John

I think one of the challenges with lower power 2 inch eyepieces in a fast newtonian is maintaining the exit pupil at an effective size while maximising the true field width. Sticking with ~70 degree AFoV's adds a constraint but I can understand why some folks prefer that as well as wanting to keep the eyepieces size and weight (and cost) manageable as well. It's a matter of deciding what trade off's you want to make 🙂

54 minutes ago, paulastro said:

Out of curiosity, a question for you refractorphiles.  Would you choose 110mm f6 StellaMira  (£799) with 'FPL-51 equivalent', or the Starfield 102mm F7 FPL53 (£899)? Presumably, according to the numbers of each sold most peoples choice is the latter?

I know what I think, though I'm not in the market so no money is involved 🙂.

I would go for the 102mm F/7 in that instance.

I recall when the William Optics Megrez ED 110 came out (which used the same glass types as the 110mm F/6 StellaMira I think) that the false colour visible surprised many people who tried one. 

Sort of the opposite to last night tonight. It started poorly with just a few bright stars showing so I put my 8 inch dob out really just to check it's collimation.

Gradually the transparency of the sky has improved so now I can pick of some of the brighter DSO's and I'm eagerly waiting for Saturn to get clear of the rooftops.

I have not owned one of these (Skywatcher) 8 inch F/6 dobs for many years but I'm impressed with the optics in this barely used example I must say.

With proper cooling the star images at high power show a nice airy disk and a couple of diffraction rings around the brighter ones. A bit more "clutter" than a refractor view but really pretty good. I think I have the collimation sorted 🙂

I split Pi Aquilae really easily at 150x and then just kept pushing the magnification up and up maxing out at a silly 600x (2mm stop on the Nagler zoom) with clear star images and quite a "gap" between them given the 1.425 arc second separation. Cracking stuff from the mass produced optics 🙂

If this keeps up I might have a chance of catching Triton making up for last nights effort.

3rd night of observing in a row - amazing !!! 😁

This article includes plans for a dobsonian mount to suit a 10 inch F/5 newtonian. It might be of interest to you:

How to build a Dobsonian mount - BBC Sky at Night Magazine

I had had a pair of the 25x100 Celestron binoculars for a while. On a normal photo tripod (a tall and strong one) I found them difficult to use because of the straight through view. If they had been the type with 45 or 90 degree eyepieces, things would have been easier or if I had used them on parallelogram mount (see link below for more on binocular mounting) they could have also been easier to use. I did not keep them for long. Today I stick with 11x70 and 20x70 as my largest binoculars.

 BinocularSky - Mounting Binoculars for Astronomy

3 hours ago, johnturley said:

I've never been able to view Triton visually even through my 14in Newtonian (although have picked it up in a photo), I put this down to a combination of light pollution (Bortle 5 in my location), and my deteriorating eyesight.

John  

Sorry that you have not been able to spot Triton as yet John.

My skies are Bortle 5-ish. I have seen it quite often with my 12 inch dob and a few times with my 130mm refractor. I'd like to do it with the ED120 though, for the challenge mostly 🙄

My 12 inch dob showed me Uranus's moons Oberon and Titania which are a touch fainter than Triton. I could not spot Phobos or Deimos at the last martian opposition though. Those little worlds do move around the red planet fast through - windows of good elongation are rather short in duration !

I would definitely go for the 102mm over the 80. For many years a 102mm F/6.5 ED doublet was my main telescope. 

14 hours ago, John said:

Clear-ish again here tonight. Saturn showing crisply at 257x with the ED120. Just trying to tease out Tethys which is rather close to the ring system this evening.

I'll have a look at Neptune later, if it stays clear. I would like to see a glimpse of Triton with the ED120 which I've not managed so far.

 

Didn't get Triton. By the time I had finished with Saturn I could see that the sky was loosing transparency. I found Neptune but by then nothing fainter than around magnitude 12 could be seen with the ED120. Another half an hour later and only the brighter constellation stars were visible to the naked eye 🙄

Next time maybe 🙂

Clear-ish again here tonight. Saturn showing crisply at 257x with the ED120. Just trying to tease out Tethys which is rather close to the ring system this evening.

I'll have a look at Neptune later, if it stays clear. I would like to see a glimpse of Triton with the ED120 which I've not managed so far.

40 minutes ago, RobertI said:

Another outreach night, this time in the graveyard of Polstead church in Suffolk following an excellent talk by a fellow astronomer on galaxies and the perils of light pollution. The clouds spoiled the show unfortunately - there were a couple of nice rigs set up to show real time images of some galaxies but sadly nothing to see - however my visual only setup, comprising a C8 on the Skytee, managed to spy Jupiter and Saturn between the clouds, Saturn especially eliciting “Wows” from everyone who saw it through the eyepiece, reminding me of what a truly magical sight it is.  

It wasn't a "galaxy night" here either. The brighter planetary nebulae plus the globular cluster M13 were the best DSO's that we could offer 🙄

2 hours ago, Coolhand1988 said:

....I wonder if the 'old hand' observers still stick to these smaller FOV eyepieces?

