jetstream

1 hour ago, wesdon1 said:

Hi Gerry, so sorry for late reply. I only have SGL on my home PC so sometimes i don't know i have messages until i visit the site. I was thinking of getting a Baader Classic 6 or 10mm as the Morpheus and others are quite expensive. I assume you own Baader Classic eyepieces? Is that what the BCO stands for? Are you advising me against the 6mm Baader Classic? is so, why? Is it not as good as the other sizes of the same line? Thanks Gerry.

Wes.

No issues with the reply Wes, sometimes I don't check for periods of time myself- thank you for the consideration.

Yes I own the 18mmBCO, 10mmBCO and the 6mm BCO. I cannot recommend the 6mm- it has great color but is not as "sharp" as the other 2 and it seems to bloat stars a little bit. the 18mm and 10mm are excellent however.

The BCO stands for "classic" ortho and it sends ortho purists into fits. It is another design from a Zeiss optician utilizing an opened up field compared to traditional orthos. They will show some edge distortion- but- 99% of eyepieces do, including TV Ethos, Naglers, Delos,Leica etc. Some distortion is to be expected as all eyepiece design is a tradeoff IMHO.

I love orthos and use them every session, they do have tight eyerelief in the shorter fls- do you wear glasses? of so this can be an issue.

I would hold off on the shorter fl widefields (ie 6mm) just yet as there are a few superb (expensive) choices and some run of the mill one you ewould most likely replace.

Your scope is f6 right?

If so and if it were me I would look at a 24mm-25mm something. A 25mm Televue plossl is superb, a keeper in any scope and will show nebs extremely well. The widefoield are expensive but the ES 24mm 68 is great and in 2" a 24mm ES 82.

Have you considered the 18mm BCO/10mm BCO with the Baader "Q Barlow"?

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/barlows/baader-classic-q-225x-barlow.html

9 hours ago, oldfruit said:

Hi,

 

I am currently using an f/4 dob and as part of the purchase a Televue Paracorr type 2 was included. I have not used the Paracorr yet and I am noticing greater distortion than when I was using an F/5. Naturally I want to get the most out of my observing.

As I am not currently using Televue eyepieces, is there a guide out there somewhere as to which settings would be used for different eyepieces? My eyepiece collection is mainly Skywatcher Nirvana`s.

Thanks.

Mark

I hope you get this sorted out Mark!

my motives are insideous though.... as I'm in the same boat lol! 😀

What distortion? just coma or other stuff?

Awesome scope!

Eagerly waiting first light!

16 minutes ago, Greymouser said:

I actually have three, a C5; C9.25, both at F10 mostly, but sometimes at F 6.3. I also have a ST102, which is F4.9. I also have a 150 P reflector, but that needs  to be sold, so does not count.

I have just been out and had a quick look at Saturn with the C5 and again found myself disappointed with the Nirvana, better view with the BCO 10mm, even with the x 2.25 barlow attached. I suspect I will get some more ES 62 degree eyepieces, to get closer to a complete range. The Telle Vue are on my wish list, but it is just not realistic budget wise, any time soon. No great hardship though, as the ES eyepieces are very good.

Nice scopes!

Great that the 10BCO is working well for you and those ES eyepieces are really good and will serve you well.  Glad you got out observing, can't wait for the clouds to clear here.

After learning the night sky pretty well I purchased an AZ EQ6 for the 120mm and now a Sky Commander "push to" DSC for the 24". I must say that the tracking for planetary/lunar is a nice benefit and the Sky Commander finds very difficult, faint galaxies (& others) with amazing accuracy. There is no way I could even re-find some of this stuff after "bumping" the dob inadvertently without it. I can get back on objects with a .18 deg TFOV... and easily with the 12.5mm UWA at  .5 deg TFOV. This allows for so much more observing time which really helps out.

I have no regret, remorse, guilt or any other negative emotion over using Go To lol!- and I also love the "chase of the hunt" finding things manually. Both my GoTo scopes work very well.

4 hours ago, Greymouser said:

I think I prefer the narrower field of view, certainly my wallet does!

What scope do you have?

If you can observe the planets/lunar under good seeing the TV's (well some TV's...) can pull away from ES eyepieces. IME, ES replicates Nagler performance but does fall short of the Delos for sharpness, contrast, scatter control and transmission. The Ethos will out contrast the ES/Naglers, not sure about Delites but they are supposed to be good, with a small spot size.

ES makes VG eyepieces and our 24 ES 68 has a secure place in the case...

Of course there is a bit of "status" owning TV and you have excellent eyepieces already- just curious what focal length are you looking at? btw the 10BCO is my deepest eyepiece and competes with some very expensive glass, I love this thing!

