you know what it is !

Quote from the original post folks:

"...I really don't want to go to all the faff and expense of getting another mount if I can avoid it?..."

And now we are talking about £370 tripods ....... really ?????

28 minutes ago, johninderby said:

A quote from FLO about testing the new Stellamira scopes and ES reid had said the StellaMira scopes were very consistant and hardly any needed any adjustment but the Esprit scopes needed more attention as they weren’t as consistant.

1 hour ago, JeremyS said:

I'd heard that they'd brought out the Baader MaxBright II Binoviewer just for you John 🙂

And having just read William Paolini's review, they could be just the thing... 🙂

Yes I saw that.

I've learned a few things in my years in this hobby and one of them is to trust my feelings on equipment. I have given binoviewers enough tries over the last few years to know that they are not my "cup of tea".

But at least I have tried them and more than once.

Good luck to all those who find that they enjoy using them

I have seen the Horsehead Steve, after many, many tries. Here is my report when I did it:

As you will gather from that, it was highly unspectacular and barely "there" at all but having repeated the observation a few times since then, I am confident that I have seen the thing.

I was using the 24mm Panoptic which gives 66x and a true field in the 12 inch dob of around 1 degree. I was also using an Astronomik H-Beta filter. So your reckoning is about right I would say.

Probably the toughest and least distinct thing that I've observed I reckon. It also needed the darkest and most transparent skies that I get from my back garden and lots of extended and maintained dark adaption of my eyes. Much more than I usually do. An observing hood would probably have helped here.

As Jeremy Perez puts it on his excellent website (linked to above):

".....it's like trying to see a little bit of nothing with a little bit of less than nothing resting over it...."

Good luck with the Horsey

I'm no imager but I can vouch for the LZOS optical quality from a visual point of view - I have a LZOS 130mm F/9.2 triplet refractor which has really superb optics.