John

More fracs from my past. Original Skywatcher ED100 "blue tube", Orion (USA) ED80 and a Bresser Uranus 102mm F/9.8 AKA the Vixen SP102M in stealth colouration

A few more Chinese achros I've owned, a couple of Synta 6" F/8's and a Bresser 127L F/9.4:

Here are some I used to own: Intes MN61 mak-newt, Celestron C8 Plus and a Celestron C5. I've owned several C8's and C5's over the years and 5" and 7" inch mak-cassegrains too but I've no photos of those.

My 1st proper scope. A late 1980's Astro Systems 6" F/6 with David Hinds mirrors on a Fullerscope Mk III eq mount:

Heres a couple I used to own. Just 6" F/8 Chinese achros but they did have matched Chromacors installed

What a nice looking scope Michael

Here are the two fracs that I currently own. The Vixen ED102SS in white light solar mode and the Skywatcher ED120:

As far as I know Tele Vue have not changed the specification for the 24mm Panoptic at all since it came into production. It was one of the first Tele Vue eyepieces I owned, quite a few years back, and I remember it very fondly

Zambuto mirrors are legendary ! Some fabulous scopes in this thread. It's really NOT a good antidote to aperture fever though

It's the black dementor bunny beside it that bothers me !!

You don't get obvious diffraction spikes on any objects. The diffraction is still there but it's spread more evenly across the field of view. I've read mixed views on the benefits or otherwise of curved secondary vanes but I'm very pleased with this scope. The lunar and planetary views are the best I've seen through any scope I've owned and I've been able to split Sirius with it, which again, no other scopes I've owned (all 25+ of them !) have managed

This is my Orion Optics 12" F/5.3. Moonshane made the mount and it's excellent

Naughty man !

Thanks Piero. The plossl / Powermate set are for when I just want to use lightweight eyepieces. The 20mm and 25mm are the ones I've been using with the H-Beta filter to search for the Horsehead Nebula. I've not seen it yet but thats more to do with local light pollution levels than the eyepieces I suspect

Here is a current pic of my lot. From L to R: Case 1 = Lumicon 2" O-III Filter, Omega 2" DGM NBP Filter, Lumicon 1.25" H-Beta Filter, Ethos 6mm, 8mm, 13mm and 21mm, Nagler 31mm Case 2: 3mm Radian, 3.5mm Pentax XW, 4mm Radian, 5mm Pentax XW. Case 3: TV plossls 32mm, 25mm, 20mm, 15mm, 11mm and 8mm, 2.5x Powermate. It's an ortho-free zone currently, which is a bit unusual because I usually have one or two of those around.

Some eyepiece ranges are "par focal" which means they reach focus at about the same point. Some are not though. It's not a judgement of quality though because some of the ones that are not are superb quality and included ranges like the Tele Vue Ethos and Delos and Astro Hutech orthoscopics. It's more an issue relating to the optical design - some times the designer can make a range par focal and sometimes thats just not possible while maintaining the other desired characteristics of the range.

Rob, this is one ot the best posts I've read here for a long time, and there is a lot of great content posted on SGL ! Despite a few issues I have with light pollution, trees, neighbours houses etc I'm determined to do better on galaxy observing over the coming 12 months. Most of them may be faint and fuzzy but they are awesome objects when you consider what you are seeing

Thats good - optically they are very good indeed

Is the Baader Eudiascopic 35mm basically the same as the Celestron Ultima 35mm / Orion Ultrascopic 35mm ? If so beware the amount of inwards focuser movement needed - I ran out of inwards focuser movement in a number of scopes I tried to use one in and that was in cyclops mode. If you can ge tthem to focus they are nice eyepieces although holding the correct eye position can be a challenge. If the Eudiascopic is an entirely different design then ignore the above !

I felt the same for a long time on the plastic washers Russell but I've tried it and it works really well and holds the secondary collimation without any problems. The guy that came up with the idea is a member here I think. I use a light shade on my dob for the reason you suggest. Because I have a fair amount of stray light to contend with it's worked wonders with contrast. Again it's a low cost fix and easy to implement yourself.

If Apertura are a good brand they ought to fit adequate collimation springs to even their base models. The scope is a GSO though (same as the Zhumell) and certainly the 12" GSO's have known to have weak collimation springs for years. Something so easy to sort out and yet year after year they don't These are all low cost modifications and I don't think justify a $230 premium. The washers upgrade refers to plastic ones fitted beneath the adjustement screws on the diagonal boss. That costs nothing to do oneself, apart from a little time, as the washers are cut from plastic milk cartons.

Hyper for myself I fear

Tele Vue make green and black braces just for this sutuation Just £199.99 for a set. Do you want wide, ultra wide or hyper wide ?

At F/4.7, away from the central area of the field of view, there is going to be coma (scope produced) and maybe some astigmatism (eyepiece produced) or a combination of both. Eyepieces that are well corrected in fast scopes, ironically, help to show off the coma that the scope produces ! The wider angle eyepieces show more off axis field so, apart from any astigmatism that they produce, you will also see more coma. Unless you decide to use a coma corrector of course. Coma tends to make stars look a little comet shaped with the "tail" pinting away from the centre of the field of view. Astigmatism tends to extend star images into an enlongated "seagull" shape with the "wings" appearing to point around the edges of the field of view. The degree to which some people notice or are bothered by these issues does vary I think

Those Celestron "Halloween" plossls seem to be gaining in popularity again