Sulaco85

Clear skies but transparency was awful for me, spent some time at M44, M42 and my old friend plaiedes. Started frosting up at 1am so called it a night as I couldn't feel my feet haha. 

10 hours ago, Ratlet said:

I phoned the wife to get the scope up the shed to cool as this might be the last clear night for a while.  Been working since 0600 this morning and got home at 1900 but oh boy, was it worth it.

Over on the svbony 3-8mm zoom post @Louis D suggested I order a cheap yellow and moonglow filter from eBay to improve contrast on Jupiter and mars.  Total cost was £10.  They both turned up today so I went out to excellent seeing getting straight to 3mm with the svbony for 216x power.  Jupiter looked very steady without the filters.  With them it just looked astounding.  Amazing detail and it almost made the atmosphere look even more steady.  It almost looked photographic and the colour cast was most pleasing.  I couldn't dwell for long before moving to mars as I need to go to bed shortly.

WIt's the filters Mars was hands down, no contest the best view I've had.  I could see definition to the light and dark areas so clearly.  I would swear on my life I could see a distinct white area on the north limb.  It felt a lot more like I was looking at an object where as previously it was like looking at a light, if that makes sense.

I tried without the stacked filters and whilst the viewing was good, the atmosphere seemed more unsteady and the light darker areas were more blurred.  I'm not confident I could see any white at the north again.

I'm certain that the seeing helped massively but for £10 I've had the best views of mars and Jupiter I've had.  The previous best coming because I bought the svbony zoom based on @Louis D review of it!

I've linked the filters I bought below.

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/399997-svbony-8-3-zoom/page/5/#comment-4334138

This has me very intrigued. I think I might pick up filter as well. I already have the yellow one. So do you stack them together? 

Had a very frustrating session  last night. Break in the clouds and the views were incredible but as was inevitable the clouds won in the end. 

6/11

Bit of a frustrating one for me, first night out with my 2nd hand celestron zoom on a heritage 130p. 

Lots of moisture in the air and seeing was next to awful. Got my breath on the lens of the zoom and the night never really recovered from there haha. 

Got some nice views of the moon and orion nebula but most DSO targets flooded with moon light. Once the clouds covered the moon around 0100 it got better but then cloud coverage completly blocked everything. 

A shame as my previous two sessions after getting back into it again were brilliant! Guess you have to take the rough with the smooth.

Have a 32mm vixen NPL arriving in a few days which should make star hopping a bit easier.

The zoom is fun but as others have said the field of view is very narrow, which I now realise is something I really don't like! 

So will pick up a couple of BSTs and use the zoom as a "compliment" as oppose to it being a "main" eyepiece. The baader 20% offer is tempting but feel a 200 pound eyepiece may be over kill for this scope.

Typically had nothing but clouds and rain the last week or so where I am. Just as I have a new eyepiece to try out!

Ah thanks for that! 

Seems like much of a muchness. Tempted to go for the svbony then 7-21 and and then maybe a 25 and 35 for wider viewing. 

I should have mentioned that I am aware of better more expensive eyepieces but they're out my budget. 

I do like the idea of at least one low magnification piece with a large AFOV. To get lost in space to.

Sorry I know this is covered in various existing posts. However hard to find specific advise on this. 

I have a heritage 130p and looking at my first eyepiece upgrade. I was looking at the BST starguider as they seem to be well reviewed on here. Especially for my level which is a permanantly experienced beginner! 

However I do like the idea of zooms, albeit with the loss of AFOV. Mainly for exposing doubles, general exploring and without having to swap out eyepieces is an appeal. I'm narrowed down to a svbony and celestron zoom. I was then going to couple this with my existing barlow and and BST 25mm or a superplossi 32mm

So long story short. Anyone have experience with these zooms?  And what would you recommend I go for. 

Or are there any other suggestions? I'm happy to learn.

Thanks!

Decided to sign up! Been stargazing for a few years but now really starting to get into it..particularly sketching. 

I have a heritage 130p and looking at adding a few new bits to it which I shall be asking about.

Looking forward to joining the community!