bomberbaz

I have one definite confirmation of seeing M33 from scotland and 1 at a 2nd site that was less conclusive. As @John saying there is a brightening of the sky but in scotland I was under excellent bortle 2 skies with fantastic seeing on the very settled night, the best skies i have ever been under. So not only did i get the brightening of the sky but the spiral arms were kind of jumping out like some kind of animation. It's hard to really explain but it was simply amazing and something that will live with me forever. I got many great views of great objects that night, but that was icing on the cake. cheers

From someone who initially went through many eyepieces in the initial stages of this hobby I would, if I had my time again get a 21-7 zoom from hyperflex or other similar provider at the size and wait to see where the hobby takes you. There are many different types and sizes of scopes, no eyepiece fits with everyone's needs exactly, but a zoom covers a heck of a lot.

Thanks Don and Ships, two interesting ideas on why things appear to have changed. I was using the Nikons in the previous dob scope only 2 weeks since with the Nikons, I purposely got it out to try to get a strong memory of what I had before changing to the new scope. Therefore I am not convinced with your idea that I have lost my memory of eye placement of the eyepieces, although i am not totally discounting it. I am a leaning more to Ships idea that the whole setup is different in dimension, angles of focuser and placement of your head when using it. Actually this does blend in with Don's explanation as the two are kind of the same, just explained differently. Although in the former it's not forgotten eye placement, just totally new. Wittering a little now but the old 10" dob I could easily move my head into the same position each time I used it, I think with the T350 I was struggling just a little with eye placement at the focuser. Ah well first timer out and all that. I think that makes sense now, cheers guys. TIA

Well you ST102 has a focal length of F510 I think and assuming your 8" dob is F6 = F1200 then yes, it would be a very good match for both the scopes.

Download and use this programme to help you with deciding upon things to look at. It is free and very good for planning things. All the objects mentioned above can be found in it plus many 1000's more http://stellarium.org/en_GB/

I would say that without rushing and being careful to get everything tight & balanced the total time will be around 10 minutes. because i bought the mirror acclimatisation systems the cool down time is less than a half hour

I love viewing the moon through my binoviewers although I use a mak, very immersive and yes it does give a 3d perspective although I think it is more your brain telling you this rather than it actually being the case. I am looking forward to having a bash at Mars with them as soon as the clouds clear. Thing with BV's and barlow is there is an amplification of the actual stated magnification due to the increase distance in focal train. Just BV's on there own add x1.15 to the magnification on my mak, don't know if the dob will work the same as the optical arrangement is very different. Now with a 1.6 barlow added to the BV nose this is actually taken up to x3.2, change this to a 2x barlow and it goes to x4. This is as mentioned due to the increased focal train distance and I would expect similar in your dob although again I cannot confirm exactly what the case will be as I have never used in one. FYI I use a pair of 25mm Vixen NPL eyepieces in my BV. Oh something worth mentioning is if you use a tele extender such as a powermate then there is no amplification of because of the focal train. So a 2x increase remains 2x. Hope this all makes sense but there is an article below that kind of explains this and was based upon testing and technical knowledge of a few members including myself.

Keep the 25, bin the 10 and supply a basic 2x barlow. that would be a great compromise.

Not the case as long as you don't go too low budget, the one I linked to at just under £70 has worked a treat for me in a frac and a mak for both night time and solar I just leave mine in the frac when using it, great for splitting double stars

ahhh kelner and not huygen, my bad sorry. There you go @Louis D, they are a kelner type design.

The APM UFF are gorgeous eyepieces for the price and perform as good as any other premium eyepiece. As john says above, a 30mm eyepiece along with the zoom and a 6mm would cover all your bases. I have 3 regularly used eyepieces in my big scope.

it is SW supplied but I seem to remember somebody stating they were huygen design.

think its a huygen louis, whatever it is it really is poor to use.

Or buy a decent zoom eyepiece until you get used to everything. The OVL zoom will barlow for the highest powers but more over it really will complement the 25mm stock eyepiece which together will cover all your bases for now. Throw the 10mm in a drawer and forget about it. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/ovl-eyepieces/hyperflex-72mm-215mm-eyepiece.html I use a zoom in my frac and love it, very versatile and well worth the cash.

Nice looking glass and nicer looking price for such quality.

Go 7mm mate, it makes a lot of sense.

Hi Louis, in anser to your follow up queries I am not using a CC, didn't use it with the nikons before with my other dob. I only use the nikons in the dob, I have more glass for my other ota's. I also used a 30mm antares eyepiece the other night and it was a pleasure to use. Not tried with the EIC yet. I only did a little viewing the other night, but there was definately a change to my viewing experience. It seems as though the sweet spot has pushed back a few MM but I can't confirm this to be the case as yet. It being the first time i used the scope there was a lot going on, and I think I got a little hung up with the DSC when really optics should have been the first thing to get to grips with. More practice tomorrow night (weather permitting) and I shall see how I get on. I also have a dioptrix which I can play around with to see how that works with the 17mm version. I don't need it with the 12.5mm version.

this might help you https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/287766-difference-between-barlow-and-telenegative/ A variable power tele extender is basically a zoom version.

forgot to add, as your on a budget these eyepieces seem to have good reviews for someone on a budget https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-eyepieces/skywatcher-uwa-planetary-eyepieces.html

You have a 130mm scope with a theoretical maximum magnification of 260, theoretical though. To maintain a bright image and knowing what Uk conditions for viewing are usually like I would be thinking about a 7mm eyepiece and a 2x barlow. This gives x 93 and x 186 and would be great for planetary use, double stars, globular etc.

I meant to mention this in my brief report the other night but forgot so here goes. My new scope is 350/1700 F4.8 newtonian dob. The eye placement appears to have altered when using my Nikon eyepieces, before I could really sink my eyeball into the cup to get that drifting into space experience. Now if I try doing this I experience quite bad kidney beaning and the eye relief appears to have increased. I can adapt to this but it just feels weird at the minute, thinking maybe eyepiece cup extender from TV might help although will try without first. I don't know if anyone can shed light on this and I don't know if this is relevant but the old scope was 250/1200 F4.7 newt.

Thgis is the one i was on about although it is a 70" mirror and not 80" https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/11/08/worlds-largest-backyard-telescope/

So my new DOB is fitted with a DSC and from previous experience of both goto and pushto I found accuracy to be better if it were levelled. However the dob has fixed feet made from a synthetic, hard resin type material. One thing I noticed about this material is it is not offering a very good grip on anything smooth, this needs to be born in mind. I wanted to build a simple, lightwieght adjustable platform to pub the dob on without adding too much to the height. So below is a flow of the build design from start to finish, took 3 days but a lot of that is paint drying. in hours around 3 hours. Forgot to get a picture before I cut out but you get the picture, material used was 18mm plyboard After cutting out the centre for weight reduction and slapping some paint on. Feet and slip prevention cups added Side view of feet, they adjust very easily with the knob fitted on the top which are locked onto the foot screw with the nut directly below it. Holes drilled into cups, the DOB feet drop into the holes. Two of them have slight cutouts to allow for the dob base tension adjuster nobs that are on it. They are actually caster cups for household furniture. The dob base sits very neatly onto the platform . Finally I added a few red LED's that will aid when setting it all up in the dark without killing your developing night vision. Quite pleased with the end result, just need a clear night to try it out but I am sure it will work perfectly.

That becomes a 4x barlow in my mak with binoviewers

Saw a video recently where a dob design (with a twist) had an 80" mirror i think.