John

Hope you are getting some nice viewing with either or both instruments 🙂

Quite a nice night here. Some cloud dodging to do from time to time but quite a dark, transparent sky in between those.

The lively 2nd hand market in astronomy equipment is very useful. Most of my gear has been bought used and I have very often been able to buy, try then sell on if necessary, at little or no cost 🙂

I'm not sure if that is the case in all countries though 🤔

2 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

All true but surely it behoves all of us to find out a basic minimum of information before shelling out the well-earned....

I remember taking months of researching before starting up a reef aquarium (mind you, that's a hobby which is even more expensive than astronomy!).

Oh yes I agree. Forums are a vital part of that and didn't exist when I started out in the hobby. Not knowing anyone who was into the hobby I had to read all the books and magazines that I could and piece together what might work for me.

Then I found that all I could actually afford was a 60mm refractor so, like many of my generation, that is what I started out with despite my research showing that if fell short of what most established astronomers considered to be the minimum useful instrument 🙄

Still, it got me hooked though and 40+ years on, I'm still at it so the little Tasco did good 🙂

3 minutes ago, Marian M said:

 

 

....Forgot to mention, you should have no lights around you, no lights close to you, because the eyes are at some distance vs the eyepieces and any light will interfere....

 

 

Where I normally observe, there are a few lights around and having the eye lens of the eyepiece shielded from light intrusion, especially a large one like the Morpheus, XW's Delos etc, is important to maintaining good contrast I've found. For that reason I like to press my eye socket gently against a soft eyecup and hopefully to seal out as much intrusive light as possible. I do not wear glasses when observing though.

Over the years I have been on forums such as SGL and CN I have noticed that there are very many differences in preferences when selecting and using eyepieces - one persons dream eyepiece can be another persons nightmare. That may explain why there are often sharp differences of opinion on eyepieces as well, perhaps more so than other items of astronomical equipment !

I think the lesson here for all of us is to ask a few questions before ploughing in with any recommendations to those asking about getting a telescope.

We all want to help of course and are enthusiastic about the hobby and what we have found works for us but that might not be the "prescription" that works for someone else with different interests and circumstances.

2 minutes ago, globular said:

I might go Pentax XW 40mm, 16.5mm & 10mm, ES 92 12mm and Powermate 2x.

That'll give me 53x, 106x, 130x, 178x, 213x, 260x, 356x, 427x

Surely I'm allowed a Powermate if it's one of the 5? 😇

Using a hyper-wide like the ES 92 with the Powermate is fun although the resulting "stack" can be a little daunting 🙄

Are you using an aluminium tripod with the NEQ3-2 Pro ?

If so, upgrading the tripod to one of the steel legged ones will give you more stability.

How many goes do we get at this ? 🙂

Another set that would work for me (no barlows or zooms in this one) would be a mix of hyper wide angle EP's for low and medium magnification and more regular wide angles for the shorter focal lengths. So Ethos 21mm, Ethos 13mm, Pentax XW 7mm, 5mm and 3.5mm

With my 900mm focal length refractors that gives 43x, 69x, 129x 180x and 257x

and in the 1200mm focal length scope 57x, 92x, 171x, 240x, 343x

Probably a gap of sorts there somewhere around 100x / 120x though 🤔

Probably best to treat this as a 5-a-side team with plenty of reserves back on the bench for substitutions depending on how the "game" plays out 😁

13 minutes ago, GTom said:

Having a heavy camera it would be a great idea to remove any weight from the primary side. Will have a look on my copy, being a wee bit scared to disassemble the entire OTA though 😀

Having looked at a few pics of an LX200 12 being dismantled, I'm not sure that it has that weight behind the mirror. 

This SGL member has done quite a bit of work on an LX200 12 inch - there might be some useful information in here for you:

1 hour ago, Sunshine said:

What baffles me to no end is the fact that this is literally being reinvented some 60 years later.

But without the strong incentive that Russian ambitions on the moon created back then.

If zooms are permitted I reckon I could get by with just 3 eyepieces:

- Something nice and wide around 20-25mm

- The APM 15.4mm - 7.7mm zoom

- The SVbony 8mm-3mm zoom

While not perfect the above would cover practically all situations with my scopes and their performance is really pretty good 🙂

The meade newtonians and their 7 inch mak-cassegrain certainly have large metal weights behind the their primary mirrors.

