Ratlet

2 hours ago, Piero said:

Some very pretty telescopes in this thread! 

Not sure whether my dobs are considered pretty, as I focused more on their function, but I like them.  

 

Another winner for pretty telescope.  Lovely finish on the wood.  Reminds me of an old TV set.  

Would rather a picture of this on my wall than a tak.

4 minutes ago, Don Pensack said:

The Rosette Nebula has substantial H emission as well as O-III.  A narrowband UHC-type filter will help you see the Rosette a lot better than an O-III.

Something like an Astronomik UHC, or TeleVue Nebustar or DGM NPB or Lumicon UHC or Orion UltraBlock.

I had a look through this a while back and purchased a UHC filter (from SVBONY) to give it a shot.  Probably not the best, although I've read that is basically the same as the Optolong UHC.  I'll need to have a look at the rosette.  It's one of those one's I always seem to spot on a chart after I've packed up.

https://www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/user-reviews/accessories/astronomical-filters/filter-performance-comparisons-r1471

That's mental!

1 hour ago, CocoBungoClub said:

Hi, Newbie here.  I have been slowly getting into astrology since I bought a cheap 2nd hand skylux refractor last year.  I then bought what I thought would be an upgrade but was still dipping my toe with a £30 second hand Konosmotor 500. It wasn't but has given me some experience with collimation.

Anyway Christmas is coming and I thought I'd had my mind set on the 150pds having seen some example photos and then I discovered this mega thread which has changed my mind to the 130pds.  

I am just after some advice really, I have an existing eq2 mount ( I think, how do you tell)  will this fit / suffice for the time being ? 

My initial aim is to seen the planets in much better detail, is the 130pds a good scope to view these with ? But I am also keen to view the deep sky objects which I can see it's very capable of. 

Apart from the scope is there anything else you consider to be essential to get the most out of it from the start ?  I am planning to get into astrophotography so thank you to the 8 years or so worth of posts on here. 

I've attached a pic of my mount if anyone could assist me what type it is.  

 

The 130pds is pretty decent for visual imho.  It's very good on DSO.  I've been working my way through some of the more choice examples and have managed to see M33 from my bortle 4 location (bortle is a measure of how light polluted your sky is).

It does well on the planets but is not optimised for it.  I've had some good views, but I think the eyepiece I'm using is letting me down.  The scope comes with a 28mm eyepiece that is good for most DSO.  You will need to get a shorter focal length eyepiece for planetary/moon.  The scope has a 2" focuser but comes with an adapter to 1.25" eyepieces.

I don't think that mount will work as the scope is quite heavy.  You might want to consider an AZ5 with steel tripod.  It will handle it well.  Personally I am not a fan of Newtonian scopes on eq mounts because the eye placement can be funny.

If you are thinking about something for purely visual you might want to look at the 130 heritage dob.  Similar scope but with a dobsonian mount.  Then all you need is a table.

I could do with a bit of an extended break in the clouds.  I've been reduced to sketching other people's astro photos.  Not enough fuzzy gray blob and too much detail for my liking! 

WW is pretty decent and bet hedging to the max, but I'm hoping that a change from this persistent barrage of storms of the Atlantic will bring more favourable conditions

Scotland's resident Facebook weather guru Windy Wilson has said there is a change coming with a high pressure developing in the north east.  Hopefully mean some clearer skies.

Also noticed the CA app showing cloudy when it's been clear.  Seems to be mostly high clouds with me.  

36 minutes ago, Stu said:

That’s a great deal! Hopefully plenty of people manage to pick it up, well worth it 👍

Looks like I'll be joining the throng lol.

I don't suppose any of you have a copy of hte plans for building the sky at night observing chair?  The link on their website is broken and appears to have been for some time.

What app are you using for that @Stu?  I find stellariums fov simulator to be quite clunky on android and that looks much better.

@Louis D that interesting and makes absolute sense!

It seems like for every job there is a tool and for every object there is a scope.  You might be able to drive a nail with an adjustable spanner, but you are better off using a hammer.  

Thanks guys.  With hindsight, it does kind of tie in with my observations. 

Its hard to be completely objective as I've only got x20 (32mm)and x80(8mm) in terms of power.  Will be getting an x50(12mm) or so over Christmas which should fill the gap between them for dialing stuff in, and be more useful with a Barlow.

