GavStar

That’s tv for you! 😃And I was on the BBC television centre balcony for 4 hours for that!! 🤣

With the pvs-14 there is only one place you can put the filter since the front lens isn’t removable.

In my observing session last night I took a few phone images of the area around Orion and Barnard’s Loop with my pvs-14 at 1x with my chroma 3nm ha filter. I thought it may be of interest to see just how significant the bandshift impact is with a 3nm filter at f1.2 - a lot!! But the contrast on the nebulae in the middle is amazing so that’s why I prefer to use a very narrowband filter despite the bandshift. I also tried my chroma 5nm ha, but personally I preferred the 3nm views.

Night vision works so well on this object - I’d never heard of it until I started using nv and it’s one of the easiest and brightest things to see and pick out detail in.

It’s doesn’t really. I’m quite happy with the visual views of the 41mm both in London and at a dark site. Just in London there is less contrast.

A couple of months ago, I made a post about an observing tour of big nebulae from London. I haven’t managed to get out to a dark site this winter so far so was really itching to get to better skies soon. Despite torrential rain in London today, the forecast was for clear skies tonight. I had an opportunity to visit a dark site and decided to go for it. The instrument of choice was my AP130GTX given it was quite windy. I was keen to see the dark site views of my latest nv kit setup after some good sessions in London recently. Using my favourite setup for taking phone photo records of my observing, ie a 41mm panoptic with 3nm ha filter, I swept across the sky from Orion on one side to Cepheus on the other. Some stunning views. 😀

Extra aperture I think. I was very impressed with the 130gtx last night - I must use it more! Just afocal last night. I do have a nice reducer for the AP130GTX but I enjoyed having the extra image scale yesterday.

Well I had to wait nearly a month for another chance to go observing (been rather cloudy!!). For a change I decided to use my Astro Physics 130gtx refractor. I normally go either grab and go portable (85mm) or big (11 inch plus), but the 130mm does give a nice mid range of magnification with night vision at around 20x, framing, for example, the beautiful Rosette nebula really well. I’m itching to get to a dark sky, it’s been too long…

Yes like this…

Yes, I was surprised about the Alnitak double showing so well in night vision - that’s a first for me on this object.

Thanks Robert. Yes the crab was noticeably dimmer than the others. It’s a bit like the Veil which with nv isn’t as bright as you would expect either. I assume the ha signal in these supernova remnants isn’t as strong as it is for standard emission nebulae.

Good stuff Mark. I think transparency wasn’t quite as good for me as last week, but it was really fun. Best views I’ve had of the horsehead in London, the “snout” was straightforward to discern which normally requires dark skies…

More clear skies in London tonight 😀 I’ve been enjoying using my 85mm refractor with my night vision kit recently. However the image scale is a bit small (only 10x or so) so tonight, for a change, I got out my 11 inch sct in my back garden in south west London. With Orion shining in the south, it was lovely to have more magnification on some very well know objects such as the horsehead, flame, monkeyhead and Crab Nebula as shown in the phone pics attached here. Some great views despite the light pollution!!

Yes that’s a good point Mark.

One of the key reasons that I bought my first night visio monocular was to observe DSOs from my London back garden (sqm 18). A few years ago, Jupiter and Saturn were low in the sky at opposition and so DSOs were a key part of my observation targets. It quickly became clear that although night vision was good from light polluted skies it is even better from darks skies like those in the Isle of Wight that I visit on an infrequent basis (sqm 21). Over time, I’ve aimed to improve the views I get from my London back garden. My latest kit test was last night with my little fsq85. Some great nebula objects in the sky and I’m really pleased with the views I can get from London of these wonderful DSOs. Now just to get to those dark skies on a more regular basis…😀 It’s a lot of fun to see the horsehead so clearly with my little refractor from London back garden as shown by the phone pic below.

Unsurprisingly it’s my night vision monoculars - saying they have revolutionised my observing is rather an understatement. Last week I was involved in the filming of a short segment on urban astronomy for the forthcoming January episode of “Sky at Night” discussing how my nv monoculars allow me to see the invisible 😉 This photo was taken from the top of BBC Television Centre - definitely an urban location! 🤣

In development now according to WO. F5.6 and 0.98 Strehl (56mm image circle) no other details that I can see!!

I use the 0.7x edge reducer with my c11 edge. The required distance is 146mm so it’s straightforward to use a 2?inch diagonal. This is for visual only with my nv monoculars. Works very nicely in conjunction with my 55mm plossl. I also use a standard c11 with AP 0.75x photo visual reducer and 55mm plossl. Visual views are shown in the phone images in the linked thread (about 1 degree fov)

Here is the latest iteration of my eyepiece cases. As you can see I like my peli cases. Front left: planetary and lunar set with tec turret and delites Front right: binoviewing set for solar and planetary Back row: Various night vision monoculars with suitable Televue eyepieces for afocal viewing and ha and other filters

Maybe I’m not answering your query, but For standard visual observing, depending on the object to be observed, there are various filters that can help to some extent like uhc, oiii (for emission nebulae) and Baader moon and sky glow (for planets). But these filters have nowhere near the impact that the night vision device plus appropriate filter has for light polluted skies. In this case bigger prices really do have a massive positive impact on what you can observe live.

I use my night vision monoculars primarily for live visual observing, not imaging. However I do like taking quick phone shots of the views as a record of my observing sessions. With respect to the ir filter this should be used in conjunction with a night vision device for live observing.

Only when attached to a night vision device.

With night vision astronomy we use strong filters to remove the “milky ness”. Eg for viewing stars and galaxies in my London back garden I use a Baader 685 filter which filters out the visible wavebands just leaving the infrared which can be seen by the night vision device. Works very well and with the manual gain adjustment you can get really quite black skies but retain lots of stars. It’s expensive though unfortunately. Here’s a thread I posted recently about how light pollution does affect night vision astronomy. For the observing discussed in this post I was using a narrowband ha filter to observe the emission nebulae. Some light pollution does sneak in hence the more milky views but night vision still allows you to see stuff you would have no chance otherwise.

An experienced nv user posted the following comment on CN recently… ” Acting solely as a facilitator, offering up memories to last a life time, is incredibly rewarding in and of itself. The most impactful encounters, have all been with those who will likely never have the inclination to buy an NVD nor a telescope. The least impactful and joyless encounters, have been within the astronomy community itself, particularly with the "experienced " amateur. Rough heathen outreach is rewarding, doing it to convert, not so much. “

Agreed Mark. Most European sellers of nv equipment are happy to provide options that meet the requirements of astronomers.