ED Splitter

Looks like something the colonial marines use.

Hi and welcome. Plenty of good options set out above. It would be good to know what your budget is and what you intend to do with it, e.g. visual only, is it set up in your garden only etc. Also consider your lifestyle. How long can you give your observing sessions when the weather is favourable? If you have a young family you may not have time to have a scope with a long cool down time like a dobsonian, a refractor would work better. If you can stretch your budget a dob and a small refractor will compliment each other well and give you benefit of both. In terms of eye pieces it depends on your scope choice as they will do very different things. Stay with the starter pieces and learn what you like first then upgrade those or the gaps between.

It’s the standard dielectric mirror diagonal that comes with the skywatcher 100ed. Didn’t get chance to view last night as it was a bit murky and the moon was so bright.

Hi and welcome. Nice images also! clear skies.

Many thanks for the tip. I thought it was the cheap eyepiece but it could be a number of things. I will investigate further. Mthanks again.

Is there any scope to have more than one event? As an example you could offer two centralish locations one being more northerly than the other. Obviously open invitation for both. Appreciate more work but there seems a great deal of interest in getting an event organised and no doubt plenty would volunteer to assist in the task.

Oh dear me. It was a mistake to enter this thread. The setups are just too much.

I agree.

I should have clarified. I am using a refractor. Depending on head/eye position the spike protrudes from the centre of the star and can move around the centre of the star much like a second hand around a watch face. So if I move my my eye off axis of a bright star the spike moves around the star if that makes sense. This only happens on bright stars. Perhaps I need to make some more observations and start a new thread.

Wonderful reports from all. Last few nights have been great nearly a full week. Not had time to write up properly but in summary. saturn, Cassini division and four moons Jupiter looked wonderful as ever great detail in cloud banding ring nebula looking resplendent at 9mm. dumbell nebula looked faint and rather disappointing but was observed on a poorer night of seeing. M31 on one particular great night of seeing with accompanying M32 never seen together before or since. all in all an incredible week or so, it really lifted the spirits to see so many sights particularly deep sky objects that Bar M31/M42 hadnt found previously. Many thanks to all who publish their observations it really is an inspiring read and makes you want to get out there and find things for yourself. clear skies all.

Many thanks

I have the same eyepiece as the OP. Is this lack of field sharpness the reason why very bright stars develop a single a spike unless looked at perfectly on axis?

Wonderful

Oh sweet cheese and crackers

Is that leaning the tripod back in a chair or not? Quite like the idea of using binoculars to scout night sky targets, particularly when your near zenith and the straight through finder is torturous.

Well they are excellent, so keep sharing. Might have a go myself later, extra dimension to the past time. Thanks for the inspiration.

I really enjoyed reading this. Many thanks for taking the time to write this up. Tea break over back to work I go. clear skies.

Greetings from North Wales. hope the seeing is good where you are. I’m betting Saturn is looking good in your scope right now.

I like sketches and yours are excellent. Remind me of turn left at Orion which is useful to demonstrate what can be seen. Curious to learn how you do that are you back and to from the eyepiece or are you one eye on and one eye off. myhanks.

Saw a brilliant bright object flyover. I was facing south south east at the Summer Triangle and a bright blur happened, don’t know how to describe it, it was there and it was gone.

Ha yes I see. I rather like looking at the moon side on at a diagonal, it makes it look more exotic seeing shadows run in different directions. I am tempted by such a chair. Never thought i would be tempted to buy a dedicated chair, not as exciting as an eyepiece etc but I think I’ve been swayed.

Very nice. Morpheus is something that I have had in and out of website checkouts for sometime. I always talk myself out of a purchase. In short I can never justify cost of a further eyepiece. Do you have different targets in mind when you're pursuing a set of eyepieces like this?

I’m rather confused as to how these seats are positioned. Is it the case you sit under the eyepiece or perched above it?

Always admired these. It’s very tempting as am heading to the farne islands the end of the month. I think they would do rather well birding on a boat tour. lovely to hear you’re getting great use out of them.

Interesting thread to read. Eyepieces are very personal. Too much discussion is made on eye relief. Not sure all manufacturers measure this equally or even regard it to be the same thing. Ultimately there is always a compromise.