I think after that I might have to try and resist eyepiece temptations (planetary eyepiece excluded).  My 5" Newtonian is giving me amazing views and I've got a long way to flog that horse.

I've not used my canon with a lens, but what lens are you using and does it support changing the aperture through the camera? 

EDIT: I posted this the same time you posted your reply!  Glad you got it sorted.

23 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/305852-light-pollution-and-aperture

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/384672-light-pollution-and-larger-aperture-telescopes

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/369462-baader-morpheus-125mm-and-175mm/?do=findComment&comment=4014149

and much discussion here:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/384301-why-do-we-need-bigger-scopes/

 

Cheers dude.  It's opne of those questions that throwas up a lot of similar ones which are slightly different and it made it difficult to find the correct answer.  The annoying thing is that I'm certain I've seen this question answered before but I just can't find it again!

I'm trying to understand how magnification impacts the visibility of an object compared to the brightness of the sky.

With my current scope (650mm/130mm):

my 32mm Plossl gives a 6.4mm exit pupil and x20 with 48°fov

A Meade HD-60 25mm would give a 5mm exit pupil and x26 with 60° fov

I understand that the FOV through the eyepiece would be different, but both would present a 2° area of the sky.

How would the choice of magnification affect the appearance on a dso such as m31 or m32? 

I know that the image would not be as bright as higher magnifications but would there be a difference between the brightness of the object and the sky in each case?  Which would be preferred?  Would it be perceptible with this examples or would you need to push further to something like an explore scientific with an 82°FOV and 18mm focal length?

I did this on my Newtonian.

I have a American football shirt I got years ago from a lovely ex-marine called Jerry whilst in Houston.  Far too large for me so didn't really wear it.

I ripped the sleeves off and slid the OTA through sleeves with the telrad/finder through the neck and the focuser through the body.

It makes a handy observer's hood and helps trap a bit of heat at the eyepiece when I pop off to check my AP rig.

You might need a pretty large shirt for your dob though 🤣

21 minutes ago, Greymouser said:

Be careful of that stuff. Whilst it looks good, protects good, it also sheds little bits of the colouring material. Not good for optics. I will try to adapt mine for different uses, avoiding optics. Just trying to help.

That's good to know.  The missus has already got it I think.  I'll see how I get on with it.  The wife is daft for crafting and I know she'll find abuse for it herself if we can't make it work.

9 minutes ago, Highburymark said:

It’s a Takahashi Epsilon 130d, a very fast (F/3.3) Newtonian with an added corrector to tighten up stars. What inspired Takahashi to colour it yellow in the first place I’m not sure. Maybe imagers have more flamboyant tastes than observers, who seem happy with black and white?

I like the epsilon colour scheme.  Love the purple focuser. Would go well with an Altair Hypercam

Spied an all too brief gap in the clouds.

Went out for a quick look at Jupiter.  The seeing was surprisingly good all things considered despite the hazy high cloud.  Dust cap continuing to do good service although my joy at the high contrast is contending with the frustration of the garbage everything else.  Only took the 8mm BST out and despite its comparable lack of contrast, I think it had the better views all in all.  I think I'll need to pick up the 5mm BST when I get paid.  And a better tripod.  The carbon fibre has a bit too much woblle with the mass of the 130PDS on it and the AZ5.  Unfortunately FLO and RVO are out of the 3/8" Steel Tripods.

Starting to get into the planetary stuff now, so it's inevitable that I'm going to become a moon observer (because I also found that dull).  A Mak 127 would probably be a good shout.  In fact there was a guy in my village selling one for a really good price a couple months ago.  Unfortunately that guy... was me lol. 

Very nice mate.  Love the way is kind of fades into existence.  Looks very nebulous. 

37 minutes ago, josefk said:

just a cheeky word to the wise @Ratlet - I've liked your sketches before and noticed you sketch light on dark (i think you're not inverting). If you do i've found sketching on index cards rather than in a pad to be utterly transformative and they come in black 🙂

https://www.amazon.co.uk/A6-Black-Card-Stock-Sheets/dp/B00UQ3FM54?th=1

Thank you for you kind comment.  I'm really enjoying the sketching.

I do invert, but you are an absolute life saver!  I've been wanting to try light on black but I could find a cheap source of black card.  Kind of put me off trying.

I'll let the kids know and they can get me some for Christmas along with some pastels and other stuff.

