RobertI

Not sure this is the right place to put this (the software section didn't seem quite appropriate) but though I'd share my exeriences with the SKY GUIDE app for iphone.

Bottom line, I really loved it! It's a simple planetarium program, but with some additional really useful stuff which gives it a real wow, and means it's worth getting even if you already have SKy Safari or similar. It won a Apple award apparently.

Likes:

• It's only £2.99!
• A decent database of objects (but nowhere near SKy Safari)
• Lovely tactile interface and gorgeous graphics
• Nice satellie feature which displays passes in real time (and it is spot on) and shows some really nice information such as a schematic of the actual satellite, relative size compared to a person, when it was launched and by whom. I've just spent an hour using it under a twilight sky and binoculars and it was great fun. The db is not as comprehensive as Sky Safari, but the interface is way nicer to use, the movements smoother and there is usually something to view at any one time.
• If you select an object (including satellites) and point your phone at the sky with compass turned on, helpful arrows guide you to the right place.
• The sky or a portion of it can be viewed in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Again, very well executed and a joy to use - you simply press and hold to open a 'porthole' in the area you want, and the rotate the porthole to get the spectrum you want. I have learned quite a bit about some object using this feature.
• The 'compass' feature allows very smooth tracking around the sky, but there is a really cool feature to correct the compass just by press and hold and dragging left or right - works a treat.
• There are endless articles (which are really good actually) and some AR features which are great fun - I watched the Saturn V rocket take off from my coffee table!
• Brightness is adjusted by two fingers up or down gesture.
• There is also best of tonight, weather forecast and an interactive sky pollutiom map (again, it's really comprehensive).
• You can also have an augmented reality view if the sky by having your actual environment in the background, fun but not that useable in reality. 

Dislikes

• You can only zoom in and out so far which is frustrating. This is deliberate, as there is a super zoom add on (what they call the "supermassive" option) which allows super zoom in to objects with hubble quality images. It looks REALLY nice but is an additional £18.99 PER YEAR, not something I will pay for but I would consider a one off payment if it were offered.
• Not much else to dislike really!

Some screen shots below:

The whole sky shown in MIcrowave:

17 hours ago, Lockie said:

The 130p would have been great but crikey! What views you had with the ED72! Just goes to show, there is no substitute for dark skies!

Glad you had fun and cheers for the report  

Thanks Chris, your old Megrez 72 is still giving sterling service.

Just awesome Matt, an amazing object taken with some amazing equipment (127 Televue Apo on a 10 Micron mount I believe) and in a superb location. Your excellent processing skills bringing out the best. If this is cheating, then I want some of it!

3 hours ago, Trikeflyer said:

Some of my absolute favourite objects.  The swan nebula is just awesome and draws me in every time, the wild duck cluster is one of my favourite messiers.  Perhaps there's a bird theme going on??

Sounds like you are having a great time, i'm envious!

Next year I've booked to stay near where you are (Eddington Lodge) they have 20 inch dob to use for guests so hopefully the skies will co operate. Oh that's gone and done it then!

Steve

Thanks Steve, Eddington Lodge is literally round the corner, I had a guided tour for future reference, superb set up, definitely want to give them a go sometime, you’ll have a great time. 👍 I was thinking how amazing the views would be through those dobs as I was peering through my 72mm glass!

Thanks Lurcher, I’m kind of wishing I had bought my 130P to Cornwall for its greater light grasp. Being so light weight it sits nicely on even the smallest mounts, the Giro WR on a heavy duty photo tripod carries it fine as long as you don’t go mad on the magnification! 

As you can see it’s a pretty dark site....

Currently spending a week in Cornwall with fabulously dark and transparent skies. The cabin we are staying in has an unobstructed southerly aspect and we are treated to views of objects we can never normally see clearly from home. On our second day here the thin crescent moon had set early so armed with my 72ED frac on the Giro WR, with the Milky Way sparkling overhead, I explored Sagittarius and surrounding regions. 

Starting with Saturn and Jupiter, a surprising amount detail was visible considering their miserly elevation and the scope's small aperture. At 86x (the highest I could go) Saturn's equatorial banding was easily seen as was the Cassini division. Jupiter showed many light and dark bands and I think the GRS would have easily been seen if it was visible.

