Laurie61

Hi  Appleblossom, in terms of using correctly you will get better views if mounted on a camera tripod when operating at higher magnifications. Folks will more often go for fixed magnification bino's as they tend to perform better, £ for £, as there are less moving parts to keep collimated accurately. I have a pair of 8x40's for general observation and am very happy with them.        

Hmm, I have one 5kg and two 10kg.

Richard

I have 5 and 7.5 kg spur/barbell weights on my mk 111 

My 100 mm Strathspey, set up for solar,  Helios 8x40 w.a. and a Samsung b-7x25 n (mostly bird watching) 

My XLT 120, have to admit this was a bit of an impulse buy but mates rates and a nice field test persuaded me    On a night where only Jupiter and the Moon were visible, due to thin high cloud, it provided some nice high contrast views albeit with some expected colour fringing at about 170x. 

Hi all, I think there is a bit of confusion as to the scope type ? I am assuming it's the 200 pds in your sig that your talking about which is a Newtonian scope. These have a secondary held centrally in the front of the tube by a spider( four thin vanes) To stop these dewing you can use a hair drier and blow warm air to remove dew, as and when required, or fit a heater to the back of the mirror. An SCT uses a heater band wrapped around the tube, this warms the front corrector plate and the secondary which is protected inside the closed tube. An SCT type dew tape will not stop the Newtonian secondary from dewing up as the heat generated is not being applied to the mirror. This is a Newtonian secondary heating unit - 

https://www.astrosystems.biz/dewgrd.htm

Hi, if you want to protect the secondary on a newt the dew heater has to go on the secondary. The larger dew tapes are for SCT design scopes which do go around the front of the tube. 

I think that the 2 unidentified plossl's are later versions of this but maybe someone else can verify this  http://www.astromart.com/classifieds/details.asp?classified_id=314549

i saw somewthing almost identical on ebay

Yes, they look like the ones   I received mine bundled  with my big bino's and they are OK performers. Biggest problem I find with them is no eye cups to reduce stray light. So I made some and whilst I was at It one for the BGO as well. They are made from plastic tube and flocking material. 

Lovely set. Is that 56mm a Meade 4000? How do the 2" Meade 4000 stand up to the slightly newer Meade offerings, anyone know? I might like to get my hands on one as they tend to be a lot more affordable and I love the 5000 UWA and HD-60 that I have already.

Yes, the Meade is a 4000 series. It performs very well but is edged out by the big TV. Although the Meade is 56 mm versus 55 mm for the TV the field of view is slightly larger in the TV. The Meade is sharp across the field but is let down a bit by its coatings I think. The view in the TV shows better contrast.  

Indeed! Interesting EP. What apparent field of view does it have?

I would say around 40 dg afov, I have had it so long I can't remember the original spec's or even if fuller's quoted one.    

I have a Fullerscopes 40mm ortho. It is very nice as a finder in my son's Mak and for afocal Luna photography.

Edit: I got that wrong. Mine is a Kellner. Still very nice though.

The fullerscope ortho's are super EP's and mine are used regularly 

Very interesting collection 

It's unusual to see a 40mm ortho.

How does the WO SWAN 40mm fare against the Meade 56mm plossl ?

The Meade is the better of the two, the swan is not sharp out to the field stop. It was originally bought for the f6 newt as a wide field/finder EP, it does cope a bit better in f10 scopes. After using for a while my brother made a new field stop for it and turned it into a 2" 50 dg unit. The coatings and general build quality are good for the money, light throughput is OK and I have not noticed any ghosting.    

My eyepieces out in the daylight 

Ortho collection - My old fullerscopes 25/40 mm, 5/6/9 mm VT's and BGO 18 mm

TV's, these are all plossls 11/15/20/25/32/40/55 mm and the 20/25/32 mm are pair's + 6 mm delos. 

Also a Meade 56 mm, Swan 40 mm, SPL 6 mm and a pair of unidentified 20 mm plossls.

Very nice review, I think if I was putting together a selection of eyepieces today these would figure prominently on my list to try.      