Thanks again

Clear Outside informed me that there should be an hour of of orange about 22:00 and while it might not be thought of as good, it's good enough.  I slackened off the mirror clips after last nights session so wanted to test it out. The triangle being absent although given that I gave the tube precisely as long as it took me to eat a Bourbon Cream to cool down, I did see some tube currents, which were actually kind of cool.

The Dust Cap (SR 4mm) was pressed into service again.  I did a bit more of a comparison between the barlowed 8mm and the cap.  Whilst on average the BST had a better image, Jupiter itself had better contrast withe the SR.  I was also able to resolve Io with the SR and could not with the barlowed 8mm.  Jupiter was pretty low over the house and in some low cloud that was skirting town so it wasn't the greatest view, but it was still fun.

I'm starting to see the attraction with Mars now.  There was a distinct dark area on the East.  It almost looked like 2 separate blobs, one on the Northern hemisphere and one on the South.  One of the main things I can conclude though is that for planetary observing the best thing you can do is give it time.  I need to figure out a way of sketching planets, or at least documenting my observations.

To finish off I cast my eye North and hunted down M81/M82.  I tried star hopping from Alhaud IV but got a bit frustrated and in the end basically just ended up jumping FOV widths according to Stellarium.  Not very precise but still a kick when they both scrolled into the FOV.  I used the 32mm plossl and it framed them both okay, but perhaps a little too large a field and as they are in the same direction as town I think that the exit pupil (6.4mm) might be a tad large and it makes the sky a bit bright.  Unfortunately I don't really have  a decent eyepiece better suited.  Hopefully Santa will bring me that 12mm BST for Christmas as this would probably be ideal for each individually.

What size of case are you guys using?  Briefcase size (say A4 sheet of paper) or smaller?

3 minutes ago, AstroMuni said:

Here is my first image taken with the 130pds, ASI533MC Pro on a HEQ5 Pro. This is 30mins worth data. Comments welcome.

Cracking.  Really nice image for only 30 min of data.  I'm rocking the same setup.  Did you use a coma corrector?  Your stars look nice in the corners.

I should be getting some shafowfoam (or kaizen foam) for Christmas.  Its basically layers of foam stuck together.  You cut it it shape to fit the tool/object.  I'm not a huge fan of pick and pluck historically.

Just started this year, but I'm averaging maybe one or two nights a month.  I just thought this was normal.  Observing is slightly better since I'll happily dodge clouds there, but that has also been challenging for various reasons.

I've got quite militant about going out.  Unless I'm ill, if it is clear I'm going out.

I spent the last couple days flocking my 130PDS and blackening the edges of the secondary which had some overspray type of thing going on with the silvering.  It was supposed to be cloudy tonight but honestly there was more gaps than clouds so I dragged everything out for a quick test.  Ran through the usual suspects M31(which was visible easily by eye) M45 which was delightful as always.   What was less delightful was the triangle that formed around the stars when I was in or out of focus.  Must have put the mirror clips back in a nip too tight.  I had a quick squint at Jupiter and Mars with the 8mm/2xbarlow but, well... I'll get back to them in a bit.

I tried something new tonight wiht M33.  I'm still struggling with star hopping but getting better.  I think using the 32mm plossl as a finder might not be the best bet.  It gives too many stars and it makes it disorientating.  I managed to find M33 easily enough from Mothallah.  A distinct bright patch although still very faint lying smack dab in the middle of an equatorial trangle of stars.  The glow filled almost all of the area within the traingle.  I got a sketch off, but it needs some more work on the galaxy.

The clouds started to win the battle for sky about now so I decided to pack up.  I normally use my Ramsden 4mm as a dustcap for my scope since it's apparently borderline useless.  For a laugh I threw I put it in and pointed the scope at Mars.  Got to say that despite the fact that my eyeball was basically touching the eyepiece, the FOV was miniscule and the field stop was more of a field gradient it handily knocked the spots off my 8mm BST and 2x barlow in terms of the actual target.  I'll put money on the line that I could see colour variation, some slightly darker regions visible in the infrequent good seeing.  I swung to Jupiter when the clouds covered mars and again the eyepiece was great.  Best view of Jupiter I've had so far.  The red spot wasn't facing, but I'm pretty sure that if it was I would have been able to see it.

Edited:. Added the sketch.  It was remarkably faint, but definitely there.