bomberbaz

I would not bother with the supplied 25 if you can afford to buy another. Although the idea of buying a 30mm plossl is perfectly feasible, I would also pass this over in favour of a Explore Scientific 26mm 62 Degree eyepiece as your main finder, low power viewing eyepiece, here's why. 25mm supplied EP with 50D FOV gives you x30 with a true field of view of 1.67. A 30mm plossl by 50D FOV gives you x23 by 2.13 tfov. A 26mm ES by 62D FOV gives you x29 by 2.15 TFOV. So the ES gives you a better magnification, so darker background than a 30mm plossl and at the same time a better tfov than either of the other eyepieces. The 30mm plossl on paper might have a slightly more contrasty view but this will probably be lost with the darker background of the 26mm EP. I ran some other focal lengths through a calculator and and 12 plus 8 combined with a barlow would cover your remaining needs. I shall do a table below of how it all pans out for you. 26mm = x29 plus 2.15 tfov (low power/finder) 12mm = x63 plus 0.96 tfov (mid range) 8mm = x94 plus 0.63 tfov (mid range) 6mm = x125 plus 0.48 tfov (mid range) 4mm = 188 plus 0.32 tfov (high power) Combo achieved with the ES eyepiece, plus BST 12mm, 8mm and the short barlow. I have the BST short barlow, only played around with it as yet but dos look a quality bit of kit. 3 decent eyepiece and a barlow should cover most of your viewing needs, the existing glass would become redundant and the cost for everything £248 from FLO. (feels like this post is turning into an advert) 😂 You could add a 3.2 BSt later for those evenings when the conditions allow you to push the boat out (x236) HTH

This is available from E bay, I have reviewed the provider in supplier/retailer reviews. What I love about this, everything. First to picture one. Here we see the mount on a skywatcher steel tripod with extension pillar and the bins it was bought for. Bins plus ep's weight is circa 5KG. The mount is rated up to 15lb / 6.5kg. It manages my bins ok although there is a dampening mod which I will come to later and the counter weights used are iOptron as you need a 20mm bore with a 4.5kg and 1.35kg so total weight is a shade under 11kg. The business end has extra movement in alt/az as can be seen in the picture below and the two handles help enormously when you are moving the bins around. Plus being rubberised they are very comfortable especially in the cold. I wanted one of these mounts as the freedoms of movement make it so easy to use and helps save neck strain when looking directly up to zenith First mod I carried out was at the mount az washer. The bolt attaching to the mount swivel base runs through a bearing, the mount base plate, then a teflon washer before it screws into the mount swivel base. I had a slight problem with the bearing being rather sticky, a little lithium grease didn't make much difference so I contacted the vendor who sent me a new and improved bearing. Kudos to the vendor for his swift action. Still a tad stiff even with the new washer so mod time, added a second washer to sandwich between mount base plate and supplied teflon washer. The second washer was made out of our old faithful plastic milk bottle. So it runs Hex bolt through bearing, mount base plate, milk bottle washer, teflon washer and then the mount swivel base. Now the movement is as smooth as silk so very happy with this simple but very effective mod. Final mod was to try and damp vibration movement after moving the bins. The two parallelogram bars supporting the business end are channel bar with holes in I assume for weight reduction purposes. See top picture with cat posing for picture. The top bar receives the counter balance bar during storage. The lower one is empty so I decided to try fixing some wood rail into it via the handy weight reduction holes with the aim of dampening some of the vibration. Initial findings appear positive but an out in the field testing will be more revealing hopefully. If it proves good it will be bolted instead of screwed in place then sanded properly and painted black. (no wood insert) ( wood insert fixed) This is the end of my equipment review. However I can confirm this has been used in the field and it performed like a dream. I got stuck as to whether I should buy a cradle plus other options that I looked at. I am just so very glad I opted for a parallelogram.

