John

12 minutes ago, dweller25 said:

...Or did the wife find out and kill you ? 😂😂😂

 

Burnley man found impaled on scope. Scope carefully extracted by surgeons and no damage found. No reports on the condition of the victim though

The largest true field of view that your scope will show is 2.3 degrees - that would be with a 32mm plossl eyepiece or a 24mm wide field. With the 25mm eyepiece that comes with the scope you should get around 1.7 degrees which is plenty for galaxy hunting. The Andromeda galaxy is a bit larger than that but the core of it (which is what you see with a small scope) will fit into that view OK.

My delivery was actually yesterday but I thought a picture of it fitted was more interesting than the box !

Berlebach "spreader stopper" for my Uni 28 tripod:

9 minutes ago, Louis D said:

I would add the 17.5mm Baader Morpheus.  It's supposed to be a top performer as well for less money than the Delos.

I would agree Louis but I didn't have one of those and I don't think I could have held all 3 with one hand !

56 minutes ago, JackTaylors9 said:

That’s great to know, so what telescopes would be the best size for galaxy hunting? Could I see the andromeda through mine?!

 

 

 

You will be able to to the Andromeda Galaxy with your scope. It will appear as a small oval patch of light. It needs low magnification so your 25mm eyepiece. Under a dark sky you can actually just about see this galaxy with just your eyes and any binocular will certainly show it.

Ideal galaxy hunting scopes have as much aperture (ie: diameter of the main lens or mirror) as possible. Using them under dark skies is also very helpful for seeing galaxies.

I doubt that another eyepiece will enhance the abilities of your scope with regards to galaxy spotting. Using it under a dark sky would improve things though.

I would use the eyepieces that you have for now. Use the 25mm to search for the target after the red dot finder has got you to the right part of the sky. You can then use a bit more magnification with the 10mm eyepiece if needed. Using the barlow lens with the 10mm eyepiece will give you a 5mm eyepiece but this will not be much use for deep sky objects.

The big wide angle eyepieces need a 2 inch fitting on the scope and I don't think your scope has that capability. They will also cost as much as your scope has cost !

I had the Aspheric 36mm for a while. I was using it in an F/12 150mm refractor. It worked well with that scope but I noticed when I tried the eyepiece in my F/6.5 refractor that there was quite a lot of astigmatism in the outer field of view - rather too much I felt for the cost of the eyepiece.

Personally I think there are better 30-something mm choices available for that sort of price eg: the Aero ED 35mm.

The Aspherics are nowhere near as well corrected in faster scopes as the Morpheus is. You might well be disappointed.

Hello and welcome to the forum.

What eyepieces, filters and other accessories does the scope come with ?

That will help us give some advice about sensible further acquisitions.

Bear in mind that you probably won't get 2.5x doing it that way. Probably more like 1.5x but the exact amplification will depend on the focal length of the barlow lens and the distance between the eyepiece lenses and the barlow lenses.

The Telrad base has a larger contact area with the scope of course so the sticky pads can be larger.

8 hours ago, Cuto100200 said:

Just trying to get a good broad amount of information on all the stuff, I don't want to rush into buying stuff and then realise I should have got something else lol, and thank you for the suggestion, never heard of astigmatism, time to go search that up haha. 

I have an 8mm eyepiece, though I don't know much about the value of having an eyepiece in the sort of 14-18mm+ range 

Good idea not to rush !

There are so many eyepiece options that it takes time and some experience to work out which will be useful to you.

In general having a range of 4-5 eyepieces ranging from low power to high power is what you need. Many of us seem to end up with somewhat more than that though

8 hours ago, Cuto100200 said:

Are there any other eyepieces in the 16-18mm type of range I should look at or would the Nirvana be the optimal choice? 

The Nirvana is probably the best you can for for it's price. I think it would provide as good performance as the ES 6.7 for a lot less £'s which is why I suggested it.

My personal choice at 17mm are the currently the 17mm Explore Scientific 92 degrees and the Tele Vue Delos 17.3mm but these are £300 plus eyepieces if bought new. Big eyepieces as well

6 minutes ago, Pixies said:

How do you find the Rigel? I see some comments that it doesn't 'stick' as well as a Telrad. It looks a lot neater.