7 hours ago, wesdon1 said:

I'm thinking along the lines of buying a nice Baader Planetarium eyepiece

Hi Wes, which Baader eyepiece are you thinking of? I own the 18mm BCO- very good, the 10mm BCO- excellent and the 6mm BCO- pass on that one...IMHO

3 hours ago, domstar said:

However, the sky is greyish

This is a good sign!

This means you were well dark adapted. Under 21.8 mag, transparent skies I see the sky as grey and can see well in the open. If I turn a light on to read something for instance and then turn it off the same sky is now jet black.

As Vogel says:

"All cats are gray in the dark"

http://www.reinervogel.net/index_e.html?/Hickson/hickson_e.html

52 minutes ago, wesdon1 said:

Thanks for great reply/advice! I own plossl eyepices in following sizes-10mm, 20mm, 25mm, 32mm and a 3.6mm. 2 x Barlow. 5 x Barlow. SW Light Pollution Filter. Moon Filter/Green. Thanks again sir!

You're most welcome.

Excellent selection of eyepieces and they will serve you well. A good addition to view planetary nebula such as M27 and M57 will be a tight OIII, such as the new Astronomik version. The tight OIII's will greatly enhance your views of M42 and planetary's M27/M57 and espc from your skies.

On M42 with OIII your 32mm is a superb combo IMHO

and M27/M57 will be great in the 10mm and 5mm (barlow) with the OIII. These ones will take much more mag (planetary's) than nebula like M42.

On M81/M82 try the 10mm after finding them

Great hunting to you!

16 minutes ago, scarp15 said:

Thanks for pointing that out Gerry. Yes of course, the Magic Carpet is considered to be a photo planetary nebula. At high power I noted that it had begun to misshape, becoming a bit more oblong in appearance. I had forgotten the research on this, another time I will aim to apply increasing more higher power. 

In the 24" around 250x-300x it looks like a little waving carpet lol! Glad you got out to obs Iain.

32 minutes ago, markse68 said:

The worst I read was on a blog- can’t remember whose but they said words to the effect of you should never clean your eyepieces and if you do you may as well chuck them in the bin and buy new ones as they’ll never be the same again. Little bit extreme 😂

My dob maker worked in the coatings industry years ago and the info he passed on was valuable to me. My 15" has a very small spot of coating deterioration, all my fault. It started to condense in the mornings in my garage and with dust/pollen/bug stuff on it etc. I was warned... Now I have a new, better storage place with a small light bulb to help and less humidity in there.

Its not only fungus that eats coating its the reaction of organics with water on the optics too. The good new is your eyepiece should work fine as does my 15"

1 hour ago, markse68 said:

What’s that saying- keep your glass clean so you don’t have to clean it!

Sorry to hear this about your eyepiece.

There seems to be a culture of "not cleaning" optics on SGL... I clean my optics regularly and one of the issues with not cleaning them is organic matter and fogging or dew. Mirror coatings are more sensitive in general than eyepiece coatings but over time tree pollen, organic dust etc mixed with water (dew, fogging) will eat coatings.

Not sure if this is your case, but its a possibility.

2 hours ago, scarp15 said:

Next I aligned to look at the Planetary NGC 7027, The Magic Carpet Nebula.

Excellent report Iain!

Sh2-91 is such a transient object, any one of numerous things happen and its just not visible.

The Magic Carpet- did you see the little wag of an extension- the carpet feature? That feature just makes this object for me, that and the color.

2 hours ago, John said:

Very impressive collimation tools Piero and a very exacting approach to getting things spot on

Makes me a little embarrassed with my cheap plastic cheshire approach 

 

Maybe thats why you didn't find the Leica zoom/VIP better than your Ethos!

2 minutes ago, Piero said:

That 1.25" spacer screw on the BCO barrel?

If so, what is the distance from the top surface of the 2"-to-1.25" adapter to the BCO barrel included?

That's your X (in millimetres).

Yes your right I just looked at Neils link to the VIP- it does include the spacers. Its 1.6" . I forgot all this stuff lol!

1 minute ago, Piero said:

You are not using the two 15mm spacers. So you need to subtract 30mm. Minus another 5mm due to the lack of bottom ring.

I'm puzzled- is the 10 BCO with its 1" nosepiece and no 15mm spacers not 2x for 5mm?

2 minutes ago, Piero said:

Okay, so it should be about:

1+(64-5-30+X)/64 

Where X is 2",1.6" 1" or .6" in mm.

For instance, if X = 25.4mm (1 inch):

1+(64-5-30+25.4)/64 = 1.85x
 

I think I misled you on the numbers...

14 hours ago, Piero said:

Could you post a photo of your VIP, please?

You know I used to have this all figured out- now I just use the stuff to observe! Ok I think I got it...

With both spacers its about 2.7" from the BCO shoulder to the VIP element, so 68.6mm +64mm/64=2.07+1= 3.07x

So if true then 10/3.07= 3.26mm for 2499/3.26mm=766x.

