kev100

I’d go for a dedicated 6mm ep, and avoid a Barlow. It’s a personal thing, but I’ve never got along with them (I know lots do, though). I have a 5mm BST and a William Optics 6mm SPL, and the latter gets loads of use.

Might also be worth having a look at the crab (M1) and scanning around in Cepheus, which is pretty well positioned at the moment.

Hiya, it's worth having a look at the Orion neb with the OIII, and trying for the Rosette and California ... I seem to remember seeing the latter with a 5 inch reflector and an OIII filter. When you get your new scope, do have a look at the Veil in Cygnus, too. A definite must see

Thanks guys, lots of good info there. The link to the lake District site is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. I presume that similar reports must have been done for the Brecons, etc. More like this would be good: "Dark Sky Park Economic Impact Assessment, November 2013 looked at the impact on local business a year after Galloway Forest Park in Scotland became an International Dark Skies Association (IDA) Dark Sky Park.(2) The report found that for every £1 spent on installing dark sky friendly lighting in the area, there was a return on investment of £1.93, due to an increase in tourism, and concluded that the economic benefits are probably much more. In the case of the Kielder Water and Northumberland National Park Dark Skies Park, a survey of tourism businesses in 2017 revealed there was a £25million+ boost to the local economy, supporting 450 jobs." Maybe the dark sky APPG will publish something concrete soon?

Hi, I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and aside from somewhat anecdotal evidence, about benefits for wildlife, and being able to see more stars, is anyone aware of any actual concrete benefits for communities within dark sky areas? I’m thinking cold hard evidential benefits ... things that will convince the general public, not just enthusiasts .... Things like house prices going up, upturns in visitor numbers, leisure industry revenue generating opportunities, preventing undesirable planning decisions. Now that we’ve had dark sky areas for a while, like the brecons, exmoor, Skye, etc, surely someone’s following up these areas for signs of general benefits ...? It would really help the case for cutting back on light pollution, etc if we could point to a report or scientific/government website listing the benefits... Kev

Hiya, Ive got the S&T pocket sky atlas, and while it gets some use, I tend to just use SkySafari on my phone, these days. Five of six years ago I found some downloadable star charts on the net. I printed them out and laminated them. Have a look here: https://eyesonthesky.com/charts/free-star-charts/ Again, while they saw some use, I’m ever more reliant on the phone app ...

Hi there, and well done on the scope (I have the same one and it's fantastic!). However ... You do have to be very careful when it comes to choosing eyepieces for what is a 'fast scope', i.e. a scope with a focal ratio lower than, say, 5. Focal length divided by diameter equals focal ratio (and your is 4.7). As others have said, don't rush to buy eyepieces just yet, but, if you feel you must, then research 'eyepiece for fast scope' first, and check back here with what you find to see if it is actually suitable for a faster scope. Ideally you'll want to end up with something in the lower, medium and high power ranges, giving magnifications of around 50-60x for lower power, around 100-120x for medium power, and 200-250x for high power. This works out at eyepiece focal lengths of 24-28mm, 14-17mm and 5-6mm respectively. Field of view is another consideration (my personal preference is for a minimum of 82 degrees) ... A good place to start is with Stellarium. Set up the oculars plug in with your scope details, and then try adding a range of different eyepieces to get an idea of how their magnifications and field of view compares. On the subject of BST eyepieces. I know they're often recommended as a good step up from the stock items, and they definitely are, but, I personally have found them unsuitable for a fast scope, particularly the longer focal length ones. I have, and use, a 5mm BST as my maximum power eyepiece, and it's perfect. However, when I've looked through the 18mm once I've found the field curvature not to my liking. I know coma is a factor of the scope, but I prefer better corrected eyepieces (and a wider field of view). Although much more expensive than the BSTs, the Explore Scientific 68 degree range are, in my opinion, much better than the BSTs, and the 82 degree range is better still. Kev

There's a South Wales club here on SGL ...

How about the Xmas tree cluster, or NGC 1502 at the end of Kemble's cascade? If you have a decent southern view, m46, 47 and 41... Kev

Hiya, I've got a 20mm Myriad 2-inch EP, which weights just over a kilo. I use it with my 250PX dob, without a counterweight, though I do have to clamp up the handles pretty tight so it doesn't over balance the tube. The rest of my EPs are 1.25 inch, so I don't tend to swap them and the Myriad around too often. Kev

Hiya, I found it useful to work my way through the Messier list one constellation at a time, and printed out a chart and kept it in my notebook. After about a year or so I had most of them ticked 🙂. Did the same with the Caldwell catalog ... kev

One of my favourite open clusters is M46, as good at this time of year as it gets. The really cool thing is the planetary nebula in the foreground (ngc 2438). Well worth a look 🙂