_{A new addition to my eyepiece collection is a set of Circle T orthos, 4, 6, 9, 12.5, 18 & 25mm. Plus an old Fullerscopes adjustable barlow, shown here in their posh new box which I knocked up from an old microscope box. The diagonal is my brassified WO 1.25 Dialectric. Oh and theres a Celestron 40mm E Lux Plossl in there temporarily until I can find a rare as hens teeth 40mm Circle T Ortho}

_{This kit will be used mainly with my 4" F15 refractor.}

Like the idea of the re used microscope box   I still have my original fullerscope ortho's from the late 70's and the zoom barlow, would not part with them. Here they are alongside my latest acquisition for scale.

But can they be used to provide a medium to attach the rings to a flat losmandy bar?

Jd

Yes, that's what I did, see pic's above When I ordered my f6 Dob from OO I asked for an extra set of rings and blocks and then looked for the longest, most robust losmandy bar which at the time was an ADM. 

A friend is thinking about mounting his VX10 on an equatorial mount, mostly for goto, tracking and solar system imaging.

Are the rings which are already on his scope suitable for mounting to a dovetail?

Is this too much weight / length for an HEQ5?

Thanks for any replies.

James

What 'F' is the scope ? the OO scopes are quite light for there size. The heq5 has a 15 kg visual weight capacity.You can use the OO rings and attach to a dovetail but you also need the radius blocks which go between the two. This is my losmandy bar,  OO rings and blocks.

I must admit to weakening and buying another EP, although it is for my birthday  took advantage of the 10% off at Tele-House and ordered a 6 mm Delos. It will replace a 6 mm williams optic spl. A bit of a departure for me as I have been mainly a TV plossl and, a selection of, ortho's user up until now, the spl being the only long eye relief EP in the case.   

Agreed. Did you just realign the secondary by eye?

I assume you just collimate on a star? When I do mine the final movement of the collimation knob is just about the smallest movement i can make, not sure if this is 1/32nd of a turn, but it must be a very small amount.

Robin

Yes I realigned by eye, I had felt it move slightly and basically put it back where, I thought, it came from When collimating I do use a star and a 9 mm ortho although last time out my Brother collimated it while looking at Jupiter. He said he could see a slight smearing in one direction and adjusted to pull this back over the planet and it popped into sharp view, Not something I would generally recommend but it was only a fraction out.      

I have a c11 xlt, I removed the corrector so I could flock it and there was a little play in the secondary housing. I assumed it needed to be centred and adjusted it, I had moved it slightly when removing the corrector plate. It appears to be as sharp now as previously but I have found that it needs to be spot on with collimation to perform. A 1/32 turn on a bob's knob will make the difference between soft and sharp on my scope.    

I'm not sure how you would get an SCT secondary in the wrong place as it fits in the middle of the corrector plate.

If you have removed the secondary then you will need to collimate the scope as it will most likely be out. With an SCT that's best done by a star test - adjust the three screws on the secondary.

You can get close before going outside by looking down the front of the tube from about 3mtrs away. You should see concentric rings if all is well, if not, adjust the three screws until it's close.

I guess Robin is talking about mirror flop, something that cant be adjusted for. I think I read somewhere that because the mirror's are spherical this is not quite so bad as it might be ? but I may be getting confused with something else    

I also have fond memories of tasco scopes. With my fullerscope out of commission, after a house move, I borrowed a 4.5” tasco newt from a relative. It was a Japanese built scope with .965 eyepieces, there was not much you could do with the mount but with my old fullerscope ortho’s taped to the focuser tube the scope performed nicely for its size. I was so pleased with it I offered to buy it, my relative being an impoverished student teacher at the time was happy to let it go and spent the cash on a lap top. I then replaced the focuser for a 1.25”and fitted an old rifle scope for a finder and it was a great stop gap until I finally sorted the mirrors on the 8.75”. Its currently on lone to a friend and still going strong with the original mirror coatings. 

The scope shortly before going on lone.

I have a Helios Naturesport-plus 8x40, bought for their wide field (8.2dg) and the mag is not too high when hand holding. I also have a pair of Strathspey 100mm bino's with the 45dg angled eyepieces, they take telescope lenses. I use them with 32mm TV plossl's (18.5x, 2.5dg field) and Baader Neodymium filters. They are mounted on a yoke mount.