bomberbaz

grreat report and i really feel your enthusiasm pouring out. Reminds me of myself when I first started out. On a note regarding the viewing of Jupiter at higher power, leave it x 217 although even there you may be pushing it with a 130 aperture. I owned the sister scope to it as a first scope and found my best views at about 160-170 for clarity, after that I found they became a bit mushy. However you may find the addition of a ND filter to lower the light hitting the retina will calm it down a little as you alluded too. This one from FLO reduces it to 50% and would also prove useful on the moon and helps bring out even more detail. Astro Essentials 1.25" ND96-0.3 Filter | First Light Optics At just £9 a worthwhile purchase IMHO Steve

Hello all. I came across this documentary whilst researching black holes and I have to say it's both well thought out and thought provoking. spacetv.net/space-documentaries Really decent graphical representations for novices such as I that helped me get my head around this incredibly complex matter. Enjoy Steve

Very nice peter but sadly fails on my portability requirements 😅

Is that one of your hand made versions peter? When opening this thread I remembered seeing some of your own amazing builds when I have been up to the observatory, however that looks quite a beast to move around. Maybe its the perspective from where you are standing, not sure.

Hello all. I have been thinking about buying a pair of large binoculars and currently have some 20x60 but was looking more at a some with the offset eyepiece adaptor (45 degree), more aperture and interchangeable eyepieces for variable power. I have already spoken to a respected member on here but wanted to garner a wider view before I do anything further. I may have ruled out 100mm objectives due to the weight but I am open to ideas. The problem as I see it is wanting a good sized objective with a suitable off the shelf mount to go with it. I have a skywatcher stainless steel tripod so that is my preferred option but again open to suggestions. I did look at the Orion monster parallelogram but a review I read gave it good marks for usability but wasn't great in terms of ease of set up and transportation. I wanted something a little more user friendly. The problem with other parallelogram options was maximum weight issue. There is one made in the Ukraine that does fit the bill but am a little cautious buying from this region. There are a lot of binocular that fit the bill including offerings from Vixen, Altair, Explore Scientific and Helios. There may be others but as often happens when one starts researching you end up suffering with research fatigue. Budget wise I am thinking up to around £2K but may go higher if it seems like a perfect solution. So anyway, please fire away with personal experience and ideas, I am as I said open to ideas. Steve

yeah totally agreed, seeing someone's face light up when you show them some of the wonders is first class. To be fair my GD had a quick five second look and that was it, I think she enjoyed me explaining things nearly as much. However she also saw two shooting stares which I forgot to mention in the report and was super thrilled at that too.

I recently started a thread inviting anyone who wanted to for an East Lancs spot for some viewing. https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/386004-calling-all-east-lancashire-enthusiasts/ Well I took my granddaughter there tonight with the Taurus and although it is a great place in terms of location, the foot and other car traffic lets it down. Night runners with bright head torches and so much traffic even though its a remote car park, unreal. To results, well I got a few fairly easy targets for my granddaughter who is just 12 but she is totally in love with space and all that goes with it. So I managed to show her all five planets on show tonight. She was mega impressed when I told her how far Neptune is from earth in KM. She was equally as impressed when I showed her and then explained the distance to Andromeda in terms of light years. She loved both Albireo stars and the colours. Finally I showed her the dumbbell and then explained how filters worked and she was thrilled when it went from a small smudge to an object with shape and definition. Sadly the clouds appeared sooner than forecast and so the session was finished in an hour, I had only planned for an hour and half anyway, don't want to overdo it with a little one. Upside, I know not to go there again and my G/daughter loved it. 🤩

nice improvisation, I may be pinching that idea soon.

Didn't actually know this, that being the case it may change my thoughts on selection. I owned for a while an 8SE which accepted a 2" diagonal so simply assumed it would be the same. An alternative idea are the explore scientific 62 degree eyepieces with a 26mm the highest at 1.25 but having said that a 32mm plossl which is a cheaper eyepiece gives the same FOV albeit with a larger exit pupil.

I would go 2" for the wider field of view these give, and if your on a budget then either 2nd hand or if you have a bit of spare cash, how about these (or US equivalent) in 38 and 26, couple them with a 2" barlow and you will cover most bases with just two eyepieces. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/ovl-eyepieces/panaview-2-eyepieces.html You could add a 10mm eyepiece later for extra high power as that would give you x200. Anyway, this is just a quick idea but is based broadly upon what I use with my dob. Trust me you would be much more satisfied with the views, ease of use and results from the above setup over than what a kit would give you.

honestly forget the kits, you see them for sale 2nd hand all the time, that alone should tell you not to bother.