If I pull it out another .6" =15.2mm. 15.2mm + 68.6=83.8+64=147/64= 2.3+1=3.3x

10/3.3=3.03 for 825x max mag

So far then 766x seated and 825x pulled out.

2 hours ago, Piero said:

(*) the total spacer coming out of the 2"-to-1.25" adapter can be 2",1.6" 1" or .6" long

This is correct-thanks Piero!

These dimensions are from the top of VIP to bottom shoulder of 10BCO.

14 minutes ago, Piero said:

Is it a tall eyepiece or you have another spacer holding the eyepiece?

19 minutes ago, Piero said:

Is it a tall eyepiece or you have another spacer holding the eyepiece?

I bought some nose pieces from Agena Astro years ago to play with this and they are .75" and 1" long. They can be used alone or screwed together for the 1.75" measurement. They are screwed on the BCO's existing nose piece, holding the EP farther from the barlow. It works extremely well with this EP. It also works great with the Docter and this is how I get so much mag with it, after using all the VIP's T2 spacers.

These spacers work well with some ep's better than others.

https://agenaastro.com/blue-fireball-1-25-spacer-ring-1-extension.html

15 minutes ago, John said:

At F/4.8 the 21mm Ethos is very, very good. At F/5.3 it is very, very, very good.

The exchange rate is therefore: .5 wave = one very.

Hope that helps

I have referenced the telescope-optics website many times but rarely understand more than a few % of what I read on there.

I'm a bear of little brain when it comes to maths !

 

Does f4.8 show more coma than f5.3 using the 21E John?

7 hours ago, Littleguy80 said:

Haven’t seen the Cheeseburger recently but will put that right soon! 

Thanks Neil, last night was VG- after packing up I came back down where I could see the southern MW split and the other horizon features as well. The MW was horizon to horizon and extremely bright- not the best for here but really good.

The Milky Way lit up my obs spot enough so I had tree reflections on my car hood and I had zero issues seeing once dark adapted. My Alum ladder rungs were plain as day to see etc.

Question- can you get Cheeseburger separation with the 10"?- how high mag do you go?

The Leica failed miserably on these objects for some reason-transmission issues possibly? Great on lunar/planetary though.

8 hours ago, Piero said:

Great report, Gerry! Given the smallish image scale, I reckon your dobson should work very well on planetary nebulae and small galaxies. 

Regarding the VIP, it depends on how you configured it.

Natively, it's 1+(64/64)=2x . If you change configuration, you need to recalculate the 'first 64' in the formula. Could you post a photo of your VIP, please?

Thanks Piero, this scope is working very well and surprisingly on objects like the Veil- I had more detail than ever last night.

In the image I had both rings on and the distance from the top of the VIP to the bottom of the eyepiece shoulder is 1.6".

I can use this as a small range zoom, pulling the unit out of the VIP a bit.

Commonly used measurements are 2",1.6" 1" and .6".

I don't have the bottom adapter ring on as I "sink" the VIP nosepiece in order to help with clearances using diagonals.

Looks like after a certain point the HR3.4mm should be employed- I used it the other night at 735x - it is excellent in this scope as well.

Thanks Piero, Gerry

Dug out the SQM tonight just for fun and low and behold it registered a steady 21.8 after warming it up. The initial reading was 22. Transparency was a step up from the other nights so the 24" was wheeled out and already cooled, within 2 degrees.

I'm liking planetary nebula at the moment and viewed a couple of interesting ones tonight- the Fetus nebula NGC 7008 and the Cheeseburger nebula NGC 7026. The Leica zoom was tried and replaced by the venerable 10mm BCO/VIP as the views suffered in the zoom, but this ortho brightened the view substantially. The Fetus nebula is a largish odd shaped object and I preferred no filter going way past 500x- more on this later. This one seemed to like around 500x for me anyway. This is a VG visual target.

On to NGC 7026 the Cheeseburger nebula. I had the Sky Commander programmed with a bunch of objects and forgot the names, just using the identifiers to locate. When I put this one in the eyepiece with the 20mm Lunt, it gave hints of something other than a boring planetary... in goes the 10BCO native, more showing-into the VIP it goes for 500x and the separation became evident revealing its namesake.

I have nosepiece extensions that I use with the 10BCO/VIP to increase the barlow effect- they are 1" and .75" I think and can be screwed together. The Cheeseburger took all the combo had! 2 great little "buns" with dark separation in between! If anyone has the chance try this one and crank up the mag, ortho preferably.

So, now the question... I forget how to calculate the barlow effect with the VIP- does anyone know or remember? I had 1.75" of extensions on holding the 10BCO up in the barlow, plus the EP nosepiece itself.The mag will calc very high I believe and is useful on certain objects.

Thanks, Gerry

ps who put all those galaxies near NGC 6079?!