RobertI

In my home town of Clacton-on-sea in the 70’s, the local astronomy club built their observatory, housing an 8.75” reflector, in the grounds of the secondary school. Local Cub and Brownie groups were often given tours of the heavens (including me) and the school itself was lucky enough to get to use it (supervised of course!). In fact I think that observatory was a big factor in starting me on my journey. The local club didn’t quite produce any Sagans, but at least three people I know of went on to study Astronomy and two went on to work in the field. Not bad really! I have often thought about starting a club in partnership with our local school, won’t happen for while now I guess.....

Came home from a day out and, contrary to the forecast, it was beautifully clear with the moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars all visible in the azure sky. I just had to share these delights with my son, so we dashed out with the 66mm frac on a tripod and had some nice views. Hopefully created some  nice memories for him. 🙂
 

On 13/10/2020 at 11:18, toxic said:

they fitted a shade to the new led street light next to my obsy strait away but it was useless so i made my own with a small aluminium frame sandwiched in between 2 flooring mats and bolted it to the lamppost and used a long pole to push it up and it works great now.as seen above and behind the home made dome.

 

Total genius!!

If you are not desperate to sell, it would seem to make sense to price it higher rather than lower - if you don't get any bites you can always lower the price. My recent experience of selling is that people are willing to pay alot for used scopes at the moment, but as Olly says, the Questar is in a fairly unique sector of the market.

1 hour ago, Stu said:

I had a pair of WO binoviewers as my first set and struggled with merging the images. I didn’t get on with the original Maxbrights either, found the eyepiece alignment too fiddly and difficult to keep aligned.

I’ve had several pairs of the OVL type clones, TS and Antares and I really like the self centring eyepiece holders. They are much easier to use. I have found that there is some wiggle in the diopter adjustment though so tend to keep this screwed right down tight so everything stays aligned. My eyepieces have diopter adjustment on them so that helps.

The exception to the ‘single set screw’ rule from my perspective are my Baader Zeiss Mark IVs. The tolerance on the eyepiece holders is so tight that some eyepieces just don’t fit! That said, my Zeiss orthos do, very snuggly and are held in perfect alignment by the set screws.

I must say the new Baader Maxbrights look VERY nice, I would be very tempted by a pair of those.

Thanks for sharing your experiences Stu. It's a difficult one, I initially started looking at the Baader Maxbright II as it does look superb, but concluded perhaps I should start with something more budget and actually see if I get on with Binoviewers (the Baaders also seem to be out of stock and unavailable for some time). I figured if I bought them from FLO I would be able to return them if they didn't suit. Will probably decide by the end of the day as I would like to be able to have a squint at Mars while it's still decent.

Sounds really promising, that 12” under dark skies should be awesome. 

6 hours ago, AstroTim said:

I’ve have used a standard barlow with the lens cell removed in order to give a little more magnification (and to fit any filters to in order to save swapping them between nosepiece / eyepieces).

Thanks for the suggestions Tim, also hadn’t thought of using a Barlow in that way. 👍

6 minutes ago, Louis D said:

Except that you're going to want collets (OVL) to keep the eyepieces centered and better aligned than is possible with a single thumb screw (WO).

Thanks Louis, yes I did read about that, and the issues with compression rings and undercuts. Odd that the apparently cheaper finished OVLs have the better eyepiece holders. A lot of people seem to be happy with the WOs though. My biggest concern tbh is whether my eyes will be able to converge the image - my eyes seeme to be a bit sensitive to bino collimation.

1 hour ago, AstroTim said:

when used in an f10 SCT

I probably should have mentioned that I expect to use the binoviewer in my C8 and my 102ED-R.

The WO seems to be a no brainer - finger hovering on buy button.

I am guessing that with the supplied 1.6x barlow and my Baader 2.25x barlow (which can also be used at 1.3x), I should be able to get 1.3x, 1.6x and 2.25x? Seems like it might be easier to have a selection of barlows than a selection of eyepieces?

Well that's two pretty firm votes for the WO - thanks both. They're in stock at FLO too.

I'm looking to get a bino-viewer as many seem to recommend them. Having done some research it seems like the budget options are pretty good to get started, so I have boiled it down to two options of about the same price:

• Option 1: A William Optics binoviewer which includes two 20mm 66 degree eyepieces. I have read mixed reviews about the WO eyepieces, some people say they excessivley dim the image and others say they add chromatic abberation, so an alternative option is.....
• Option 2: An OVL binoviewer, which does not include eyepieces so I would buy an additional Hyperion 21mm 68 degree eyepiece.

My understanding is that the two binoviewers are the same under the skin (although the WO has a nicer exterior finish), both come with an optical glass path corrector and both options come out at a similar price.

So really it boils down to - are the WO eyepieces that bad, and would I get better views through the Hyperions? 

Any help appreciated.

3 hours ago, Kdiveruk said:

Also what about this gezebo as an idea maybe you could make the roof to open up? I hope you get it sorted. 

That’s a good idea, at least it will give a light free view in one direction. 

