part timer

I know this is an old thread but I literally discovered two days ago that you can swap the barrels from TAL plossls with the skywatcher 'super' kelners that come with most scopes. Same thread and perfect fit!

The older they are the less standard. Obviously they were only meant for the soviet market at first so there was no need to be standard. Eypieces would only used on the scope they were sold with. Tal scopes usually came with a very comprehensive set which fullfilled any realisic range of magnifications. Only much later did they try to make things more commercially viable and hence internationally standard. Only really succeeding with the last waves of Plossls. I have a few Tal eyepices from the 90's, 2000's and from just before they gave up and went back to military production. The last ones are much more standard sized. They retained they quality though, which is good. Although they did stop engraving the writing, and silk screened it instead.

I would estimate that in any one session outside, I spend 25% of time looking through a scope, and the rest is nearly always spent just staring up with or without binoculars. Just kind of mentally adjusting to the reality of being very small, in a very big universe. Plus all the stuff, you'd miss through an eyepiece, like meteors aand the ISS pass you didn't check for. I find that time just staring up at stars to be the closest I come to mediditative. And the closest I come to a sense of real peace. Even though the number of actual stars I see has dropped significantly over the last 30 years, I know they are there and I suppose that certainty is very relaxing.

They came with, (or at least mine did), a screw in eyepiece black filter. These were meant to be used in conjunction with the stopped down cap. This is obviously eye-meltingly dangerous! Some shops took them out before sending on to customers and most had some sort of warning not to use them, especially as you were also supplied with the screen for projection. In fairness, quite a lot of telescopes supplied such filters in the past and I can remember Patrick Moore warning about them in most his books and shows. I usually used the stopped down cap with the screen also, as the image was more than bright enough and I was always a little scared of heating the eyepiece too much.

Ahh, happy memories of the 2004 venus transit using just this set up. I remember being nervous that I would melt the eyepice but ended up using this to observe the sun for several years after. Mine had a more standard focuser and eyepieces, although they never really completeley standardised. I had to use emery cloth on the inide of the focuser to make the eyepieces fit. I mean the bit that unscrews to allow camera use. I still have a range of Tal Plossls and none of them are quite the same diameter barrel size! (they do all fit in 1.25" focusers, but some of them involve a struggle!)

Using binoculars is the very best way to get into visual astronomy . Just be aware, it takes time to find objects to start with. You need a star map of the area of sky you are looking at (binocular sky is useful here!). You will probably not realise at first that you have seen an object! It's not going to look like an image from the net. Instead most objects are faint fuzzy and slightly golwing patches of sky. Time and experience really help. As recomended above, the best object right now to strt with is M13 in hercules. It is very bright and really easy to spot. It will look like a large fuzzy star. You can then move on to M92. Be very aware that June is the worst possible time to look for deep sky objects as the sky is never actually dark. Autumn is soon around and offers a plethora of new objects!

Aircraft chaff basically is lots of bits of aluminium foil dumped into the air, so that would fit.

Sorry but you can't not see the tyre!

Blimey, I think all my eyepieces are 'vintage' . Wouldn't change any of them for the world though! The big one is ex military 36mm very wide field, and my only 2". got it years ago at Leeds astromeet (also now defunct!). It doesnt have an eyecup so I tend to use a large LEGO tyre! (picture included!). Looks bonkers, but works really well and is almost made to measure. Some others came from here. Seem to recall buying the 10.5 from F15? The !.25" set are :- Tal 25mm, TV Plossls in 17, 13 and 10.5 and a Baader Ortho.