John

Fast telescope = one with a cost sufficient that it requires the owner to move very rapidly when their other half finds out

6 minutes ago, Space Hopper said:

Back in my cyclops days, i had a set of Vixen LVWs and i often used the 3.5mm when i wanted to 

crank up the power. If i remember it gave 264x on my old WO 132 refractor.

They were fine eyepieces and are often sought after now, with their nice wide fov and luxurious 20mm of eye relief.

They do come up on the used market from time to time.

Once of my early Stargazers Lounge reviews

https://www.vixenoptics.co.uk/Pages/lvw_review.html

Where did that decade go ?

1 hour ago, GazOC said:

So the Evostar range is under no threat at those prices 

I hope Skywatcher maintain the ED Pro range as really good ED doublets with an entry level pricing scale. While they have areas where they can be improved (eg: focuser) it would be a shame if they were dropped to make way for a significantly higher priced range IMHO.

Your scope is at sharp focus when the target object is at its smallest size in the eyepiece view. Either side of that the image will expand to an increasingly large disk and when well out of focus you can see the secondary silhouetted against the disk and possibly any dust in the optical system (ie: the "bugs") as well.

The planets are generally surprisingly small when viewed through a telescope even at reasonably high magnifications.

10 minutes ago, Ships and Stars said:

I'd read that, seem to recall 62mm. There is an obvious difference in aperture on the business end, haven't precisely measured it yet, but the Apollos are noticeably larger. Perhaps 12x62s vs 15x70s is closer! The Cometrons are holding their own so far...

I think the objective lenses of the low cost 70's are 70mm but there is some vignetting by the internal prisms which reduces the operating aperture down a bit.

If it's less than 10% difference its going to be tough to see though.

It will be interesting if you can see a difference in brightness between the two. The lower cost 70's operate at a bit less than their full aperture I believe - more like 62-64mm as I understand it.

If you look back at AAVSO records (they go back to 1911) on Betelgeuse it's been dimmer than this occasionally,

I've owned a couple of the Baader zooms and found them pretty good eyepieces, for a zoom. They are better than the sub £100 8-24 zooms but not as good as things like the Pentax XW's, TV Delos in my view. A useful tool to have no doubt but personally I would not want to be 100% reliant on the zoom as the only eyepiece I had in the range that it covers.

It's very hard to beat the TV Delos or Pentax XW ranges in my view and I have a mix of them in my 1.25 in set.

I've built up a 5 eyepiece ultra / hyper wide set for my 12 inch dob which comprises of the Nagler 31 and Ethos in 21, 13, 8 and 6mm focal lengths but those would break your budget by quite a bit !

There are lower cost options around from Explore Scientific which are still very good and some of the APM (Germany) eyepieces get very good feedback as well.

I'm sure you will get lots of other suggestions - we all have our favourites

Oh boy, does that bring back memories !

My school had one of those in a dome which we used when I joined the after school astronomy club. It seemed a giant of a scope when I was 12 years old

That was 1972 so your dating would be about right Jake

The mounting used was really massive - Sir Patrick Moore used one on his 5 inch Cooke refractor:

Congratulations on your Skywatcher 300P - very nice scope with so much potantial

Do you have a budget in mind for eyepieces ?

As you know they range from around £50 apiece to £800+ apiece so having some idea of a guide price does help narrow things down !

The minimum 12mm eye relief guide line is useful. The Nagler zooms have 10mm so I'm not surprised they are marginal for you.

My scopes range from a 100mm Takahashi to a 12 inch dob as well (with other fracs in between) so I've had a similar issue. I've ended up with an eyepiece set for the dob and another one for the refractors but that is a bit extreme I grant you

I'm looking at that moon right now from my window here. Looks rather ghostly here because of thin clouds. Nice sight all the same.

Sorry that I missed this post here Trevor but I did link to your posting on CN in the "scopes" section.

Great stuff with the ED150 - glad they have it sorted now

6 hours ago, scarp15 said:

That is an insightful article John thanks for posting. The Fishes Mouth area is I think composed of the same emission, reflection nebula composition, yet appears as a silhouette. I am also not certain whether it is defined as of the same nature?  Interstellar dust from a dark nebula, absorbs visible wavelengths of stars and emission, reflection nebula. This may or may not constitute for the Fishes Mouth, would be interesting to learn more about the science. The nature of the largest dark nebulae that appear in the Milky Way as naked eye objects such as the Great Rift, are irregular patches in character and referred to as dark cloud constellations.

Not much more insightful but here is another article.

https://astrobob.areavoices.com/2018/12/28/behold-the-orion-nebula-winters-most-beautiful-flower/

 

 

Interesting link Iain - thanks for that.

I can't resist returning your post with this fascinating movie "fly by" of that region of M42 which was recently compiled combining Hubble and Spitzer data:

Skywatcher responded to the issues that I encountered in 2 ways:

1. They improved the packaging of the scope to better protect it in transit.

2. I understand that the lens retaining ring design was strengthened by making it deeper so it should retain the objective elements during transit and use somewhat better.

The last point has not, as far as I am aware, been mentioned by the UK Skywatcher importer but the US Skywatcher vendor has been clear on this point on the CN forum so I'm assuming that ED150's destined for Europe will have the same improvement.

The objective lens retaining ring was certainly flimsy affair on the early units that I had so improving that was very sensible.

If these scopes are consistently like the one that Trevor has (and I think Owmuchmoney has a good one as well) then I'm getting tempted by them again now that I have that very nice T-Rex mount for it to ride on

Might have to offload a few things first though ......

