Space Hopper

Yes, i'm the same and have used the 2" Baader version. Its very good, but i'm not sure i can recommend anyone paying £160 for it ? Mine was part of the Baader HW 'with filter set' purchased late 2014.

Hi guys, As we have an eclipse coming up, i'd thought i'd dust off the Herschel wedge and have a practice run with some sun bothering. A beautiful day here in Derby with not a cloud in the sky. It also gave me the chance to try out my new zoom eyepiece on the sun for the first time. It performed well, although i found using a lower power setting gave the more pleasing views. There was nothing too exciting to see sunspot wise, with 'region 3124' showing close to the limb being the standout group. Not long after i thought i may have some problems with the wedge / scope combo. After a few minutes of viewing i thought that i could smell something getting overly hot, and sure enough a finger on the wedge's heat window confirmed it. Not burning hot, but much hotter than i'd seen before when using my last scope (105mm aperture) which only rendered it 'gently warm'. I've read the recommended refractor size to use with the HW is 80mm - 120mm approx and anything much bigger can cause a heat build up. This was the first time i'd used my 140mm scope for HW Solar, and i'd kind of taken warnings of using bigger apertures with a grain of salt. Now i know it's an issue, i'll only be having much shorter viewing and imaging runs and make sure the scope is pointed away from the sun at regular intervals to let the wedge cool a bit. I also worry a bit about using an 'oiled triplet optic' for Solar viewing with a HW but TEC assure me this is fine. Heres a couple of images, just prime focus using a Canon EOS R and 2x Powermate (1960mm focal length) iso 100, 1/320 sec. Tweaked and cropped using MAC Photos. Thanks for looking.

Difficult to precisely calculate with a moving mirror type scope, but when you extend the lightpath beyond a certain point the scopes focal length will rise more and more. I think its over 3mm of extra focal length per mm of lightpath added. So theres always extra magnification. Other issues as well such as a bit of aperture loss, a bit of contrast loss, and a bit of extra SA, but they shouldn't degrade the views too much. Good to hear you are enjoying the 2 eyed views 🙂👍🏼

Fascinating stuff. Great capture ; i love things like this 👍🏼

Thanks for everyone involved for putting on a great show over the last two days. Excellent talks, and loads of astro goodies on display to drool over.

Another vote for the 24mm Panoptic. But 2 of them together in the bino Also have a 12.5mm Docter which is pretty special too

Looking forward to the show and the Allan Chapman lecture Saturday afternoon.

They now have their own fit if you order via FLO. Same as a standard EQ6 i think. Unless the AZ75 differs from the AZ100 ?

Terrestrially, you are looking through a lot more stuff, ie, rising air currents, heat plumes etc, pollution and other things so this limits what you can see clearly without the image breaking down. Looking upwards at the stars things are a bit clearer, as long as you are not looking too low down where you'll get the same issues as above. An example of this is the moon when its low in the sky, which will look a bit distorted by our atmosphere. Ignore the 500x bit. Thats just marketing hype to entice you in. Generally as a guide, use the aperture of your scope in mm, then double it. This will give you a realistic high end magnification upto about 250x max.

Another recommendation for W&W dew heaters Why not pop down to next weeks IAS astro show next Friday + Saturday week ? Not too far from you ; Barbara will be there and she'll sort you out with some.

No doubt they have an exceptional optical pedigree, but i'd also consider saving some money and looking at the Canon is 10x30. When you hit the image stabiliser button 'all will become clear'

Wowzers Louis !! Thats some collection you have there........all bases covered !!

13 for me a well if you count my 2 Powermates. 4 x 2 binoviewing pairs 24, 19 , 15 & 12mm For mono i have 35mm, 12.5mm and a 7-15mm zoom. I have no plans for anything else, but sometimes i'm tempted to see if i can get a used pair of Nagler 11mm (now discontinued) and trade / sell in my 12mm pair which are only 60º fov and the Naglers 82º would be nice at high power. But i'm pretty happy with my current glass. Favourites are the 24 and 19 Panoptics and the 12.5mm Docter UWA

Think you have to have 50 'posts'

Good to hear some of you guys got to see something, at least. I think i spent more time looking into my coffee cup, than i did at any stars, moon and planets.

Despite the quite favourable forecast for tonight, we were almost completely clouded out here in Derby. Occultation by clouds !! I could put my mortgage on that happening ! 🙄 I will reconvene on December 5th.

No, it never slips. Changing height (to whatever position) takes a second. Dead easy for anyone to do. Simply lift seat upwards, slide up or down to required height, then push seat back down again to lock. Theres also adjustment to alter he tilt of the seat, but i find i dont need to use this. It also tilts left and right as you sit on it, which is great if your moving the scope around a bit. There are various colours that the seat pad comes in, i think available colours are on the website.

My German needs some attention Steve, but i get the drift of it ! 😀 Looking at that, i'm sure you could do it and increase the downward range of it. However, when i had my old Orion Optics Dob (300 F4) i found it was ok as it was. If i was looking at something low down the bottom setting was fine and i simple leaned forward to observe as low as was needed without needing to 'squat' so to speak !! 😃 They are good chairs, and as i mentioned, FLO used to stock them at one time.

Military related, i would think. Whether its military from this world (or another) is open to debate of course........

Forgot to mention @Dave scutt it tilts side to side as well. It does everything you need it to.

I missed the start of this thread, but thought i'd link my own observing chair. FLO actually stocked them for a time, but no longer, but they are still available from Germany. Its called a 'Mey' musicians stool, available from Thomann UK and is designed for an orchestra musician playing a large brass type of instrument. But they make excellent astro observing chairs as well. They raise up and down in seconds with ease (no pins to fiddle about with in the dark) I use an alt-az mount and a near 1 metre focal length refractor, and its ideal for that. And its very sturdily built. Trust me its pretty well indestructible. And i'm over 100kg 😳 Cost is now £129, but you get what you pay for here. If i remember mine was around £89 about 8 years ago, so, like everything, its gone up a fair bit. But i highly recommend them. HTH, Rob. https://www.thomann.de/gb/mey_chair_systems_af6_kl_bk.htm

Thanks for the heads up. I'll look out for it 😀🔭

I've got some 50ft trees to the south as well but they are about 50 yds away. But Saturn this year, has just about cleared a portion of them. And Jupiter is now way above them !

In a lot of ways Jules, i actually prefer my 10x30is to my 15x50is simply because they are so much lighter on my 55 yr old arms. I think they are an amazing bit of kit. Everyone should have a pair ! 😀