Never even knew about the save button, thanks 😂

Thanks Andrew, not that buying poor quality products would give a real bargain but that isn't always how things appear at first when one see's a lower priced alternative.

I stand corrected and apologise for my wrong assumptions. I would have thought there is some illicit copying going on but obviously not as widespread as I may have presumed.

Somebody made a good point on the CN thread about buying from the reduced cost suppliers who are simply copying the designs of others then under cutting them. The designers, in this case APM have spent a lot of cash producing this line and need to have a higher price to recoup that cost and then hopefully use some of that profit to design new glass. Svbony for all their quality are apparently copying others designs and although their quality and after service is good, should we really be supporting this plagiarism at the expense of innovators? Maybe this should be a separate thread!

Regarding the celestrons, unless they are using glass of some new amazing quality, then imho they are well over priced. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/celestron-eyepieces/celestron-ultima-edge-eyepieces.html They are also copies of the APM UFF range, I own the 24mm and it is a lovely eyepiece to use and much less expensive although stock is the current issue but ain't that the case everywhere? https://www.widescreen-centre.co.uk/apm-ultra-flat-field-eyepieces-65.html FWIW if I were in the market for eyepieces in this area and FOV wasn't a huge consideration then the APM would be in my shortlist. I would like to see a comparison between the svbony version against the APM. That result would be interesting.

try this https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002314488490.html?spm=2114.12057483.detail.3.c5ab407634Vnhm

Anyone fancy a bash Monday night subject to weather at Hurstwood feel free to join me, subject to the weather playing ball. (It does look promising) It is more of a recce to see what the area is like because I know there is a near full rising moon to contend with but I would like to get a feel for it before I start committing any numbers of people to this spot. Still good views to be had of saturn and jupiter, some nice globulars and clusters around and the moon will have a cracking terminator 🙃 Address here 23 Hurstwood Ln, Worsthorne, Burnley BB10 3LF Map view here: map The worthorne moor car park may have a little lp from the adjacent houses, not sure until I get a night time view, (I have been there during day many times) but there is still loads of space further down at the fork where all three small lanes split. confirmation of times to follow

Noooooh don't do that, the high powered jets can blast dust so quickly it effectively becomes a sand blaster. You could try a super soft brush to "gently" dust away any particle, I use one of these to do this prior to cleaning. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astronomy-optics-cleaning-protection/celestron-lens-pen.html A very gentle buffing with this before cleaning with the baader wonder fluid and cloth as mentioned above by the 2 john's.

@Louis D 27 and 28 both 100 FOV appear to be more like a tele extender arrangement rather than barlow but I get they are using a barlowing effect to improve the FOV. Very clever arrangements and no wonder they are so expensive.

You could try it on faint fuzzies such as planetary nebula to see what the difference is. Try the larger ones such as the Owl M97, Iris NGC 7023, Dumbell M27 and M81, 82 galaxy pair. They might show you a difference in contrast !

So the wide field EP's with the 100+ fov are likely barlowed already to help achieve this @Peter Drew

I use a televue powermate with my Nikons, I don't have high powered eyepieces for my taurus as I prefer the combination and utility of the nikons + powermate. Without trying to sound braggy these are top quality chunks of glass so I expect top performance from them. I do also use a ES focal extender which I use for my 1.25" EP's which I use with my frac and solar scope and I have been very pleased with results from this ES which is a much cheaper option that the TV PM. If you have a good focal extender/powermate or similar and link this up with good eyepieces then personally I would be ok with it. I do have a barlow which is a decent make but I much prefer the focal extender / powermate option due to the difference in the way they work.

Buy a scope for the other half, the mount for yourself, simples 😅

@sw89 I am not sure if you have been made aware of a star tracking mount https://www.firstlightoptics.com/star-tracker-astronomy-mounts/ioptron-skytracker-pro-camera-mount-with-polar-scope.html These can be easily added to any half decent tripod but are really only for attaching your camera and not camera and scope due to weight limitations. I have a similar setup and it works great for wider field views although I have used it for higher magnifications with some success. It also has the added advantage of being very light (2.5lb) and can be bolted onto any decent camera tripod.