 

A lot of them do. I use eyepieces from 40 to 110 degrees AFoV though. Not sure whether I qualify as "old hand" or not ? 🤔

We actually had a decent night for a Bristol AS outreach event for a change !!!!

Some cloud dodging needed but 25 visitors were treated to some fine views through a range of scopes from 4 to 12 inches in aperture.

The highlights (judging by the "wows") seemed to be Saturn (of course) and Jupiter with Io and it's shadow in transit.

Lovely to get out with a bunch of enthusiastic people and observe again. Even better to share the views with newcomers, young and older, to the hobby 😁

1 hour ago, Stuart1971 said:

Just been looking at the diagrams of the scope on the FLO link, I am curious as the objective lens is a 120mm but the tube is only 110mm diameter, I have never seen a tube smaller that the objective lens, on a refractor before… my 100mm esprit has a 131mm diameter tube…so won’t this cause vignetting..? 🤔

 

The Tak FC100's have 95mm diameter tubes but don't vignette.

I have some floaters but find that they are only an issue when observing targets which are large and quite bright, eg: the lunar surface. 

I use eyepieces down to 3mm or sometimes even 2.5mm focal length which give exit pupils as small as .4mm in my scopes.

For deep sky observing, double stars and planetary observing they are generally not an issue. 

Just a friendly tip 🙂 - you might want to start new threads for some of these queries. Tagging them onto an existing thread can limit the amount of responses you get.

Plus some of them are quite complex topics in their own right.

37 minutes ago, Coolhand1988 said:

I have another newbie question on eyepieces. If you have more 1.25 inch EPs than 2 inch, is best to use a 2inch diagonal then use an adapter for 1.25, or just use two diagonals to fit the size of the eyepiece being used?

Thanks

I feel that using a 2 inch diagonal with a 1.25 inch adapter is the best approach. Less expense and hassle as well. 

The Stellalyra range is relatively new and, as far as I know, the branding is exclusive to FLO.

The products are often available under other brandings as well (FLO are quite open about this) but the FLO versions are usually excellent value.

Orion (USA) for example also have those 80 degree eyepieces:

Orion LHD 80-Degree Lanthanum Ultra-Wide 1.25"/2" Eyepieces (telescope.com)

You asked earlier about filters for observing.

Others have their own approaches of course but personally I use UHC and O-III filters to enhance the views of nebulae but I don't tend to use filters for planetary observing. Galaxies respond best to getting under a dark sky rather than through the use of a filter.

This is a company in the USA who market a dovetail clamp arrangement for EQ3 mounts that don't have one. I don't suggest you buy one but it might give you something that you could copy yourself:

ScopeStuff

13 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

Supposed to be clear here Saturday night fingers crossed been weeks since I got out. 

Hope so. I'm pencilled in to do an outreach observing session with Bristol AS on Saturday. They keep getting clouded off - it would be good if one could actually happen !

From what I've read over the years (I'm not a glasses wearer myself) the 100 degree eyepieces have eye relief that is just a bit too short to enable glasses wearer to see the full field of view. 

Quite a few of the 82 degree eyepieces are similar. The ultra wides that glasses wearers do find fully useable include the Explore Scientific 92 degree range (17mm and 12mm) and the 80 degree long eye relief designs such as the Stellalyra 80 LER:

StellaLyra 20mm 2" 80º LER / UWA Eyepiece | First Light Optics

The Nagler 22mm Type 4 is another long eye relief ultra wide eyepiece that glasses wearers find useable.

If you are going to wear glasses when observing it's worth checking out how much actual useable eye relief eyepieces have. The specifications usually state the eye relief from the centre of the eye (top) lens of the eyepiece but quite a few designs recess that top lens or use an inflexible eyecup so the actual amount of useable eye relief is somewhat less.

It's worth taking time to read owners feedback here and on other forums to establish which brands / ranges are the most suitable for the glasses wearer.

4 hours ago, Deadlake said:

Indeed new items, for example : https://global.vixen.co.jp/en/product/26086_7/

Finally spacers are fixed !

They still seem to use that visual back with tiny set screws - maybe that will be improved at some point ?

35 minutes ago, Spile said:

Sorry but you have misunderstood my point. I don’t need to to remove my laser collimator from the focuser to find out if it’s no collimated or it’s nots correctly registered.

OK, I understand now.

We have different ways to check that our laser collimators are collimated thats all 🙂

Metal. It is the same tripod that the HEQ5 uses. 

The mount is compatible with any EQ5/HEQ5 tripod. I've used it on a 2 inch steel CG5 tripod.

The star test is the ultimate test of collimation in my opinion. It shows whether our efforts with lasers, cheshires etc, etc have had the desired result.

My routine with my 12 inch dob was to check the collimation with a cheshire eyepiece once the scope was setup, tweak it if needed, then do a quick star test (often using polaris) to check things were OK before starting to observe.