John

On 29/08/2023 at 02:00, Ratlet said:

No, I picked it up in the recent sale and with inflation it'll never be cheaper than that.

Part of the reason I bought it was to see what a top end eyepiece was like and it is very much brilliant, but for where I am in my astro journey I don't need that level of quality to enjoy the views. 

I'm only a year into observing, but in another 5 years I might outgrow my Starguiders and replace them with morphs, but right now they are perfect for me.

Sensible approach I reckon.

An experienced member of this forum once posted that the time to change your eyepieces is when you try something else and see a difference that matters to you. 

Wise words I think.

I've owned a couple of (visual) setups which proved too heavy and clumbersome to be practical in my circumstances. I don't have an observatory so my gear is kept in the house and needs to be setup / taken down for a session. Due to obstructions around the observing area I need to be able to move my scope around to some extent once it is setup. 

My principle aim over the past years though has been to have setups that are really quick and simple to put out and bring back in. That way I get much more observing in than I would if I used more complex setups. 

Nothing sadder than a decent scope not being used because, after the initial fit of enthusiasm, the owner finds that it's just too much effort / trouble to set up and tear down for what can turn out to be quite short sessions with the unpredictability of the UK weather. This is something that you kind of have to find out for yourself though. Looking back at the of setups that did not work out for me, I find the question "what were you thinking ?" springs to mind 🙄

At the time though, the potential downsides were over-ruled in my head by the rush of anticipation of "big, new kit" 😁

I can't really quantify the impact of darker skies but my personal experience has included taking a 6 inch scope to the SGL star party and observing under dark skies in Herefordshire which, at that time were probably generally around bortle 3 compared to my skies at home which are around bortle 5. Under the darker star party skies, the 6 inch seemed to show deep sky objects at least as well as my 10 inch could from home. It was a noticeable difference lets put it that way 🙂

I think seeing the planets and brighter DSO's in the context of a large swathe of stars is fascinating. It's not much use from a scientific standpoint of course but it does bring home the vastness of space and also the views are just lovely to experience, and there is nothing wrong with that 🙂

I saw that star as well. I assumed that Hyperion would be below the limit that my ED120 could catch whereas that star was about the same brightness as Dione (and Iapetus).

I've never seen Hyperion either but I have seen Enceladus quite a few times when it is towards it's maximum elongations from the planet and it's rings. Not last night though.

Nice image !

I've seen Triton visually a few times with my 12 inch scope and once (so far) with my 5.1 inch refractor.

I did find observing Messier 42 interesting with the H-Beta filter. It seemed to enhance the contrast of some of the features surrounding the central region of the nebula although at the expense of the extension visible in the outer tendrils. In particular the "cliff" (image below) near the dark "fish's mouth" feature became noticeably more obvious:

Having been heavily influenced by the Apollo missions in the late 1960's and by Sir Patrick Moore's enthusiasm for it, I simply can't help remaining entranced by the moon and it's varying features (varying through phase and libration changes).

Over the past few years I have found the 21st Century Atlas of the Moon by Charles A Wood and Maurice J S Collins has greatly enhanced my interest and appreciation of lunar features.

So I doubt that I'll ever become bored of Selene 🙂 

I observed Iapetus tonight with my ED120 refractor. Lots of "moonwash" from the nearby 99% illuminated moon but Iapetus looked approximately as bright as Dione this evening which is around magnitude 10.6 I think. Certainly straightforward to see with direct vision.

Un-forecast clear skies currently. Got my ED120 refractor out and some high-ish power eyepieces in use. 150x-225x seems to work well currently.

Bright moon over to the south but very nice views of Saturn plus 5 moons in that direction and even more rewarding on Jupiter was Io's shadow showing against the southern equatorial belt. Io itself will start to cross the jovian disk shortly.

4 nice cloud belts showing on the giant planet despite it's low altitude currently. 

Uranus is nearby in the sky but hiding behind a large confer just now 🙄

Sigma Arietis is doing a neat job of posing as a 5th Galilean moon tonight !

Nice appetizer for the forthcoming planetary season 🙂

Simulation below generated by Stellarium, which draws much better than I can !

I owned an H-Beta filter for a few years (an Astronomik) but with the exception of the Horsehead Nebula, I struggled to see much with it, despite the list that Don gives above and including use with my 12 inch dobsonian.

The Horsehead was very, very indistinct even with the 12 inches of aperture. I saw it on 3 occasions over a period of around 5 years - nights when I had the darkest and most transparent skies that I get here.

I don't own the filter now. I am glad that I owned one for a while though, if only because the Horsehead is such an iconic target.

Maybe I'm an "outlier" in this experience though 🤔

I've posted these quite often but here are my 3.8 degree rig, the Vixen ED102SS + Nagler 31mm, and the more recently put together Altair ED 70mm + Nagler 31 setup which delivers a 6 degrees true field.

These ED doublet refractors (and others posted in this thread) are notable because not only can they deliver views of wide swathes of space but they can also quite comfortably handle, and often exceed, magnifications of 50x per inch under decent conditions and on the right targets. 

Really usable versatility 🙂

I think Wilhelmina Fleming discovered the Horsehead Nebula as well as the first White Dwarf star. Remarkable person 🙂

I find my Nagler 4mm-2mm zoom an really valuable tool for double star splitting. The click stops are at half mm intervals but you can use the points in between those as well.