This was posted on the CN forum a few days back - nice to hear that Skywatcher have sorted the ED150 now. This UK owner is certainly getting some superb lunar shots with his

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/693379-first-light-with-a-skywatcher-ed150/#entry9965092

19 minutes ago, scarp15 said:

..... The Fish Mouth as far as I understand is a dark intrusion,  it would however be interesting to hear of any other thoughts on this.

 

This Sky & Telescope article from 2014 refers to "The Fishes Mouth" as being dark nebulosity but whether that is the same or similar to the nature of the targets that you describe I'm not sure

https://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/see-orion-nebula-3d12172014/

Interesting report - thanks for posting it

I've seen B33 / The Horsehead a couple of times now but it needs a really good night here to get it and we have not had one for some time now

I must have a go at some of the others you mention when next out under a darkish sky with my dob.

We had an interesting talk at my society about Dark Nebulae last year from Owen Brazell. I was going to ask this question then but forgot so I'll ask it here if that's OK - does the dark rift in the Orion Nebula known popularly as "The Fishes Mouth" count as a dark nebulae or is it more an absence of bright nebulosity in that region ?

At least it will only be the TV 40mm plossl that will give this issue - they are not par-focal with other TV plossls or most other TV eyepieces, as you have found their focus point is somewhat further outwards.

Better that than not enough inwards travel ! - at least an extension tube on the focusser can solve your issue for this eyepiece. Depending on how far it is out, a par-focalisation ring on the eyepiece barrel can do the same.

I guess that's a potential issue with sliding dew shields although my TMB/LZOS 130 has a flocked sliding affair. I believe it was flocked when made though so the flocking material thickness has obviously been allowed for in the machining of the sliding mechanism.

The Q70 was one of the least well corrected wide field eyepieces that I've used in my F/5.3 12 inch dob. The outer 1/3rd of the field of view showed quite strong astigmatism. Another similar one was the Meade 26mm QX - why they provide one as stock with the Lightbridge 12 inc F/4.9 is beyond me - they really don't show the capabilities of the scope off at all plus reach focus at a point that is nearly at the end of the focusser outwards travel.

Here is BillP's take on the Vite 23mm Aspheric from CN:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/503147-vite-23m-aspheric/?p=6644583

Decent performer at F/8 at least.

Last night was challenging here because of the moonlight and the general transparency was not the best either. I stuck to Venus, the Moon and double stars ! (observation).

You could start a thread in the "Getting started with imaging" section if you want some feedback etc. There are loads on imagers on this forum from starters to people who write books on the subject and all are very friendly

This is the section of the forum that I was referring to:

https://stargazerslounge.com/forum/184-getting-started-with-imaging/

Here is a chart of the Trapezium including E & F - this is a newtonian view:

F is the harder of the two because C is quite a bit brighter than A. The more unequal the brightness is, the harder the double is to split when it's close. Sirius is at the extreme end of the scale !

As Stu says, you won't get a "snowman" or a "peanut" shape with Sirius. The "Pup" star (Sirius B ) is 10 arc seconds away which is a similar distance that Rigel A and B are separated so it should be an easy split but the extreme brightness difference between Sirius A and B (B is around 10,000 times fainter) and it's lowish altitude from the UK make it a real challenge. From further south it's an easier split I believe.

While I might have got 52 Orionis tonight, I didn't get Sirius tonight, well not clearly enough to claim anyway. I may have glimpsed the Pup star a few times but the seeing lower down was just that bit more unsteady - all those central heating plumes !

51 minutes ago, Don Pensack said:

Repeatable and identical registration in a focuser for collimation tools, eyepieces, or star diagonals demands one of two binding systems:

--a centering collet which squeezes down uniformly all the way around and centers the inserted accessory

--a two screw binding.  While Rusted is probably correct that a 3-screw binding would work so long as the first two screws are very tight first, I would bet that, in the field, they might not always be tightened in exactly the same sequence, which is what is necessary to always guarantee identical registration each time.  And since the linear contact on one side of the inserted accessory will add as much or more friction than a 3rd thumbscrew, I see no reason to use a 3rd screw.

Though no one has yet made such a focuser, one with a long collet from opening to, say, 1.5" further in, would work with all eyepieces, undercut or not.  You can find similar 1.25" adapters, but not, so far, focusers containing that idea.

The Baader Click-Lock system is getting close, but it's still too short internally to work well with all undercuts (there is a wide range of widths and shapes to accommodate, there).

Interesting stuff Don.

I have both the 2 inch Baader Click-Lock and the 1.25 inch one (to a T2 thread). The 2 inch one uses a collet as you say so it still wont deal with all undercut designs equally well. The 1.25 inch one uses a different grip which comprises of 3 equally spaced plastic bars about 25mm in length which squeeze in from all sides equally along the length of the eyepiece barrel as the clamping action is operated. The 1.25 inch adapter is this type:

If this design could be adopted for a 2 inch adapter as well, then maybe that would be the answer ?

Just missed it !!!

Using higher magnifications does dim the view - it works on the moon as well !

I used a UHC filter as well tonight on Venus as the background sky darkened and that gave a decent image of the phase with much less glare.

To see any hints of the surface details (well, cloud top details) on Venus I think having as much light still in the sky as possible helps a lot. I saw a few vague shadows myself when I first started to observe but these became harder to discern as the background sky darkened.