John

I have heard that very occasionally from folks using very wide angle eyepieces and panning around with them. All eyepieces of this type have some distortion to achieve the very wide field of view and I think that can affect some people in that way.

I have not experienced it myself though - I use the same very wide angle eyepieces that you have in your signature.

It is not unheard of though. Not a silly question either.

SET optics rings a bell for me and I can't quite remember why 

Nice looking scope though 🙂

1 hour ago, JeremyS said:

....The other night, I saw one with a right angle finder. That was the rest of the night gone.

That might have been mine - sorry Jeremy 😬

It has a black focuser and finder mount as well but at least I can blame Tak for that !

The slightly odd thing is that even if you are lucky enough to get your "Holy Grail" scope, this does not seem to stop lusting after other interesting scopes as they pop up - Holy Grail #1, Holy Grail #2, Holy Grail #3 etc, etc. I guess the truth is that we are just equipment junkies really 😅

6 minutes ago, Epick Crom said:

This is so frustrating! 

Last night at sunset was wall to wall clouds. "No point bringing out the dob, these bloody clouds are here to stay" I thought. Come out later and it's clear as a whistle! Oh well, at least I identified some stars of Ursa Major low on the northern horizon for the first time in my 10x50mm binoculars.

 

Joe

I've just been looking at the same constellation with my 11x70mm binoculars, right overhead here !

Messiers 81 and 82 were quite clear. The two bright globular clusters in Hercules looked v.nice as well. 90% clear sky now after 100% thick cloud 90 minutes ago.

14,000 KM between us but similar challenges Joe 🙂 

1 hour ago, John said:

It's been nice and clear to the west so Venus has shown well. Not too good to the NE though with ominous cloud bank spreading from that direction. 130mm refractor is out but not sure for how long.

 

Completely clouded over and looked set in so I bought the scope back in. Now there are quite a few "sucker gaps" in the cloud of course and stars are showing very nicely in them 🙄

Might dig out the 11x70 binoculars for some quick peeps.

12 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

...Instead, I've been watching our local hedgehog eating the treats we left out....

We have one of those. Nice little chap. I hear him (or her) snuffling through the flower borders quite often on a summer night 🙂

Venus has been nice and crisp here from 300x to 480x. A touch less crisp at 600x. A large cloud bank from the NE is about to spoil the views though, alas so it looks like, for tonight at least

It's been nice and clear to the west so Venus has shown well. Not too good to the NE though with ominous cloud bank spreading from that direction. 130mm refractor is out but not sure for how long.

Venus-bound this evening:

34 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

Be interested how you get on with that John. I would also be interested in hearing your finding process for it.

I have had it once using the dob, but that has DSC so that's relatively easy in comparison.

I have done it before with the 100mm. Star hopping from 6x30 RACI then to a low power eyepiece and finally more power to tease the faint point source out.

Stellarium shows it if you load the quasars catalogue. This article is quite useful as well:

Cosmic Challenge: Quasar 3C 273 - Phil Harrington's Cosmic Challenge - Articles - Articles - Cloudy Nights

It can vary in brightness however so if it is experiencing a "dim" phase then 100m will stuggle I think.

2 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

That’s an impressive result John - and a great combo of two DSOs 👍🏻

Thanks Jeremy. My next intended target with the 100mm last night was going to be the quasar in Virgo 3C 273 which is mag 12.9 but the clouds spoiled the fun. 

20 hours ago, Louis D said:

Sounds like a 13mm Ethos might be the only eyepiece you'd need in a 127 Mak most nights if you could deal with the eye relief.  It would almost combine the 24mm and 13mm eyepiece functions into one.

I used my 13mm Ethos with my 100mm F/9 refractor last night and the views were superb 😁

Plus the true field was large enough to allow both Messier 13 and the nearby galaxy NGC 6207 to appear in the same view at 69x. Spotting a 12th magnitude galaxy in my skies with a 100mm aperture scope can be tricky and the additional magnification really helps tease such targets out.

Great find Stu and in lovely condition as well 🙂

How much does an FS 128 actually weigh with clamp / DT plate / finder and diagonal installed by the way ?

It would be very interesting to compare the FS 128, LZOS 130 F/6 and the LZOS 130 F/9.2. Probably need a night of excellent seeing to do the job properly though. 

