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A McEwan

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Everything posted by A McEwan

  1. Thank you guys for the very useful info so far!
  2. Hi! I'm sure this has been discussed already, but things do change. If this thread is redundant, please remove or direct me to the appropriate thread. I am out of touch with Barlows. To be honest, I've never had much experience with them. I think I had a Meade Shorty 2x back when I started, and currently have a 2" Revelation ED which I've had for a while. I'm interested in getting a 1.25" 2x BArlow or tele-extender for several purposes: to make it easier to attain high magnifications with my Tak FC100, and to do the same job in my other scopes that are limited to a 1.25" diagonal. Ideally I would like the Barlow to be as "transparant" as possible, introducing no negative effects, and making it possible to get as good a view as possible using my longer f-length eyepieces, particularly Plossls, Orthos and Kelners, Huygens (!) etc in the 20-30mm focal lrngth range. I know there are plenty out there, but what are the best ones that I should be putting on the short-list? Thanks, Ant
  3. An oldie but goodie - my Swift 839. 60mm f13.5. It now serves on my modified AZ-3 mount, though I have the original EQ mount and storeage box (courtesy of PhilJ)
  4. The coldest I've been out observing in was -13'c, but that was about 25 years ago, when I was....about....25 years younger! The cold didn't seem to bite so much then, but now I feel it a lot more keenly. That was a great night though. Up until that night, I hadn't seen the Horsehead Nebula in a 90mm scope! I didn't that night either, and I still haven't and I never will. I'm just saying 🤣 lol 🤣
  5. If that's the case, and you won't be carrying the mount and scope around to set it up and take it down, go for the ED120. At f7.5 it has everything from widefield to high-power capability. "Big" refractors give views that are very special. Your experience with the Helios 8" Dob will have shown you what you can expect in terms of medium aperture light grasp, but when looking through a 5" refractor you'll see an increase in Contrast, if not in actual detail that can be resolved. The enhanced contrast "can" make it appear that there is more detail visible, and it's also worth mentioning that usually, for all intents and purposes, the refractor will always be perfectly collimated, whereas a Dobsonian (Newtonian) will always need to be adjusted to perfection to give its best, and will also take longer to cool down to ambient temperature to remove tube currents that de-stabilise the view. Ant
  6. Not at all surprising! A lot of us have multiple Orthoscopics specifically for lunar and planetary views. Why? Because they're so good at it! Really really dedicated planetary perfectionists use monocentrics, but I've never tried one and 30 degree afov... nah, I'm quite happy with my more-versatile Ortho's! Ant
  7. As I've owned several of all these EDs.... They're all great. The only concern is light grasp and expectations. The 80mm is very nice. It excels as a portable or quick-trip telescope, and has the oomph to do low power wide field right up to planetary at 200x, all with virtually zero false colour and great optical quality. The 100mm is very nice too. It excels as a portable or quick-trip telescope, and has the oomph to do low power wide field right up to planetary at 200x, all with virtually zero false colour and great optical quality. It will show a bit more detail and would be closer to a "do-it-all" scope, and is lightweight still. AT f9 the wide-field is limited slightly, but I could still fit in M31, M110 and M32 into the filed of view of a 22mm Vixen LVW. The 120mm is very nice. It is not a portable or quick-trip telescope, but still has the oomph to do low power wide field right up to planetary at 300x, all with virtually zero false colour and great optical quality. This would be the "do-it-all" refractor, but the mounting requirement is a lot heavier. An HEQ-5, SkyTee-II or other modern mount with that weight limit will be fine as it's not too long or awkward - it's just heavier. Best view ever of the Pleieades with this scope and a 30mm Pentax XW. Scored. Into. My. Visual. Memory. For most of these scopes I upgraded the focuser, but it wasn't always necessary. I just loved having a Moonlite on it so I didn't have to worry. Ant
  8. I've had several Meade S4k eyepieces, and still have their 6.7mm UWA, which is a very good eyepiece. It's one of my longest surviving eyepieces and sees regular use, usually after using the 13mm Nagler. I owned the 14mm UWA too and it was very good, and was one of my earliest ultra wide angle eyepieces, but I think I disliked the weight and bulk, if I remember correctly. Very nicely made though and I do remember having excellent views through it. The S4k Plossls are good workhorses. Probably very similar to smoothside TeleVue Plossls of the same era, or maybe a tiny tad behind them but I'm pretty sure they're close. I have fond memories of the 12.5mm. Not sure why I don't still have it.... Ant
  9. 1. Consolidate my kit to stuff that I actually use and enjoy using. (this means 1.25" as much as possible and if I can't tweak something until it works as I want - it goes) 2. Try and take a scope out at least once a week through the winter, even if the forecast is variable. A quick look is better than no look. 3. er... concentrate on #1 and #2!