Just chipping in here with a thumbs up for the drum stool. I wouldn’t be without one 👍 Also, M13 looks amazing whatever the magnification, be it with 10x binos, or at 200x and higher with a scope. It’s when you consider what it is that it really comes to life, a dense ball of in the region of 250,000 very old stars, possibly the stripped down core of a long gone satellite galaxy ... in more basic terms, with my dob I like using my 8.8mm, 82 degree eyepiece on it, the contrast is lovely, the field of view enough to also see the nearby galaxy ngc6207 as well, and the magnification of around 130x resolves the stars nicely 🙂

Hiya. I've seen two out of the three with my 10x50 binoculars, but failed on Wednesday with the 20x80s. I felt that this was due to humidity/very thin cloud to the north and east. In fact I failed with other galaxies in those directions, including M51. Looking east, M31 and M33 were obvious. On a good night, the triplet will be very obvious in your scope. Kev

Apologies if this has been pointed out already, but I've just spotted (in Stellarium, where else), that there'll be a very tight conjunction of Ceres and Aldebaran on the 5th of November 2021, whereupon the dwarf planet will move through the Hyades over the next two weeks

Hi there, it definitely should be possible to get the dot in the centre of the doughnut given the three way adjustment ... A couple of questions: have you changed the secondary adjustment screws? How old is the scope? Have you been tightening the screws really tightly? The reason I ask is that I had a similar issue. My 10 inch is about 8 years old, I replaced the adjustment screws to make them easy to tweak, but found that they were digging into the metal base at the back of the secondary, and I couldn’t get the dot centred (it would get close, but then just ‘slip’ to the side, like there was a groove worn in the metal ....). I found a set of replacement screws which had a domed end to the threaded part, and also put a couple of thin pieces of plastic between the screws and the back of the secondary, and it’s easy now to centre the dot ... Kev

Hi there, reading through my previous post again, plus a few others, I reckon it's going to have to be a 14mm ES 82 ... Cheers, Kev

Thanks @Vlaiv I've had a discussion here on the merits of the 16mm Nirvana here before ... but decided against in as I gather it's not so good with a faster scope ... the 14mm ES 82 does look good, but is a little over budget ... Kev

Hi all, I've been looking to replace my 16mm, 68 degree MaxVision with a similar power but wider FOV (82 degree) item for some time now, and wondered if anyone could recommend something that'll be suitable for a fast scope ... The catch, though, is the budget is around the 100 quid mark ... Any thoughts?

Hi there. This is, for what it's worth, from my blog re the Celestron 20x80s ... : https://theastroguy.wordpress.com/2018/10/18/celestron-skymaster-20x80-binoculars-review-and-first-light-observations/ Kev

Hi Dan, it was nice to meet you too. Really enjoyed the evening, had some great views of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars (the latter was amazing, and looked just like some of the photos I've seen recently on Twitter!). Although I'd planned to make it a really late one, I decided to pack up around midnight. It was still quite blustery, and although it looked clear enough, I wasn't having any luck with the fainter galaxies. Top evening

Hiya, The fact that dimmer objects appeared okay makes me think that Mars' brightness scattering through high cloud/haze could have been the issue. I was out on Sunday night, on what appeared to be a good and clear night. Whilst the stars and planets looked great, there was definitely some haze in the air as I had absolutely no luck when it came to faint galaxies ... Kev

Hi there. You’re correct that any or all of the factors you mentioned could contribute to the issue you’re having. Collimating is probably the easiest thing to eliminate. Through the Cheshire, if you can see all the mirror clips equally, the cross hairs align and the centre spot is ... well ... centred, you’re collimated ... You could also check by looking at a bright star .... does it resolve to a pin point , with sharp and clearly defined diffraction spikes? Dew can definitely be an issue, but if you can’t see it on the secondary (it never occurs on the primary in my experience), then have you checked the eyepieces themselves, being the only other place it could accumulate? As the issue doesn’t occur on dsos, though you don’t mention which, I’d say dew is unlikely to be the cause. Be careful not to breathe on the EPs ... Stray light pollution/reflections could be the issue. Is your dob is a solid tube version (if not, do you use a light shroud?). Try a different/darker location.... (I know, easier said than done). I’d say the issue is some combination of atmospheric seeing conditions, plus the fact that Mars is incredibly bright at the moment, and all that light is scattered somehow (you could try fitting the dust cover to the scope and pulling off the small aperture cover to restrict the light coming into the scope...) I spent much of last night viewing Mars with my (same) scope and from a pretty dark site, and although it was bright and clear a lot of the time, it did shimmer and wobble around horribly at times, with stray light artifacts coming and going. My eyes were watering quite a bit due to the blustery winds ... Kev.

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Okay. Im aiming to be there for 9-ish ... can’t make it any earlier. Forecast’s still looking good 🤞😀