Bought the mount and found a dodgy bearing and missing handle. Contacted seller who immediately sent replacements for missing goods. Love the mount, a review can be found in member reviews.

Tend to agree regarding the weight claim limit on any of the manfrotto type heads when using bins or scopes for that matter. (Found out the latter few weeks back when mounting a very light frac ota on another manfrotto tripod and mount rated at 1kg higher than the OTA} Still reckon from my short memory of owning it, it would manage 2kg, maybe 2.5 at a push. Although not a massive fan of amazon for various reasons, in this instance its a prime product so can be bought and returned postage free so that always helps.

enjoy John, particularly like the swirly feature, very interesting phenomenon. For me the next time available is Thursday, it looks half decent for my area. So maybe I can get some time along the eastern terminator which is another quite busy part of the Moon.

thought it was an entire 100% moon tonight so didn't even both. Had I known I would have either got the big bins out of the ED 102 and binoviewers. If your views were anything near the image then you are having a lovely view along the extreme edge of the terminator.

If you do go down the new mount route, have you considered a parallelogram. I got one for my astro bins and simply love the flexibility they give. Given the weight of yours you would need the Orion heavy weight ones. The ones below come with tripod but I am sure cheaper can be found without the tripod. Orion 05752 Monster Parallelogram Binocular Mount & Tripod (Black): Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

To me it looks good but might also benefit from the addition of a small manfrotto type head at the business end to give more flexibility. I bought a low priced one on amazon that only weighed in at 280gm but was rated up to 3kg, cost £38. Reason i returned it was it was too small for my purposes but could be spot on for tripod adaptor post mounted bins. SmallRig Selection Tripod Fluid Head, Video Fluid Head with Quick Release Plate for Arca Swiss, Fluid Head for Mirrorless, SLRs Cameras, for GoPro, Phone Cage & Phone clip, Max Load 6.61lbs/3 kg -3259: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

10" flextube near new, £550 of FB Facebook

Astroshop EU do a cracking deal on an 8" pushto although you will have some import duties to pay est about £80 but don't hold me to that. Also I know nothing about the optics, maybe someone can advise but would imagine they are chinese. Omegon Dobson telescope Push+ N 203/1000 (astroshop.eu)

Ok so I used to have a 10" Orion pushto, was a decent scope and served me well until I had a second dose of aperture fever. Plus points. Lightweight, accurate, easy to align and use. Negative points. Only 10" 😉, the pushto handset is LCD and when it gets cold it become faint to see or even sluggish responding. The display, not the actual electronics operating with the pushto encoders. Slightly stiff in the Alt direction but this was largely down to my using heavyweight EP and a powermate. If you are not going to be packing the weight onto it, it would be fine, otherwise I had to clamp it up quite tight and add counterweights at the base. Question, what is your budget?

The one I linked to is just 15KG, HTH

what size do you have, I can measure my 14" truss, seriously lightwieght and packs away to nothing. My guess is the 12 would be 2" smaller funnily enough. Not cheap but quality way above the SW flextube. Taurus T300 F/5 Classic | (taurustelescopes.com)

I want me one of those 🤩

Time I gave my updated cases an airing. The Dob (first) case come complete with a 2" concenter in with it. I have now sold on the powermate as it wasn't working with the T350pro. I have instead added the 8mm delos and 7mm Pentax. The two EIS convert the 17mm Nikon to a 14mm and the 12.5mm one to a 10mm. The 2nd case has binoviewers which I only really use on the moon, still haven't managed to get my head around solar with them. The 15mm EP goes in the spotter, no other use. I usually use the zooms in the fracs, the 6,5,4mm ep's are when I am pushing the power on the fracs. Could have used the barlows but that upsets the weight balance so prefer the fixed focal length ep for higher power. Barlows are for the binoviewers. The last little case is a grab and go case for my current project of a prinz astral refurb.