17 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

About 70% clear here, so, optimistic as ever, I dragged the Starfield out....and the chair, power supply, EP case, etc. Left to cool. Focused on Venus to align the finder and.....you guessed it: over came the clouds. All I could see was Venus and then only occasionally.

This is the third time running this has happened.

I was clouded out about 30 minutes ago. Just getting into the swing of things again as well .........🙄

Some cloud patches but not too bad here this evening. Some nice views of Venus 62% illuminated earlier with my 100mm refractor.

Same scope is now starting to pick off some double stars. Seeing seems quite stable with 300x plus delivering very well defined stellar disks of pairs such as Gamma Virgonis and Iota Leonis. The former looked like 2 almost identical "car headlights" at 450x 🙂

Seems a while since I've been able to get out but I've managed to remember which end of the scope to peer into ! 

I think I am probably the only member of my astro society who does not use GOTO systems so there is no need at all to feel any guilt in using one. I suspect the majority here use them as well and I don't notice a general air of "guilt" on the forum 🙂

1 hour ago, Louis D said:

Too bad they weren't made to work with focusers and adapters in general.  I could see this attitude working if they were a huge telescope marketer with eyepieces as a side business, but the opposite is true.

I've been using Tele Vue eyepieces from most of their ranges for about 30 years now and in over 20 scopes of various brands, types, and sizes. I've never encountered a Tele Vue eyepiece that I could not get to work and work well.  

The Tele Vue hybrid barrels work well enough with "Hi-Hat" style 1.25 inch adapters where the adapter slips up inside the 2 inch barrel part which gives the 1.25 inch clamp a longer barrel to grip. The only ones I have experience with are the Ethos 13mm, 8mm and 6mm though. I have used those eyepieces in a standard 1.25 inch fitting but much prefer the security that a 2 inch fitting provides. The downside of the hybrid design is that I needed to fit barrel extensions to these 3 eyepieces so that I could use 2 inch filters with them. On the whole I prefer the approach used with the 4.7 and 3.7 Ethos SX eyepieces where you are provided with a 2 inch barrel section that screws over the 1.25 inch barrel. Again, for security reasons, I prefer to use these long and heavy eyepieces in 2 inch mode. Also the bottom end of the 2 inch eyepiece barrel contains an additional light baffle which I think improves the contrast a wee bit.

On the number of eyepieces used in sessions, I have had sessions where I've used just one and others where most of my collection have had a turn in the drawtube. It all depends ......

8 minutes ago, Saganite said:

Hi Neil,

I use Baader fluid to clean mt Objectives and pretty much do as Nik suggests, and It works fine.

As above for me.

I recall that it is mirrors rather than lenses that the Baader fluid is not recommended for. 

On 26/03/2023 at 00:41, Highburymark said:

So you’d get rid of your Ethos John? At current prices they would be very expensive to reacquire if you missed them.

This post caused me to pause and I'm still paused.

I did grab a TOE 4mm though 🙂

With the weather we have had in the my part of the UK since I started this thread, the contents of my eyepiece case seems somewhat academic 😒

I've been following Ed Ting's reviews for years. I've not seen so many of his video reviews though. He has just posted this one on eyepieces and reveals his most used ones, which is quite interesting. I don't necessarily agree with all of his preferences but a number of the points that he discusses are relevant I think. Apologies for the ad breaks, which are beyond my control 🙄

16 minutes ago, DirkSteele said:

Been a bit absent on SGL for the last 2 years as we welcomed a little girl into the family just before Christmas 2020....

 

Congratulations Matthew 🙂

I had nearly 10 years without a scope at all when our children came along 🙄

5 minutes ago, DirkSteele said:

A variety of my scopes on different locations around the world during the daytime.....

 

Wonderful scopes in wonderful locations Matthew 🙂

Do you still have the LZOS 130 F/9 ?

9 minutes ago, MalcolmM said:

For me, this is really important and you can still get lots of fun and great views with a 60/70mm scope. My grab 'n' go is 60mm and not only can I lift the whole scope/mount/tripod with 2 fingers, I can pack it all into a small rucksack and take it on a plane as hand luggage. 

Malcolm 

Me too, where a very light rig is needed. My 70mm F/6 plus mount plus tripod plus diagonal etc comes in at a touch under 5kg all up. Even a weakling like me has no trouble picking this up with one hand !