Next onto some DSOs:

The Wild Duck cluster M11 was  beautiful, compact, rich and well defined. It seemed like there was an awful lot more to see and would benefit from a more magnification and aperture.

The Eagle Nebula was well bounded and roughly circular with scattering of stars within.

The Swan Nebula was an unmistakable swan shape, very bright and well defined. My favourite object of the night.

The Lagoon Nebula was a very bright and large area of nebulosity filling most if the eyepiece field of view with with the 10mm Hyperion giving 43x.

The Triffid Nebula was smaller than the others and try as I might I could not see the dark lanes.

Then a walk around the rest of the sky, including:

The Saturn Nebula - easy to find and appeared as a small, fuzzy oval shape, more aperture and magnification needed for this one.

The Veil - the east and west portions were easily visible, slightly enhanced with a UHCE filter with lots of faint nebulosity visible in between. 

The 'wall' of the North American clearly visible with UHC.

The Dumbell, M27, looked wonderful, clearly showing the fainter parts of the oval 

I viewed numerous OCs the length of the milky way from the double cluster in Perseus, through Cassiopeia, Cygnus and Aquila through to M25 in Sagittarius.

The session lasted from 12:00 to about 02:30, by which time my feet were getting cold and the noises from the nearby woods were starting to freak me out! 

Nice piece of work Bill, lovely capture and interesting background info. 👍

12 hours ago, Roy Challen said:

Nice report! Perhaps some of the colour experienced in the Tal was due to the cheap prism diagonal? I would try a decent mirror diagonal and compare.

Thanks Roy, yes I had come to the same conclusion, I do have 2” mirror diagonal which I have used with the Tal and I don’t recall the same problem, but I didn’t use it on the night as I couldn’t get enough in focus with the Hyperions (the focus point is a long way in on the Tal). I really need to get a decent 1.25” mirror diagonal for it with a shorter light path - I have a couple on my list. 👍

Exciting news, congratulations, I’ve bought a number of imaging items from Ian and attended one of his imaging workshops, top fellow (and a fellow Rush fan 😎). Sounds like a very sensible and beneficial move all round.

I just hope you don’t get referred to the monopolies and mergers commission! 😉

Lovely little scope, looks fab on the Sphinx. 

1 hour ago, cloudsweeper said:

 

Good Lord!

Full write up of the evening's activities, I have to say it was one of the most trouble free sessions I have had, probably because I took the time to prepare properly. Once the clouds rolled away, the conditions were excellent, with reasonably good seeing and excellent transparency. The SkyProdigy self aligned and was (mostly) spot on with the gotos all night. Even the neighbours played ball! At 11pm the sky was still very light but by midnight was nice and dark (by summer standards).

Equipment:

• Tal 100RS Achro with with Hyperion 10mm e/p + 14mm tuning ring (and cheap Celestron prism diagonal) giving 140x
• 130P Hertitage Newt with 5mm BST giving 130x.

The difference in magnification and use of a prism diagonal in the Tal may well have made the comparison a bit pointless (opinions welcome!), but observations were as follows:

• Izar - Beautiful coloured double, with bright orange primary and significantly fainter whiter secondary separated by 2.9". Both scopes split the pair easily, but was cleaner in the Tal with a more significant black line between the two (additional magnification coming into play here?) but also still easily and immediately split in the 130P. The orange of the primary was more obvious in the Tal, looking whiter but still light orange in the Newt. The colour contrast between the two was also more obvious in the Tal. It should be noted that everything in the Tal looks more yellow, I guess a feature of being an Achro? I don't know if there is a problem with the Tal or the diagonal, but the Izar showed a redenning on one side, a CA type effect, but only to the west of the FOV. Not really noticable on any other stars during the session.
• Xi Bootes - Another fine double with a yellow primary and redder secondary separated by around 5". This time the colour difference was easier to discern in the Newt.
• Pi Bootes - Two white components, one slightly brighter than the other, separated by 5". Very nice in both scopes.
• Epsilon Lyrae - Again easily split in both scopes, but the Tal showed a cleaner darker line between the closer and more difficult pair.