Rother Valley Optics do a 8 inch USB variable dew strap, should be effective. RVO USB Heater Bands With Integrated Controller - Rother Valley Optics Ltd

I am trying to find a cheap USB one myself. One I can simply strap a small power bank to a truss or balance arm etc and run the cable to the strap. I have found one but it's £40, be closer to £50 with import costs. I shall keep on looking

what make is your warmer, I am looking for one myself.

Yes I realise a half moon isn't the best of times to check out a potential new dark site but I think it may prove to be worth while. Myself and Mrs Bomber Baz went out for an evening drive and why not, TV was pretty rubbish so wth. The place is a quiet road just off the main A road into Keswick, great south aspect which is clear down to about 10 degrees or maybe a little less and the drive was a shade over 1.5 hours / 100 miles. There is a little LP from Keswick but as the town is behind a nice hill so it shouldn't really affect viewing and it is to the West, I could live with that. All other possible LP would come from either Penrith (E) or the Cumbrian coastal towns (NW-SW) and maybe Ambleside and Windermere but all are well shielded by the fact the spot is in the middle of the Lake District and surrounded by hills. (except to the immediate south) Some SQM reading were made, using my body as a shield from the moon light (which was casting significant shadows) I managed an SQM reading of 19.7. My existing dark site gives me at best 20.4 with no moon but has a horrible LP southern aspect. That said, it is only a half hour away. Obviously I need to get up there when conditions are better but I reckon it has the making of an A* dark site. The only down side is the travel distance but it isn't like I will be there every week. So enjoyable evening except the drive back. 🤣 #horriblefog

Not sure what you mean as a difference buddy, the view through 70mm bins will certainly be a lot brighter than looking through a 70mm frac. Think it was @PeterW who gave me a link to a CNights thread about how binoculars and scopes work as far as light gathering and brain perception. It was a little involved but an excellent read and to give you the gist here goes. A 70mm set of bins give you the equivalent light gathering capacity to the brain (not eyes) of 70mm x1.41 max. This is what your brain perceives of the two images it receives from the bins although this is maximum, it can be as low as 1.2x depending on the individual. In area size that is 1 element of 70mm bins gives 38.5 CMsq x 1.4 = 53.9 CMsq or a little higher than an 80mm scope (As a maximum). My 82mm bins are a little under the equivalent of a 100mm scope. Again as a maximum. Hope this helps.

What kind of magnification do you get up to peter. The sales blurb ref my bins say up to x60 will be CA free although I would need 8mm to hit that. No plans to buy any just yet but just wondered what your own experience is?

I wouldn't have thought so no, As Peter says the exit pupil will be the same as mine at 1.8mm and only x40. The thing we are really aiming to avoid is chromatic aberrations and at F5.7 you should be fine at that magnification. I think more importantly is how do you intend mounting the bins for stability. As I said above mine are on a parallelogram and now it is better balanced it seems to be perfect. Every time I see this chart it makes me wonder about the Startravel 120! Come to think of it, they also do a 150mm aperture one at F5.

I am thinking that the APM 10mm will be fine. I picked up my 1.35KG weight today and swapped it out for the 3.5kg that I previously used. The difference in weight seems to have made a significant difference in stability so I will let you know how I get on with the 10mm eyepieces when they arrive as in how comfortable they are and performance. I think though they will be fine in both of our respective bins.

A UHC is generally seen as the best all round filter,. especially with smaller aperture scopes. If you don't want to spend a shed load of cash then the svbony UHC is both cheap and effective although more broadband than narrowband according to this thread where the filter was actually tested. Svbony Uhc Flter - Equipment - Cloudy Nights However if you have the cash, both the televue and astronomik are £ for £ the best filters, on tests for transmission my information is the TV just shades it but at such small % you are unlikely to notice the difference.

worth knowing that peter, I will wrap a hand warmer round mine if find I like it. I know what you mean about occasional use though, it's not like your trying to contact the aliens is it ! 👽 or is it ? 😂