I just despair for you, I’m so sorry to hear this. A couple of thoughts from the ‘Astronomy Hacks’ books I have been reading which might help - Now you may feel like a complete berk doing this, but an eyepatch and an observing hood/blanket could allow you to retain complete dark adaption even under bright lights - observing hoods are brilliant for cutting out light and before you ‘emerge’ from your observing hood into the light, cover your observing eye with an eyepatch - even if your uncovered eye is subjected to light the covered eye will retain its dark adaption for when you go under the hood again (apparently eyes work independently in this regard).  As Peter says doubles are good to observe under light pollution and there are bucket loads of them - especially with a 6” refractor! If all else fails, if you are prepared to get a bit technical, EAA (aka Video Astronomy) is the the antidote to light pollution and you will never have to worry about it again - but it’s not for everyone.  I used it successfully to observe in the centre of a town with three very bright street lights a mere 30 feet away. I am back to visual now that I have moved house, but I know that if I ever get an inconsiderate neighbour with a light obsession, I’ve got EAA to fall back on.  A final thought -  if you need a goto mount, I recommend the Celestron AS-GT or CG5 -  known as the ‘coffee grinder’ it’s guaranteed to wake even the heaviest of sleepers!   

Nice report, sounds like good seeing and transparent skies -awesome. So many things to see! Ironically I am missing tonight’s clear skies as I am working late to clear my work backlog so I can attend Kelling Heath for a couple of nights (which will probably be cloudy!).   
 

NGC604 is truly huge! 

That must have shaken you up.  I’ve had Similar incidents, usually involving trying to move the whole setup and forgetting that one of the axes is loose. I don’t think I’ve drawn blood though. I’m glad you’re ok. We live and learn! 

Great video Victor, I have subscribed to your channel! I think yours and @Lockie's "DIY Astro" channel are the only two I subscribe to.

45 minutes ago, johninderby said:

Lyra meet Mira. 😁

Now THAT is a nice dual setup. Should be great for side by side viewing. 

On the subject of the dimmer image of the CC, I suspect it could be as simple as a different eyepiece being used with different transmission properties and/or a slightly different magnification being used, both of which could make a big difference to perceived brightness. I once bought a specialist planetary eyepiece which significantly dimmed the image compared to my normal eyepiece of the same focal length. 

1 hour ago, Fraunhoffer said:

There is also a list generated by Loughton astronomical society online that can be downloaded.

Yes just recently came across this one myself, it’s a great resource with all sorts of useful information for each object, highly recommended. 

Beautiful image of a beautiful object. Lovely star colours. I eyeballed this the other day through my 102ED and was surprised by the number of orange members in the cluster. 

I recently bought a 102ED refractor to complement my C8 (and various other scopes). I agree with some of the comments about SCTs giving 'soft' views, but so far the 102ED has not been able to show more detail than the C8 on Mars (though I have only had a couple of side-by-side sessions) and I have had some breathtaking detailed views of Jupiter with the C8 in the past. As mentioned, SCTs do need to be cooled and collimated and sometimes they just don't seem to perform well under certain conditions, but when they do they can be excellent. It should be noted that planetary observing is often a matter of waiting for those fleeting moments of clarity when the atmosphere steadies, so planets often don't look good at first glance (sorry if you already know this, I don't know what your level of experience is). I don't know if you have looked through other scopes to see what they are capable of in terms of planetary, but I wouldn't rush to buy anything else yet without trying some other scopes, and also trying to get the best out of your SCT.  

I think that is a sensible start. I would also add the Caldwell catalogue to your list , it’s a list of bright DSOs compiled by Patrick Moore, I think there are some galaxies on there. I think the biggest ‘wow’ will come from looking at the brighter globulars through your 12” 🙂

Nice report Victor, you achieved a lot in one session! Interestingly I also tried my wide field 38mm again recently (see recent report) and like you found that the edge distortion was not as bad as I remembered. For your interest I have managed to split a 1.4” double and I think the scope could do even better than that, so keep at those doubles, I think you’ll find it addictive! I love your Mars images, very impressive - I think the higher magnification version shows more detail - do you agree?

5 hours ago, Space Hopper said:

Good news..........its finally on its way 😃

I should have it in the next 2 or 3 days.

A long wait to say the least.

🥳

10 minutes ago, Victor Boesen said:

Just came back inside after another amazing session with the new scope! I dug out my 2.5X barlow and did some experimenting:) Let's just say I'm blown away! Observed Mars at 380X and no false color was visible and the view was still quite detailed (although contrast was lower). Surprisingly I found the best view to be either at 266X with the barlow and 6.7mm eyepiece or at 380X with the 4.7mm since the image was a little more dim and "relaxing".

Did some double stars as well where I easily managed a split at 2.1 arc seconds(152X), so I think the optics of this scope are truly great!!

I have to get up in a little over 6 hours to go to work so write-up will wait until tomorrow afternoon:)

Super result! The optics are clearly very good. I think your excellent eyes are doing you a great service too - at 380x all I would see is floaters!