Saganite

It is Dave, I agree , and I make no apology for looking at Orion and all it has to offer every time I am out, it is a short enough season with the THE most glorious constellation... Good luck for tonight ! Steve

Very nice Stu, I hope you had a good session. I am pleased that the AZ motors are going to be good . It is 19 months now since I sold my NEQ6 to buy the AZ100 and I really do miss tracking a target.

All three reports make good reading Dave and it is pleasing that at last you have had the chance to see how excellent is Trinity , under a very good sky, as excellent as an FS128 should be to warrant its reputation...👍 Of course the eyepiece is very much a key part of the optical train, and the ones that you now use, particularly the Axioms are proving to be as good as you hoped for, along with your Morpheus ( Morphei..? ) eyepieces of course.

Very enjoyable Robert. The Auriga clusters are targets I tend to catch, in passing, but they are worthy of more than that, particularly M37, which is, as you say, more like a loose globular Cluster.

Absolutely brilliant. I have tried other types over the years and I would not use anything else now. I use 2" and 2" to 1.25" BTW...

That's enough evil encouragement from you Mr White . It would be fun listening to you try though, over coffee of course. Hope to see you there....

Been there , done that Dave but unfortunately they did not work for me in the Binoviewer otherwise I would have kept the pair that I bought....

A nice image. I looked at the Leo triplet on the 22nd Feb with my 12" Dob and, as is often the case, M65 and M66 were prominent whereas NGC 3628 needed averted vision .

I have long wondered about these as an alternative to my 19mm Panoptics Dean , but am able to put them to the back of my mind, until somebody does what you have just done..... Very nice !

Great result Dave ! I had a very long session last night so was not going to go out tonight, but your success has tempted me out again. The conditions for me tonight though are not as favourable unfortunately, so a quick split of Theta Aurigae and a good look at the beautiful Cluster M37, and that is enough, besides there are quite regular gusts of wind which is spoiling things somewhat. Enjoy !

Good result Mike...👍

The forecast is clear sky all night, although I just set up and of course a lot of cloud has appeared in the West, but I am optimistic. It should be good comparing these two.

I have shown this scope on this forum before. Not strictly homemade, but put together from various parts that I had accumulated, with a new paint job. Tube ...............Skywatcher ED100 Focuser..........Single speed Skywatcher Achro I believe Lens cell.........Skywatcher ED100 Lens.................Tal 4" F10 Lens cap........ very old sweet tin lid resprayed. Because the tube is for F9 and the lens is f10, it is native binoviewing friendly..

Superb project Mike. I also saw the ad, and wondered what it would be like, so I look forward to your reports and observations with it.

I bought this superb 10.5mm 65 deg Carton eyepiece from Dave a while back with little hope of finding a second , but within hours of posting an ad, I was offered its Orion Megavista badged chum, and they are superb as a bino pair. At around 10mm focal length , I have tried several eyepiece pairs and rejected them , but these are definite keepers.

Excellent Stu, quiet is good. Eyes are all you need to see that it is working.....

That is certainly a line up to drool over Mark, very very nice. I have eight pairs of eyepieces 75% of which are vintage, and may well be up to 88% soon....all of them jewels to be honest.

Who doesn't love the Double Cluster, superb !

Very nice Mike, particularly the 25mm PM's. The 24mm Ultima is such a rare beast that I am unlikely to see another on this side of the pond. I also have had for a long time, a single UOVT 25mm Ortho, another jewel , and finding a second one of those is as difficult.

You did indeed Mark. A stunning pair in a binoviewer. I didn't really want to part with them but I decided to keep the 26mm pair shown in this thread.

SOLD !!

I will have to offer these Mike. The Meade 5 element 26mm pair have been with me longer than any eyepieces that I own, the UOVT's included. They have a simple, sharp, and crystal clarity which more than compensates for their modest AFOV. I almost sold these a few years back to your good friend Paul, before I came to my senses ! The 24mm Ultima is a vintage beauty and a dazzling performer, another of which I would pay a 'King's ransom ' for, to be able to binoview with ...

Yes it does and you can generally get away with inexpensive eyepieces for very slow telescopes, but if you have a number of scopes as a lot of people do and my scopes range from f5.3 to f15, you tend towards the better corrected and thus more expensive eyepieces. That is my experience.

Hi Stu, For planetary and Lunar I use only binoviewers, so the zoom is just for double stars. For really difficult tight doubles, I use the zoom, and change if necessary to Orthoscopic eyepieces. On the odd occasion that I have used the zoom for Lunar, I found the contrast and image brightness perfectly good enough. For me the FOV is not important., though quite sufficient.

Hi Stu, I have used a Hyperflex 7.2mm - 21.5mm zoom in my two 4" refractors for some while. I had previously tried the Baader 8-24 zoom , at least twice, Tele vue 8-24mm, and never really got on with them, but I did stick with the Hyperflex for the longest time, it is very good. I only really use the zoom for star splitting , and for that I find it very useful.