Generally the stars appeared 'tighter' and whiter in Newt but the sky background was brighter and resulting contrast between object and background slightly less good. I don't know if this was a feature of the slightly lower magnification, particularly the 'tighter' stars?

A couple of well know DSOs to finish the shoot out:

• M57 - Surprisingly bright in both scopes, with brightening towards the outer edge of the ring and and 'milky' inner hole. Very slighly brighter and noticably whiter in the Heritage but little to choose between them.
• M13 - Again, a very close run thing, with both scopes revealing myriad stars, especially with averted vision, with so many on the edge of being resolved, but the Heritage was the  winner here with slightly more stars resolved.

In terms of using the scopes, they couldn't be more different. The wobbly helical focusser of the Heritage was a distinct pain in the bum, making accurate focussing really hard as the the star raced around the FOV every time the focusser was touched, not helped by the slightly wobbly mount. The Tal by comparison was an absolute joy to focus.

For the first time I used a stool to observe with the Tal and I have to say it was really relaxing and something I shall do in future. Observing near the Zenith was a pain in the bum (or back) and the slow mo controls were just about within reach above my head - not really a sustainable way to observe. No such problem with the Newt which from a standing position always seemed to have the eyepiece available to the eye, and best when near the zenith.

So in conclusion both scopes gave great results optically, though I think the Tal was perhaps operating a bit below what it should. They couldn't be more different but they are fun to use and either one would be fine as my only scope. As usual I am looking at how to make things even better, and I have concluded the best next step would be........a 100ED or 120ED on an AZ-EQ5!!! 😁

Final scores just in and the result is.....drum roll......pretty much a draw! Full report tomorrow but based on a very limited set of objects and similar mags (approx 130x) , the frac was very slightly better at splitting doubles (although I didn’t try really close splits) with slightly better ability to show colour contrast , and the Newt had very slightly better resolving on globs and slightly brighter view. Frac seemed to show a darker sky and the Newt had, surprisingly, tighter stars, but this didn’t translate into better splitting ability. More tomorrow. 

Two scopes set up and ready for tonight’s observing session. Tal 100R on a Skytee and Heritage 130P on a SkyProdigy. Hoping to view some nice doubles in and around Bootes and possibly some DSOs if sky is dark enough. 👍

2 hours ago, The Admiral said:

It does indeed, but what we really need of course are the early adopters to give us some info on how it performs .

Ian

Lol, if I find myself at a pecuniary advantage when the product is available, I shall gladly oblige. 😉

Crikey, that’s a lot later than originally planned, must be costing them a small fortune to get to market. Fingers crossed because it looks like a great product. 

Has anyone received one of these new mounts yet?

These are really good, I like the first one in particular, a real 3D effect.

This may have been said before, but it seems that that much of the appeal of NV observing is the experience; the thrill of seeing the objects spectacularly revealed live through the eyepiece. The methods may be different to someone using a 20" dob and eyeball only, but the experience sounds very similar. For 'observing' using a separate camera and a laptop or screen, the experience is very different, less immediate, more detached, but with so many additional ways to analyse and study the objects - more like imaging, but still with the primary goal of seeing the object there and then on the night. I can see how, from an experience point of view, NV observers feel more at home in the observing reports section, and somewhat out if place in the EEVA section, possibly feeling that people have 'missed the point'  regarding NV observing?

Another vote for Sky Safari. Use it all the time, mostly on my phone these days. Helpful for planning, setting up and observing. There are many observing lists out there that can be imported, I have about thirty different lists on mine covering all kinds of observing. 

I'm also interested in the responses to this....

What an amazing transformation, well done, lovely to see so much lush foliage too.

This is very exciting news for the EAA community Martin! An amazing piece of work. ?️

Great vid Chris, your years of experience shine through in your words. I don’t have the wide experience of different scopes that some other folks do, having owned 7 scopes in total - those in my sig plus a 6” F8 Newt. I have often thought about the perfect single scope for my needs and I think it could be a 120ED, kind of in between your two very well considered suggestions, but a step up in price again, especially versus a budget Newt. I guess if it is a single scope one is willing to pay a bit more! ? I would love to spend some quality time with an 120 ED to test my theory.