The Rigel works very well. It has 2 circles rather than the 3 that the Telrad has which define 2 degrees and .5 of a degree of sky respectively. Mine is around a decade old so I have replaced the sticky pads on the base a couple of times over the years (easy and very cheap to do). My scope is kept indoors which might help. There is a screw hole in the base if you want to use that. For me, I needed to save as much weight and space as possible at the top end of the scope so I went for the Rigel. I have owned Telrads in the past with other scopes and they do the job excellently as well.

With a 180mm mak-cassegrain I would try and store the scope tube somewhere that is close to the outside temperature.

5 hours ago, Cuto100200 said:

Thank you! Seeing as they're half the price would you say it's more worth getting the Nirvana 7mm and putting the extra money I would have spent buying a scientific toward something else? And would you say 6/7mm are appropriate flexible eyepieces for looking at some of the brighter DSO's with an 8" dob (1200 focal)? 

Personally I would go for the Nirvana over the ES 82's and save some money. The limitation with the Nirvana range is that there are only 3 focal lengths in the 1.25" size - 16mm, 7mm and 4mm.

6mm/7mm is quite a high power for DSO observing. It's OK for the small ones such as planetary nebulae but for galaxies, clusters and larger nebulae I would usually use lower magnifications. The 16mm Nirvana might be a more useful all round DSO eyepiece.

I use the 9x50 right angle corrected image (RACI) finders with my larger scopes including on my 12 inch dob. I have 6x30 RACI finders on my smaller aperture refractors.

Mine are either Skywatcher or Orion (USA) branded but made by the same manufacturer. Like this:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/astro-essentials-9x50-right-angled-erecting-finderscope.html

Some people like larger aperture finders (eg: 60mm, 70mm etc) but I find 50mm does the job well for me and the star fields shown match those in my favourite star atlas - the Sky & Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas.

With my dob I use the optical finder alongside a Rigel Quikfinder zero magnification illuminated reticule finder. I find having both very useful. This is the top end of my 12 inch dob:

3 minutes ago, Don Pensack said:

Assuming you don't wear glasses.  I just went back to a 22mm Nagler after 10 years with a 21mm Ethos because my astigmatism has gotten back enough I needed the eye relief.

What does astigmatism from the eye look like in the eyepiece Don ?

13 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

Can't comment properly just yet, but due to he same question posed, I've gone with the Bresser. Hopefully due to be delivered tomorrow. I was considering SW 250PX, but the focussed swung it for me, it's German built so has to be good....

 

I think the Bresser dobs are Chinese ?

If you are considering the ES 6.7 82 then you probably out to at least have a glance at the Nirvana 7mm. Also an 82 degree eyepiece and really rather good for it's price:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/ovl-eyepieces/ovl-nirvana-es-uwa-82-ultrawide-eyepieces.html

I used to have a Nirvana 4mm and it was a really nice very high power eyepiece

For £199 that is a very nice refractor !

I can remember when the 120mm F/8.3's first came out. A "big" refractor at a a relatively affordable price and it caused a lot of excitement. Even more so when the first of the 150mm F/8's made it here from China a year or so later. A 6 inch refractor that an ordinary person could buy off the shelf was practically unheard of back then.

The Russian company Aries even designed the CA and SA correctors, the Chromacors, especially for these instruments. I had some fun with those a few years back !

I have owned a couple of Bressers but not the dobsonians.

My first was back in the 1980's - made by Vixen in Japan and a top quality refractor

37 minutes ago, johninderby said:

Interesting to note that you hardly ever see a used Bresser dob up for sale. ....

 

 

Apart from yours recently.....

.....but you had a special reason I think

If / when you upgrade the finder, you will want Right Angled Correct Image (RACI). Much easier to use in my opinion.

Optically they will perform the same I think.

If the additional features of the Bresser are worth the additional cost to you then go for it.

The Skywatcher works fine out of the box though. I've owned a couple of them.

The Bresser finder is rather poor so that might need upgrading.

I understand that the William Optics 2.5x 2 inch barlow lens requires quite a lot of additional inwards focuser movement to allow it to reach focus. Adding extension tubes won't help - that just makes matter worse.

I have read about other people having issues getting this barlow to focus with their refractors. Not sure there is an easy solution