John

It's a Lunt Herschel Wedge in the 1.25" fitting. The cactus is the Lunt logo.

I've recently become an Lunt LS50 (single stack) owner. You don't get a mount as standard - just a tube ring that does have a photo tripod screw hole threaded in the flat spot on the bottom. I've only used mine a couple of times so far but I've been impressed with what it does. One of the challenges is that you get lots of feedback how wonderful double stacking is with these scopes and that of course adds over £1K to the price of the setup ! I'm sticking to the single stack unit until I'm really confident of my interest in Ha solar is deep enough to justify the further investment.

The effect on the eye relief depends on the focal length of the barlow lens as well as that of the eyepiece. The "shorty" types of barlows increase eye relief more than longer designs. So a short barlow used with a longer focal length eyepiece gives the maximum eye relief change. I wish I had a neat "sliding scale" type diagram to illustrate this, but I don't

There is something about that orange and dark grey colour scheme that is very attractive in a slightly nostalgic kind of way The age you have estimated may well be right but I believe that I read somewhere (Rod Mollise ?) that the serial numbers are not a precise dating tool. The condition of your example looks really superb though

Personally I prefer not to barlow now. If I did, with the XW's I think I'd be using a Powermate to maintain very fine optical quality in the optical train and to avoid lengthening the already generous eye relief beyond the reach of the adjustable eyecup.

Last year I added the 10 and 7 to the 5 and 3.5 that I already had. I got impatient waiting for used ones so gave FLO my business as their prices are good for the XW's.

Great eyepiece, really great The Astroboot site sells the "bolt cases" in various sizes: http://www.astroboot.co.uk/AstroBoot Probably available elsewhere as well. Interesting piece on the Pentax XL & XW's here - personally I'm not going to strip mine down though ! https://www.astromart.com/reviews/article.asp?article_id=716

What's going onto there Mike ?

I think so - the 2" barrel of the eyepiece will restrict the diameter of the field stop and therefore the AFoV.

It's all very confusing ! Vixen still list a 50mm in the same "skin" as your 30mm but that seems to be called the 50mm NLV rather than NLVW

The 42mm bodywork is in the old LV style. The 30mm seems to be a newer bodywork design. There used to be a 30mm to match the 42mm in looks I seem to recall, and a 50mm too.

Interesting report The only focal reducer that I've used with an SCT was the Celestron F/6.3 one which I used with a C5 and later a C8. It seemed to do a decent job with 1.25" plossl eyepieces up to around 25 mm in focal length. In longer foacl length eyepieces I can recall seeing a blurred and narrower field edge. I didn't try it with 2" eyepieces because I'd read that the vignetting would be worse with the larger format eyepieces. Looking at the one that you have tried out, it looks from the photo that the clear aperture of the reducer optics might be a fair bit smaller than the aperture of the field stop of a 24mm 68 degree AFoV eyepiece ?

Pure class Matt That do you mount it / them on ?

I used to have one of those and had a number of different mount heads on it over a few years. Very stable tripod - same as the EQ6 but with an EQ5/HEQ5 hub. Quite a bit taller than the 1.75" HEQ5 tripod as well.

I ended up keeping a Skytee II over the much more lovely Giro Ercole. Bottom line was that the Skytee II held my big refractor steadier than the Ercole could which I demonstrated to myself over a number of sessions. Sometimes you have to go with your head rather than your heart !

I tend to cherry pick from ranges. Some ranges are pretty consistent across all the focal lengths but most that I've tried have some variation with some "stand out" ones and one (or sometimes more) not quite so good. Pentax XW's are an interesting range because of the variation in optical design. They are not a "scaled design" so the characteristics vary focal length to focal length. None are actually bad eyepieces though, as far as I'm aware. Incidently, not all ranges are par-focal thoughout by any means. The Delos 17.3 and 14 rech focus around 8mm further in than the rest. Ethos eyepieces have a widely varying focal plane range.

Just on the bolt size for the Ercole, I used the standard HEQ5 one (M10 I think) that came with the Uni 28 and it worked fine:

I had the Ercole that I used to have on a Uni 28 tripod but I was intending to put a 130 F/9.2 triplet on it ! One of the 1.75" steel tubed HEQ5 tripods would do the trick though. Not sure a photo tripod would be quite enough unless it was a really good quality one such as the one that Matthew was using here: http://alpha-lyrae.co.uk/2015/05/03/tele-optic-giro-ercole-alt-az-mount-review/

Thats quite a mix but some very nice glass in there. My main 2 sets are not so mixed these days although I do still find it hard to resist picking up an interesting eyepiece bargain now and then which seemed to have formed a 3rd set on their own My "oddball" set comprises (L to R): Vixen NPL 30mm KK Widescan II (branded Fullerscopes) 20mm Orbinar (yes, really !) branded zoom 21.5mm - 7.2mm (really rather good for just over £50 !) HD Ortho (Japanese but non branded) 4mm Sorry about the rubbish pic - taken in a hurry !

Sorry to hear about your dog passing away. I don't make any link between the loss of my sons pet and any celestial event. Pure coincidence as I'm sure your loss was as well.

Down to earth with a bump this morning. I've just had to deal with one of my childrens pets that passed away in the night. From now on Barnard 33 is going to be known as "The Dead Gerbil Nebula" to me commemorate of this event I'll notify the IAU later......

Yes, The Horsehead does seem to be relatively straightforward to image. I could probably get it with my Canon DSLR in my EQ mount with a little guidance from imagers. But it does seem to be a notable challenge for observers. I guess imagers have their "Everests" too ?

It did cross my mind at one point to try my DGM NBP filter (similar to a UHC) but I was so much "in the zone" with the Astronomik HB that I was afraid that I would loose my concentration if I swapped filters. Next time I will give it a try

Thanks Stu. I think my experiences last night will help next time around but the transparency of the sky last night was exceptional for here. Probably the best I've seen in 12 months or more. If we get a cold winter this time around and a few more nights similar, who knows though ? One further indicator that I had that the night was particularly good was that late in the session a quick look at M1. That nebula, which can be rather dull visually, was bright, contrasty and showed structure even with the H-Beta filter in place. Normally I'd observe The Crab filterless or with the DGM NBP filter and David Knisely reckons that M1 is virtually invisible with a 10" using an H Beta so goodness knows what it would have looked like with the NBP !. Apart from this quick foray into Taurus, I spent at least 3 hours exclusively in Orion

Congrats to you Paul - I think the reason that I parted with that filter was frustration with me and my regular skies rather than the filter !