John

Not an Intes but a Lomo. Wow !!! though ? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12-F4-5-Lomo-maksutov-newtonian/323309053578?hash=item4b46b8a68a:g:qG8AAOSwYK1bFJKU Not my sale I ought to add.

Same era as my Tasco 60mm F/13 Ditch the sun filter though

Interesting quote from another forum from Don Pensack, who knows a thing or two about eyepieces: "And no two eyepiece designers seem to have the same idea when it comes to controlling astigmatism, field curvature, rectilinear distortion, angular magnification distortion, etc. All designs appear to compromise on one or more of the above issues. And what's acceptable to viewers seems to vary with the individual. I'd gladly accept pincushion distortion for well controlled astigmatism and field curvature. People who scan for comets or who use the eyepieces in spotting scopes abhor rectilinear distortion, yet can tolerate a bit of astigmatism. Chacun a son goût (Each has his own poison)." The trouble is, you need to try the various optical types out before you can reach a decision on what your particular preferences are. And that can be an expensive business Personally, having tried the ES, Vixen and others of similar spec, I love the Panoptic 24 in my Tak FC-100DL and other refractors. In the 12" dob, it's the Ethos that get the vote

You might find a finder useful when going for the fainter planets and binary stars. I know that I do despite having some very wide angle eyepieces. I use a 6x30 RACI on my refractors and it's very useful. On the subject of 40mm eyepieces in the 2 inch fitting, the Skywatcher Aero ED 40mm is a good combination of good performance and relatively lightweight for a 2" eyepiece. Same optics as the now out of production TMB Paragons. There are other clones out there under other brands too.

Lovely looking stuff ! I'm on the lookout for a really light but sturdy tripod for my travel scope so I will be interested to see how the Newer does for you. What model is it by the way ?

Interesting. Are they capped inside the baggies ?

I really liked the Fujiyama HD orthos that I've owned / used. The only exceptions were the 4mm and the 25mm. Nothing wrong with the qualitly of either but with the 4mm the eye lens and eye relief has got really tiny and, I found, hard to find and hold in the dark with my manually driven scopes and with the 25mm the eye relief means "hovering" eye off the top of the eyepiece which allows stray light to interfere with contrast and is not as relaxing as I'd like. The others though, I could happilly live with

My travel / outreach / whatever set. Note the careful arrangement ! Contents: BST Starguider 25mm, Orbinar 7.2mm - 21.5mm zoom, Japanese 4mm HD ortho, Baader Q-Turret 2.25x barlow, Svbony UHC filter plus a couple of other bits and bobs.

Looks lovely Derek Maybe the looks are deceiving but it looks quite a bit longer than the stock or Moonlite alternatives. Is the scope tube shorter than normal ?

Similarly with LZOS I understand.

I'll be interested to hear what you think as well Derek I used to own one of the Japanese Widescan III's that these are based on:

Superb scope Stuy I have very fond memories of my Intes MN61. If another one came along at the right time I'd be very tempted !

If it is of any interest Derek, I had the Ethos SX 3.7mm and 4.7mm for nearly a year and frequently compared them with the views that my 5mm and 3.5mm Pentax XW's gave. Despite my love of the Ethos range, I eventually concluded that the XW's were just a touch sharper and showed less light scatter. As 110 degrees was not essential for me at such high powers, I let the Ethos SX's go to new homes. It was a tough decision because the Ethos SX 4.7 is a hard one to get on the used market (it almost never comes up) but in the end I found I was reaching for the XW's before the Ethos SX's each time for challenging targets so that swung the decision for me.

Welcome to the forum Andy Hope you enjoy the BST's. I've compared them to some much more expensive eyepieces and they generally compare well.

Just a Universal Astronomics Dwarfstar mount head today. Lighter than the pan/tilt head I'm currently using with my TV Ranger so thats 250 grams less to take to Australia later this year

Barlowing a tall eyepiece can give you secondary benefits

If you think the 5mm XW is tall one, wait until you see the 3.5mm !

I did compare the Myriads with Ethos and Pentax XW equivalents (I didn't have the 3.7 or 4.7 Ethos SX at that time). Maybe not detailed enough but the best that I could manage . I did try the WO XWA 9mm but though it to be identical to the Myriad 9mm. The question is, are the Myriads related to the APM/Lunt HDC XWA's in any way ? Anyway here is my little piece on the Myriads:

I have a 15mm T2 spacer between the eyepiece holder and the diagonal body for the same reason. The barrel on the Nagler zoom is longer than on most other eyepieces. "Better safe than sorry"

I'm quite happy with this. It's reasonably neat, performs well and it's solid. I can switch the eyepiece holder for a 2" if I want to use that format but in practice I rarely use 2" EP's with the Tak:

TMB/LZOS 130mm F/9.2 triplet on the Vixen GP DX and Berlebach Uni 28.

Lovely gear, lovely location Stuy Is that at the Mountain Centre at Libanus ?

I can't and I don't image so thats OK. I seem to do pretty well on DSO's with my scope, visually With Orion Optics, you can specify a different diameter secondary if thats what you want.

My 300mm OO F/5.3 has a 63mm MA secondary (21% of the primary diameter). I'm stricly visual but I don't get any vignetting even with the Ethos 21 and Nagler 31 eyepieces The scope was used successfully for imaging by a previous owner - this chap: http://kevwildgoose.co.uk/

Thats quite large for an F/5 250mm Orion Optics use a 63mm one with their 250mm F/4.8.