  10. FWIW I've had several, which I tidied up and sold on to beginners, and they all performed really well - better than I expected.
  11. I have seen G. It was through the 12" (ish) Dob that our club owns (which I helped to build) usinf Pentax XL eyepieces and it was a brilliant night years ago now. E and F were obvious, and myself and another observer took turns spending ages seeing what else we could see, and we both agreed that we could see another star. We refered to a chart of the components, and it was the G star. I wonder if I'll be able to catch E and F tonight in my 100mm? Fingers crossed.... !
  12. Well I haven't used the SW90mm for night time viewing - I have that just as a platform for my Quark or Herschel Wedge for solar. So... can't answer you really, but... give me a few nights and I'll try and give it a go! I'm heading out this evening with the Tak because .... well.... it's a Tak!
  13. My recently "completed" Swift 831 is being put to regular use and is a joy!
  14. Final update. Finder-scope mounted, and observed Mars the other night at 259x, which showed a lovely sharp, clear image. (Seeing co-operated wonderfully, mind!) Essentially, this scope is now "finished". I just need some caps for the finder, and a suitable case that will hold the scope with finder attached, as it's a faff to put on and take off every time I use it. Pictures are fairly terrible - poor lighting, but best I could do, I'm afraid! Ant
  15. This is the blurb from the eyepiece page: "This is an Enhanced Orthoscopic design that blends the best of the Abbe Ortho design with additional advanced features like ER and Large FOV." It seems to be a 5 element design, but I haven't disassembled it to find out the layout. The barrel is aluminium on mine, but the lighting made it look a bit brassy. You can have it in a brass barrel for an extra $50!
  16. Tonight I was viewing Mars with my Swift 831. 77mm aperture, focal length of 1000mm, f13. Seeing was excellent and I was able to "climb" through all my Orthoscopics and as each shorter focal length eyepiece popped into the diagonal, the views just got better and better. 18mm, 12.5mm, 9mm, 7mm, 6mm, 3.9mm.... 3.9mm?!? Let me introduce you to my Siebert Starsplitter 3.9mm Modified Orthoscopic. 10mm eye relief, 60(-ish_ degree apparent field of view. I don;t use it very often, and when I do use it it'll be on a planet or a double star, but every time I use it I think I should tell the world about how great it is (and every time I forget). So, here's the link: https://www.siebertoptics.com/SiebertOptics-Ortho page).html I bought mine many years ago when it was about $80. They're now $129 and would be worth every penny (/cent) for sharp comfortable high-power planetary views. My scope showed a little false colour tonight, and adding the SS 3.9 to the optical train did nothing to make it any worse, but the detail visible stayed very sharp and clear. A "Hidden Gem"? "Sleeper eyepiece"? Definitely! A bit rough & ready looking? "Agricultural" aesthetic? Sure, but don't judge an eyepiece by its exterior, I guess! Anybody else here enjoying their Siebert Starsplitter? I can't imagine I'm the only one?
  17. There was a video on Youtube ages ago that showed one mature observer's solution to setting up a heavy (may have been 14") SCT on the mount. I can't find it anywhere but am probably using the wrong search words! Anyway, they used a stool and had that set to the right height, so that they could put the OTA, front down, on the stool so that it was holding ALL the weight. The mount and stool would be beside each other, so that when the OTA was on the stool, it would be lined up with the mounting hardware (in vertical alignment) so that all the tightening up could be done while the user was not carrying, lifting or holding anything! Once tightened up, the OTA could be swung up, the stool moved away, and everything was set up! The only lifting would be carrying the mount, stool and OTA out separately, and it would make the fiddly attachment much simpler if you're not trying to support a heavy dead weight at the same time. Wish I could find that video.....
