GavStar

Yes I am. No decent clubs nearby and Wimbledon is rather light polluted hence my use of night vision astronomy which enables me to do some nice DSO observing. Best option for a darker site within about 30 mins to drive to is Ranmore Common imo.

Previously I’ve preferred staying at around 30x for maximum contrast. But yesterday I moved up to 40x which was great. I do have 10mm and 12mm pairs which with my preferred 1.7x gpc will take me to 60-70x, so I’ll try that next time.

Yes I generally just look at Cerro Tololo and Learmonth gong ha for indications of activity. Yesterday I compared single eye observing (Pentax zoom) vs binoviewing with my mark v, 1.7 gpc and 19mm panoptics to give around 40x. Despite double stacking, the binoviewers gave nice bright views which clearly surpassed the monoviewing. The actual views I got surpassed the Cerritos Tololo gong image for surface and prom detail - amazing dark contrast on the surface. I guess seeing was pretty good - really looking forward to the sun showing even more activity going forward. 😀

I’ve just been observing the sun with my lunt 60 double stack for the first time this year. Some great views. For comparison purposes, I downloaded the current solar pic on ha gong - how close do your live visual views get to the images shown (both surface detail/contrast and prom detail)? example from today attached.

Yes it is depending on what you are observing and looking for. Eg the extremely faint Eridanus Loop does require dark adaption, adjusting gain just so to get the best level of contrast, potentially also averted vision (which does work with nv). Also I often spend a long time observing objects such as the rosette which are easy to “see” with nv but not so easy to tease out the fine dark nebulae details.

I think the key point is that since the changes were introduced 3 years ago, night vision posts have really dried up on sgl. It seems like most Uk nv users do now solely post on cloudynights and nv astronomy Facebook groups, so there is little in the way of new nv info on sgl to search and find now.

It’s a bit off topic I admit but your observing report did get my brain whirring! 😀 Night vision is generally thought of as being best on emission nebulae and globulars, and not that good on galaxies. However, reading some of these galaxy observing reports, I think nv does give a big improvement on many galaxies, particularly edge on. For example, the dark lane of the Hamburger galaxy is quite straightforward with nv. And the spiral arms of m51 were significantly better when I did a direct comparison with my 16 inch dob at the Isle of Wight of glass vs nv eyepieces. Admittedly getting good image scale on galaxies with nv can be tricky and require largish aperture.

I’ve seen the Eridanus Loop with you know what a couple of times, but boy it’s faint, makes barnard’s loop look like m42 in comparison 🤣 With my equipment using both eyes is a big help but I don’t think that’s useful for Dob observing.

Stu, good to see the lzos getting used Interesting that you couldn’t get the hamburger galaxy (3268). Gerry recently said the dark lane in this galaxy is reasonably tough to see. I always thought this one wasn’t that tough an object - it’s got me thinking a bit… I had some great views of Markarian’s chain with my c11 from Ranmore Common last week, at least 7 galaxies in the fov but that was using my night vision monoculars. The whirlpool also showed its arms clearly which was cool.

Gerry, nice report! Some of my favourite objects in there. Regarding your comment regarding the Hamburger galaxy - is the dark lane sometimes difficult to see through your 15 inch? I did have a recent galaxy session with my 16 inch dob on the Isle of Wight which I enjoyed a lot.

The Vixen lvw22 was my first quality eyepiece bought about 10 years ago. It’s so comfortable to observe with, I bought some others as a result. I’ve not used these for ages, but I think I should try them out again.

So existing 166mm tube rings will no longer fit or have bigger gaps?

Very happy with my William Optics 103mm Pegasus Binoscope 😀. Lifting that dual toa130 onto the Panther must be a two man job!!

A price bubble seems to have hit the Tak FSQ130. Hopefully this doesn’t happen to other premium scopes. https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/809666-fsq-130ed-for-35k-why-the-craze/

Stu is correct 😀 - any of these would work I think (they are all great)