I can see that the Svbony 8mm-3mm zoom could be a really good (and less than TV expensive) eyepiece for double star observing as well.

Iota Cassiopeiae is a lovely close triple which small scopes and high magnifications can have fun with.

Great report Rob 🙂

Good narrowband and line filters really enhance the nebula viewing experience don't they ?

Discovering what an O-III can do, even in smaller scopes, was a revelation to me a few years back. I find from my back yard that eyepieces around 20mm are even better than those around 30mm for this. 

It will be interesting when Orion and M42 are showing well again. Who will be the 1st to get E & F Trapezium with a 60mm ? 😁

I can split Izar with my 70mm refractor. My 60mm is still up in the loft so I don't know whether that will do it.

Delta Cygni is another favourite test for the smaller aperture at this time of year.

Occasionally I've stopped down my ED120 to a 52mm F/17.3 and I have been surprised what that will resolve. I can't recall if Izar is one that I've tried with that setup though 🤔

Ideally you should close or cover the non-observing eye. 

Looking through a telescope does take some practice, whatever eyepiece is being used.

As @bosun21 says above, the eyepieces you have, the 6mm, 9mm, 15mm and 20mm, are around 68 degrees, not 82 degrees.

I too had good 4 inch achromat refractors early in my time in this hobby - Vixen and TAL. 

I enjoyed them but looking back on that time, I didn't really get anywhere near their potential. 

It's taken me many years with different scopes, most larger in aperture, to learn a bit about what an astronomical telescope can achieve and how to get the best from them. Using this experience I can now get a lot more from 3, 4 and 5 inch refractors and realise that they can do an excellent and pretty comprehensive job for the amateur astronomer.

But, if I had never owned anything with more light grasp and resolution than a 4 inch refractor I might well have lost interest in the hobby and moved on thinking "is that it ?". Well of course it's not, I NOW realise 🙂

So I agree with Nick's post in principle, but I do also think that experience with larger apertures can ensure that the smaller ones can be exploited more fully 🙂

The separation with Izar is 2.88 arc seconds so well within a 60mm scopes resolution limit. It is the brightness difference between the two component stars (mag 2.58 and mag 4.81) that creates the challenge. 

Sirius is the most extreme example of this. 

Keep at it - on a steady night, you might just crack it !

1 hour ago, Stu said:

...I recall sometime back you picked up a Televue Ranger I think and it helped you through a low patch in your observing just through sheer convenience.....

Yes I did. I ended up selling it to Roger Vine who reviewed it on his website:

TeleVue Ranger Review (scopeviews.co.uk)

The main downside with the Ranger for me was that it was strictly 1.25 inch only. The Altair 70 that I now have is at least as good optically (better in terms of CA control) and has a proper 2 inch dual-speed focuser fitted to it. It also packs shorter. The penalty is that it weighs about 700 grams more than the Ranger. The Ranger had charm though plus Al Nagler's signature on it's instruction manual 😁

2 hours ago, Stu said:

.....You seem to have a love-hate (too strong an expression but can’t think of anything else) relationship with smaller refractors. Often saying that you don’t think it worth going below 100mm, but then enjoying them when you do dabble....

 

That is true enough @Stu 🙂

I think the very mixed and variable weather this summer has affected my attitude to small scopes - often it's been the rig I can plonk outside with one hand that has got me some observing when I would not otherwise have put a larger scope out 🤔

Having the scope on Jersey back in May and spotting the supernova in M101 with it earned it quite a few brownie points as well 😉

Earlier I was messing around with my little 70mm refractor again and caught quite a few deep sky objects plus Jupiter and Saturn. 

Having packed that scope away, the continuing clear sky tempted me into putting my 100mm refractor out and, generally, re-visiting these targets with the benefit of 30mm additional aperture. 

The additional aperture showed noticeably of course in a number of areas, most obviously in the clarity with which the galaxies M110 (near M31) and NGC 404 (Merak's Ghost) were shown. Practically invisible in the 70mm under tonights conditions but very obvious with the 100mm. Additionally M31 showed lots of extension either side of the core with the larger aperture.

I got 5 moons of Saturn with the 100mm but just 3 (clearly) with the 70mm. Just a handful of "sparkles" around the globular cluster M15 with the 70mm but lots more resolved with the 100mm. 

All quite predictable of course but it is fun reminding oneself that those additional mm of expensive glass do actually earn their keep 😁

One night I'll line up all my refractors, from 70mm to 130mm, pick a target and then move through the scopes comparing the views that the increments of aperture give at a similar magnification (to keep things fair). Should be fun 🙂

I think this is linked to the original topic. I am interested in how new ideas for eyepieces are developed and implemented these days ?

I know Tele Vue design in house then commission their chosen manufacturer to undertake the production. Takahashi operate similarly I suspect or at least set the framework for the type of product they are looking for.

I assume that APM did something similar with their "superzoom" even though the final product did not quite meet the specs that APM had as an objective for the project.

For brands that rely on what the far eastern manufacturers produce, how much say do they (the brands) get on what comes forth ?. I guess the big buyers will have advance notice of what is in the pipeline but do they get any influence on the fundamental design or is if just the colour scheme, external looks etc ?

The Svbony 3-8mm zoom is an interesting product. Did Svbony commission it or did a manufacturer come up with it and Svbony jumped in with a big order ?