Often an early modification of such scopes is to remove the counterweight. I understand that it is thought that the weight slows down the cool down process by adding mass close to the primary mirror.

You can almost guarantee that if you did quit the hobby and sold all your gear, within a fairly short space of time there would be a period of the best seeing and clearest skies on record, a naked eye comet, the 1st supernova within our galaxy since 1604, the development of a 2nd jovian red spot, the return of the Saturnian white spot, and a new planet discovered that is visible in amateur scopes.

Amateur astronomy is fickle like that ....... 🙄

29 minutes ago, DirkSteele said:

....somewhere to mount it permanently ......

That was what I realised after I purchased my 150mm F/12 Istar refractor. Scopes like that need to be permanently mounted in an observatory.

Still, it was fun finding out ....... 🙂

One of my best views of Uranus was when it was very close to the Moon a few years back. I could get the limb of the Moon and Uranus in the same field of view at 200x and the colour of the Uranian disk was very striking.

I have seen 2 of Uranus's moons but needed my 12 inch dobsonian at high magnification to get those. Neptune's moon Triton is a little easier and I have seen that a few times with my 130mm refractor, again though high magnifications are required.

45 minutes ago, JonHigh said:

Incidentally, I came across my old Meade 4000 Super Plossls the other day. 9.7 Taiwan, 26LP Japan, 32 and 40mm unmarked (poss Chinese) and a Telenegative 2x Barlow, Japan. How would these compare to the Hyperions or is it more like comparing Apple and Oranges? 

Within their constraints of tighter eye relief and a narrower field of view compared with the Hyperions, the optical performance of the plossls, especially the Japan made ones, would be comparable I think.

5 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Baseball caps are the least appropriate headgear to wear while using a telescope 🤔

Especially indoors.

At the very least it ought to be worn backwards !

(plus others can see the TV logo then too 🙂)

Hello and welcome to the forum (at last !) 🙂

I recall that quite a lot of folks parted ways with Astromart when they introduced their membership charging (myself included). It was implemented rather clumsily as I recall.

The TMB/Burgess 6mm was a very good performer and comfortable to use. Similar to a Tele Vue Radian in many ways. The early ones needed an internal lens retaining ring replacement to remove excessive off axis glare - I seem to recall that Burgess Optical sent these out for owners to make the replacement themselves.

2.5 years and 17 pages of posts later and I still have yet to try a Morpheus of any focal length 🙄

The 14mm and 9mm would fit into my 1.25 inch set quite well. But would the 14mm oust my 14mm Delos I wonder 

5 minutes ago, Stu1smartcookie said:

I really like SVBony gear ...resonable prices with a good build quality

 

Antares used to occupy a similar niche. Now their stuff is hard to find (here in the UK at least). If SVBony can step in with decent, available and affordable gear, all power to them 👍

Obviously a brand with ambitions !

I agree that the Baader 2.25x barlow will work fine with the Baader 8-24 zoom. I have used that combination. It might be worth substituting a nylon set screw for the stock metal one to avoid damage to the barrel of eyepieces it is used with though. It's also worth noting that you can't use the 1.3x option with the zoom because the optical element of the barlow will not insert fully into the zoom's 1.25 inch barrel. The same might apply to using the zoom with the fixed FL Hyperions - it's worth checking.

While I would add a 24mm SWA eyepiece to the zoom for wider low power views, at the other end (8mm) I find the zoom does really quite well and I doubt that the fixed FL Hyperion 8mm would be better there. 

I think the zoom is actually a sharper eyepiece across the whole field of view at F/7 than the fixed FL Hyperions are and with a 68 degree AFoV (measured) at 8mm the zoom is just as wide at that focal length. The 5mm Hyperion would obviously give you something the zoom does not.

Great report Rob - wish it was like that here tonight !

Are the constellation binoculars the Vixen 2.1 x 42's ? 

That is a really good initial report on this telescope. Lots of detail and some "straight talking" where needed.

Thanks for posting it 👍

I will look forward to your reports on what observation with this instrument is like 🙂