  18. That's a great little scope and a very fair price. Think of the tripod accessory tray problem as an "opportunity to excel" and you'll feel happier sorting it yourself. When I last had one, I replaced the tripod with one off an EQ3 mount, so I had to do some drilling and fiddling, and for me it was a worthwhile upgrade (but I kinda like to tinker with scopes, so I'm probably not typical). Hope you enjoy using it and a great time to get it too, with Jupiter, Saturn and Mars all making appearances!
  19. Another vote for the AZ4 here. Quite easy to find second-hand at affordable prices, and sturdy enough for any 100mm scope. I have used 120mm on it too, with relatively good success. Mine is mounted on a Berlebach UNI-18 tripod, which increases stability, but also the price (by quite a lot). A pier extension completes the assembly for when I want greater elevation.
  20. OP probably has read these suggestions now, and generally the recommendation is for a 3-4" ED or achromat. I agree, but I'd suggest going for as large an aperture within the budget that you set yourself, whether it be ED or achro. If going for an achro, don't go for a "shorty" fast f-ratio one: stick to something like f8 or more. There are sometimes 100mm f11 achros available (like the Lyra one I used to have) which are excellent, or a 100mm f9 ED Skywatcher. If you can afford it, a 120mm achro f8.3 is a good value for money scope but yes it will show some false colour. The 120mm f7.5 ED version has very good optics and is a great planetary scope. It's probably one of the most discussed topics of conversation in Astronomy, so there will be plenty of opinions on it online! Good hunting!
  21. Congratulations from another Tak & GP user! Hope you enjoy using that lovely most-modern Tak! Ant
  22. The Skywatcher 150PL will get you most of what you seem to be looking for, but you will still have to add at least a Right Ascention motor to track. The optics in the 150PL will be great for planetary, fine for DSOs, and are usually fairly good quality. You will get best results by blackening the inside of the tube, and paying particular attention to collimation, but at f8 it will be easy to do and should hold collimation for long periods of time. Mine certainly did. Down the line you may want to replace the 4-vane secondary spider with a curved variant which will eliminate the annoying diffraction spikes seen when viewing bright stars or planets. A light/dew-shield will also aid in increasing contrast. So that package is certainly a good start, but you may find something similar with tracking already included on the second hand market if you're willing to shop around or wait patiently. As much as I'm a fan of refractors, I'd say that a 150mm f8 is a very good option with great "bang for buck" score.
  23. I've had the 105 and 127 Maks before, and can say they are both great scopes. Be sure to invest in (or make) a long dew shield for whichever one you get as they are dew-magnets. If you can afford the larger, go for the larger, but if you go for the 105, it will still serve you well. Nice an compact and easy to use. They can even be collimated fairly easily, once you find the instructions on how to do it! It might need a little longer to cool down to ambient temperature (depending on where you store it and what your ambient observing temperature is) but it shouldn't take too long.
  24. My 831 project is almost finished now. I had the optic looked at by Es Reid, who was very encouraging about it and described it as "sweet"! He cleaned it up and I got it back from him yesterday. In the meantime I had been working on the fixing hardware for the 40mm original finder-scope which I got from the USA last year. (I actually couldn't believe how long I'd been sitting on this not doing anything with it - so I'm glad to have finally "got round to it"!) The brackets were prepped, primed and sprayed with Rustoleum paint to give the wrinkled finish to match the other metal hardware on the finder, and I also applied black flocking material to in the inside of the dew-shield. The lens cell and dew shield parts all screw into each other, which is good in that everything is held in perfect alignment, but also tricky, as I can by trying to unscrew the dew shield, and suddenly the cell starts unscrewing! So it takes some care. The dew-shield actually extends on this scope, but only by an inch or so. It's nice, but I will be using an additional flexi dew-shield over the top to extend it a bit. Anyway, it's all together again now and ready to go - except I need to find a suitable bolt to finish off the finder-scope mounting! All those boxes of bits'n'bobs and I don;t have the right style bolt. Unbelievable... 🤨 I'm not particularly a big fan of straight-through optical finders anyway, but it will be nice to have it on there for "completeness". That's pretty much it. Just need some decent skies now. It will go on my AZ4 or GP mounts no problem, and I'm looking forward to actually gathering photons with this wonderful instrument!
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