John

Can you take a picture with the eyepiece removed and looking straight down the eyepiece holder ?. Try and get the camera lens as central as you can over the hole where the eyepiece would be.

I agree with the advice re: BST Starguider eyepieces and the Rigel Quikfinder.

Amazing how easy it is to spend quite a bit more than your scope cost on a few eyepieces and a replacement finder isn't it ?

Clouded out before it got dark enough to spot Neptune with the binoculars, unfortunately. I think one of my 4 inch refractors would have shown it somewhat earlier but I didn't want to push my back that far.

Thanks for the good wishes by the way, they are appreciated

Clearish here as well but I put my back out yesterday and I'm rather immobile currently

Managed to get a nice view of the thin crescent moon and Venus with the 11x70 binoculars. Not going to risk a scope though. Neptune is pretty close to Venus just now according to Cartes du Ciel - about 8.5 arc minutes. Hopefully I'll glimpse Neptune in the binoculars as it gets darker.

For a while I owned a Skywatcher ED120 refractor and a Russian 150mm F/6 maksutov-newtonian. The mak-newt has a small central obstruction (below 20%) and no secondary support vanes. I compared the performance of these 2 excellent scopes on a number of occasions. On the moon, planets and double stars they performed pretty much identically. On deep sky objects the 150mm scope showed faint objects just a little bit better than the 120mm. I would expect a good 150mm F/8 newtonian to perform similarly. A 150mm F/5 would have a larger secondary mirror which would pull it back a little on the high resolution observing and perhaps a touch on deep sky reach as well.

The SLV's have a twist up / down eye cup section. In the hand they feel much better quality than the NLP or NLV.

I feel that they are optically a step up from the original LV range particularly in light transmission. The LV's were the breaking eyepiece back in the mid 1980's.

The SLV replaced the NLV range. The NLV's were Japanese made. Vixen shifted production to China for the SLV's. The SLV's are really excellent eyepieces as were the NLV's.

You were lucky to get a view Mark - it's been pretty solid here all day and through the evening. It has cleared a little now but too late for the conjunction. I'm hoping for better luck on the 28th.

For all our discussion of the minutiae of eyepiece design and performance, there are still compromises in the basic mechanics of the way they a held into the scope. A bit crazy that

Superb - thanks for snapping and posting the photos

They remind me of some of the refractors that are at the Norman Lockyer Observatory at Sidmouth.

F/5 is very much more demanding on eyepiece correction than F/11 or F/13.

Some ES eyepieces are well corrected in faster scopes though. Which ES eyepieces do you use ?

You may be seeing astigmatism (eyepiece created) coma (scope created) or a mixture of both.

I'm not a fan of filters for planetary observing personally. I have tried quite a few  but they did not seem to add anything to my planetary observing. This includes the rather expensive Tele Vue Bandmate Planetary filter which I owned for a while. I notice that Tele Vue discontinued that one a while back.

I have read that a #8 light yellow filter works on Jupiter and Saturn for some. Given that the Baader Contrast Booster filter seems to generate a yellow tint I wonder if the somewhat less expensive #8 light yellow filter would be worth trying instead ?

I'm happy "filterless" on the planets though

Those green camoflage jackets are going to come in really useful "out there"

They need to watch this helpful public information video:

I got an Astronomik O-111 filter (visual) today in the 1.25 inch fitting. I already have a Lumicon O-III in the 2 inch size but wanted a good 1.25 inch O-III as well. Having owned an Astronomik O-III before I know that they are very good filters

Filters are not the most interesting things to look at so I won't bother with a photo !

I keep all my stuff in our dining room. There are a pair of french windows straight onto the patio where I do most of my observing from. We are re-decorating the room at the moment and I'm going to put in a 2nd built in wall cupboard so stuff is at least behind a door rather than cluttering up the carpet.

With my observing area just a 2-3 metres from where I store things setup and tear down times are quick plus I can pop back in for a cup of something warm or to look something up easily.

We don't often have people to dinner (other than family who know what I'm like ) which is fortunate because up until now the room has looked a little like a scope showroom !

I rather like that look though. If it was up to me I'd go for the "Ed Ting dining room" style

On 20/01/2020 at 14:37, Cosmic Geoff said:

.... i have heard bad things about the 7-21mm models.

So have I.

The 7.2-21.5mm zooms are pretty good though.

Its rather insignificant with a scope - I managed to find it with my 130mm refractor a couple of nights back - a small fuzzy patch of light.

Nice image though @Craney

I love observing the double cluster - its a great outreach target too.

If you have any interest in meteorites, you might find the online bi-monthly "Meteorite Times" interesting.

Each issue contains short articles by a regular team of contributors. The latest (January 2020) issue includes a piece on the Bovedy Meteorite which fell in Northern Ireland in 1969.

The current issue and back issues are free to download and read and can be accessed from this web link:

https://www.meteorite-times.com/

I hope some find this of interest

Just as a warning, I picked up a pair of those 10x-30x X 60 zoom binoculars that Aldi were selling, for a few quid from a charity shop just out of curiosity. They were really poor, even just for terrestrial at the lower ends of the zoom range. Not sharp, lots of false colour. Just to be avoided.

Not even going to give those away - not fair on whoever gets them, might put them off binoculars !

With reference to Neil's comments above, it is said that the minimum difference in light transmission that we can detect visually is around 8-10%.

I've just picked up a pair of Opticron Taiga 8x25's. Not for astronomy (although the moon is very sharp with them) but they are really nice ultra-compact birding / wildlife binoculars. Great to keep in the glove compartment of the car

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/all-binoculars/opticron-taiga-compact-25mm-binoculars.html

On 30/06/2019 at 13:31, Deeko said:

 

I currently use the Baader Optical Wonder fluid with the Baader microfibre cloth.....

 

Thats my choice for cleaning eyepiece and refractor lenses.

16 minutes ago, willcastle said:

A retailer doing exactly what they should be doing and making sure their stock is as it should be! Good job! What is your job role with FLO Steve?

Steve started First Light Optics

Back in the days when I used to play around the the Chromacor CA / SA correctors and large achromat refractors, the installation of the Chromacor (which screwed onto the end of a 2 inch diagonal barrel) was preceeded by drilling and tapping a 3rd set screw hole in the 2 inch adaptor on the end of the drawtube. The Chromacor required very precise centering in the drawtube and the 3-screw arrangement was said to be the best way to achieve that. Compression ring adapters were not advocated.

Dino I think. My son might have liked then when he was under 10 - Jurassic Park was a big influence