John

I agree 100% John - the Rowan AZ100 is a very impressive piece of work indeed. When you see and handle one you really "get" just what you are paying for. Real craftsmanship and thoughtful design. Designed and produced by a small UK company as well

Joining my local astro society (Bristol AS) a few years back has added a big new dimension to my enjoyment of the hobby: - Regular meetings with others interested in the hobby (rather than boring my family !) - Great programme of talks from people active in astro research programmes, experienced practitioners etc. - Opportunity to use the society observatory and equipment. - Regular observing and outreach events both at the observatory and at other sites around Bristol. I should have joined years ago ! Not all the members are active observers or imagers by any means but all of us are interested in astronomy from one perspective or another, which makes it very interesting

Welcome to the Stargazers Lounge. Just trying to understand your post. NYE = New Years Eve ? The Island = which one ? Volcano = which one ? At a guess I'd say Hawaii but that is just a complete guess. Iceland, Sicilly, Tenerife and a number of other places might also satisfy the criteria. Please feel free to post more on what you are interested in

Very interesting report on this fascinating scope - thanks for posting it I'd be interested to know how the eVscope performs on targets where the technology assistance does not improve the view ?

I tend to agree. I'd no problem with your earlier comments either

Its a great place - I could spend a week there but my other half would eventually protest I guess. My last visit was 2011 so it will be interesting to see what has changed.

Quite a number I suspect. They don't tend to post on forums though, they just get on and buy whatever they feel is the best. £20K is small change to some folks.

"... there's not a lot of difference in visual observing between a good Achro doublet and an Apo triplet ...." Not sure that is the conclusion but perhaps today is not a good time to prolong this thread ! Happy holidays to you too

I agree they are eye wateringly expensive and that there are a lot of other, probably more sensible, ways to spend 20K plus euros. It was just interesting to see the Jena name back

Interesting to see this name again but apparently their scopes will be made to order and will be very, very expensive: https://apq.de/en/index.htm https://apq.de/en/150-1200.htm Pretty impressive optics !

I have a 130mm triplet and an ED120 doublet. The triplet is quite a bit larger and heavier than the the doublet - much more so than the 10mm aperture difference would suggest. Both excellent scopes though

I have an ES 17 / 92. It is a very heavy eyepiece. It reaches focus about 9mm further outwards than the Ethos 17mm does, if that is any help.

The only astro related presents that I got were DVDs. - The film Apollo 11 from my Son; - The re-mastered version of the original Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy TV series from my other half: Both were on my list so very welcome I also got the go ahead to spend my birthday in February at Kennedy Space Centre so I'm sorting out a trip to Florida over the next few days

Meade re-brand Chinese products like many other brands these days. I don't think they have a production facility any more. They switch manufacturer now and again as well although the products are made to the same spec. I have an older Meade filter (UHC type) and that is made in Japan.

Custom adapters are available for some zooms so that they fit a 1.25 inch or 2 inch astro fitting.

The Leica ASPH is really good as is the Zeiss Vario D I believe. I've owned the Leica and it is really top notch optically. Of the more affordable zooms the Baader does pretty well although not quite as well as good quality fixed focal length eyepieces. I currently use a 7.2 - 21.5 zoom (same as the Hyperflex and TS ones I believe) quite often and that does well too, especially with a Baader 2.25x barlow as a high power zoom. Then we have the little gems from Tele Vue, the Nagler 3-6mm zoom and 2-4mm zoom (latter out of production). They are excellent tools for exploring the high and very high magnification ranges. Edit: I've just remembered the Pentax XL 8-24mm which has a good reputation as well.

My first newtonian was a UK made Astro Systems 150mm F/6. great scope and very versatile. The TS one is probably made by GSO: https://agenaastro.com/gso-6in-f6-newtonian-reflector-ota.html GSO make the Meade Lightbridge dobsonians and the Revelation dobsonians too.

Well the 2 inch XW's have come back so why not the XO's and with a couple more focal lengths ? Definitely a "top tier" planetary eyepiece from all I've read about them "Dear Santa ........"

Markus did commission a 3rd run of the Supermonos I remember. The longer focal lengths didn't sell too well as I recall. When I owned my 5mm TMB Supermono (2nd run) they changed hands for around £100 apiece having been originally retailed at around £200 each. Production runs were quite low volume and I understand that the German manufacturer used Zeiss production techniques and expertise. I guess Vixen had a crack at this market niche with their HR Planetaries and a bit later Takahashi with their TOE's. Both really creditable efforts from the reports I've read. Yet to actually try one myself though. Is there a market today for an "ultimate" range of planetary / high power eyepieces though with uncompromised performance in exchange for a small field of view, tight eye relief and probably a £400-£500 price tag ?. Don't really know to be honest

I'm sure you are not the first that this has happened to - if the finder falls onto the diagonal that plastic adapter takes the impact and it's not strong. Hopefully someone who has managed to repair it / replace it will contribue soon.

I know the piece of plastic you mean. Not sure if replacements are available. Looking at my 9x50 RACI finder Its just an adapter / spacer to narrow the 2 inch finder body aperture down to a smaller aperture which the diagonal screws into. I guess it could be replaced with a wooden spacer - the conical shape does not matter but the depth of the spacer should be the same. The internal thread of the finder body is a touch over the 2 inch filter size (annoyingly). You might find that bonding the parts together with a strong adhesive such as Araldite is the best short term approach. I think this is the part we are concerned about ?:

I have looked through a ZAO ortho (a 6mm ZAO II I seem to recall). I can't really make any assessment of its performance though because it turned out that the scope we were using (a 4 inch F/15 refractor) was itself somewhat out of collimation

Such a pity that the Pentax XO's have been discontinued. The 2.5mm pops up occasionally on the used market but I have not seen the 5.1mm for sale for ages now. My other high power tool is a Nagler 2-4mm zoom. Not quite in the HD ortho / Supermono league but very good for a variable focal length eyepiece and having that "instant tweak" capability has proved very useful on a number of occasions.

Er, lets keep to the topic of time / daylight vs darkness / observing etc, shall we ? Thanks

Old thread but maybe it still has some mileage in it ? Sometime back I used to own a 5mm TMB Supermonocentric and a University Optics HD 5mm Abbe Ortho. I compared their planetary performance at some length over a number of sessions and concluded that most of the time the optical performance of the two was pretty much identical. During the time comparing them I had 2 sessions where the seeing conditions were very good. During those sessions I noticed that the TMB Supermonocentric delivered a little more contrast on the surface features of Jupiter and Saturn and that the most subtle features were just a little easier to spot with that eyepiece. These differences were only visible under the best observing conditions though and were subtle. Personally I felt that the smaller apparent field of view of the Supermonocentric made observing with it hard work (not that the 5mm UO HD ortho was exactly a relaxing eyepiece to use either ) so I didnt hang on to the TMB for too long. It was probably the best planetary eyepiece in pure performance terms that I've owned and used by a small margin though. These days I'm happy and more comfortable using a 5mm Pentax XW in this niche