RobertI

Great thanks John. I shall weigh the Hyperion for comparison, but I think we may have a winner. 🙂

Thanks John, that is quite a recommendation, £75 for Nagler like performance! Very tempted. Any idea how heavy heavy/bulky it would be compared to say my 10mm Hyperion? On the Heritage the plastic platform holding the focuser ‘flexes’ if heavy and/or long eyepieces are used, not sure this affects the view in reality, but just wondering. I notice the literature says good for scopes under 1000mm FL, any idea why? I always thought the relevant factor was focal ratio?

I'm off to Cornwall with the family for a hol in July and am hoping for a bit of astro while there. I am planning to take the Heritage 130P on the SkyProdigy mount and am expecting to do mainly lunar as it will be fairly prominent. I have a 5mm BST e/p but am looking at a low cost 4mm to give a bit more mag whilst keeping the exit pupil a reasonable size ( I find 1mm exit pupil on the moon is very comfortable but 0.5 mm is very uncomfortable, so I believe 0.8mm and 163x mag should be as far as I can go with this scope, open to other opinions though). Can anyone recommend a decent 4mm eyepiece that wont break the bank, and is appropriate to the capability of the scope? Eye relief shouldnt be a huge issue. Shortlist so far: Skywatcher Planetary UWA 58 degree FOV, 5 element, £39 Vixen NPL Plossl 50 degree FOV, 4 element, £34 TS Optics High End Planetary HR, 58 degree FOV, 6 element, £61 Currently thinking that the Vixen might be the safest bet? Any help appreciated. Thanks Rob

Enjoyed a lunar observing session last night with the C8 and Tal100R. Conditions were reasonably steady allowing good viewing at 200x with the C8, which got most of the action. The most notable feature at low power was Aristarchus just breaking the straight line of the terminator. Closer inspection revealed intricately terraced walls. To the north, Mare Imbrium showed a spectacular 'bite' shape in the form of Sinus Iridium, bounded by rugged and cratered highlands. To the south, Gassendi was prominent with its small twin, lying on the edge of Mare Humorum. I wish I had spent more time trying to identify the features within (rimae and tiny craters) - one for another time. A number of Rimae were visible south of Gassendi, with three prominent craters bounding the south of Mare Humorum. FUrther south still, the terrain becomes very rugged and cratered, as if someone has thrown gravel into thick paint. Too much too describe, except for one notable crater, highly oval shaped with a peak at one end, caused I imagine my an impact at a very oblique angle - later identified as Schiller. Clavius was unmistakable and always makes me chuckle as I remember Reggie Perrin in 2001! FInished the session with a quick glance at some doubles - the C8 might win when it comes to lunar, but the Tal is king for showing doubles in all their beauty! Some dodgy images below for visualisation taken with a very shaky handheld iphone - I really must get a smartphone adaptor!

Nice haul of Hicksons, some 'pretty' arrangements too!

The colours really do stand out when you zoom in; grey, green, brown, lilac and blue. Beautiful.

Good result I would say, of all my scopes my Heritage 130P is probably still most used, either on a simple lightweight manual altaz (giro wr) or a lightweight goto altaz (Skyprodigy). I hear what you are saying about manual versus goto, it’s rewarding to find objects manually, but sometimes under my mildly light polluted skies, I find it’s not that easy to see all the stars required to star hop, especially with a RDF, plus contorting to look through finders ain’t fun anymore, so over the years I have come to appreciate goto more and more. I have also come to appreciate the lightweight altaz mounts such the AZ Gti or the Star Discovery (which I particularly like). And for info my Sky Prodigy keeps the date a time even when switched off which is very useful - sadly it’s not made anymore. Anyway clear skies and happy observing.

Illuminating post (pardon the pun), annoying to be reminded of how bad your garden site is. I feel your frustration. My site is not fabulous, the ‘observability’ being largely dependent on (a) whether neighbour’s bedroom/bathroom lights are on and (b) whether the atmosphere is reflecting the nearby towns’ lights, some nights are great, others appalling. At least we still do have pockets of dark sky in this country to make use of!

Trouble is, without knowing what the problem was with the Hyperions, it’s impossible to know whether any alternatives would solve your problem. Personally I wouldn’t risk buying any expensive eyepieces at this point, perhaps a couple of budgets to see if they work before proceeding any further.

Nice report, nice template too! I've never found my C8 that good for splitting doubles, at least not as good as I would expect from 8" aperture, yours is probably better than mine!

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

Nice capture 👍

Yes you can unscrew the bottom of the e/p and turn it into a 30mm (I think) e/p, but it will have distortion towards edges.

The 17mm eyepiece gives 44x so is a good low power option. I have Hyperion eyepieces and use them with a 130P Newtonian which is a smaller scope than yours and they give perfectly good results, so the eyepieces are fine, the scope seems fine, the problem must lie elsewhere. To be honest I dont know what you mean when you say the “light gets sucked out of the sky”, the only thing I can suggest is for you to observe some of the brighter well known deep sky objects and describe exactly what you see, and get some feedback on whether what you are seeing is normal or not. Or pop along to your nearest astro club and get someone to look at the scope.

You say you are new to astronomy, so I am wondering have you ever looked at any deep sky objects before, and do you know what you expect to see? Deep sky objects can be hard to see, especially if you have light polluted skies, and higher magnifications can only make the problem worse. Try putting in a low power eyepiece and looking at a some brighter deep sky objects like the great globular cluster M15 or an open cluster. Let us know what you can see. There is a great thread on what objects look like through the scope: You may already know this, but hope it's of use if not.

I probably haven’t kept up with recent events, but I thought it was deemed ok by the mods?

Thanks Stu. So is NV worse for reflection nebulae than for say galaxies and globs? I am guessing that galaxies and globs are significantly redder than reflection nebs so would look better?

Just read the Astronomy Now article, and a cracking read it is too, and a very clear summary of how NV works. One question, why is it that NV does not help on reflection nebs, I would have thought it should work on any faint object? One thing that was interesting from the article, was that if the cost of the NV tube wasnt enough, it seems that even eyepieces need to be premium (due to limited number of manufacturers offering the right connectors), then the focusser has to be premium to hold all that weight safely, and presumably the tripod, mount and saddle need to be very solid to stop all that equipment crashing to the ground. As with imaging, it was probably a financially painful learning experience for you both!? Thanks for going through that pain for us! Ironically it seems that the scope doesn't need to be premium for best NV results, kind of the opposte of imaging, and also visual to an extent? Anyway thanks again for a great article.

Excellent report, NV continues to impress, and some great results on the C11. I am assuming the darker sky and higher contrast resulting from the higher mags provided by the C11 are part of the reason some of the objects were so much better than the smaller scopes? I have found visually that the Veil gets better as the magnification increases. From @jetstream's comment, sounds like I should be getting a 15" dob if I can't afford NV!

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.

Not wasps I know, but last year a huge swarm of bees appeared above my garden and slowly moved towards my neighbours houses. Reminded of the horror move ‘The Swarm’ (!) I ran up the road knocking on doors to warn people, causing some panic along the way. The swarm landed in a elderly neighbours laurel bush - when I described the horror lurking in her garden, she said “Ooh marvellous, I’ve been looking for a new nest”. She immediately donned her beekeeping outfit and within five minutes had relocated the nest to somewhere safe for transport to her beekeeping centre. SHE didn’t panic. ?

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. ?️