jetstream

The best scope regardless of type is one that will get used often and is easy to take to dark skies. IMHO.

I have a 24" dob, 15" dob and a TSA120. The TSA 120 offers technically "perfect" views and has "unlimited" magnification performance.Its lunar views are impressive- for its aperture. The 15" which stays assembled and takes 5 minutes to wheel out and collimate is my goto scope and can give lunar views over 700x razor sharp. The difference in detail between the 2 scopes is big. It takes me over 20 min to haul the EQ6 out, level it, get the TSA on it and align and is harder to put away. the 15" has excellent optics. @Dannomiss the H150 will give views that are hard to beat- I have a 90mm APO that gets left in the sea can while the H130 is out observing. It sounds like your main concern is portability. I would look for a short fast refractor-triplet APO in the 90mm-105mm range and not expect it to give more detail on the moon or show more DSO than the H150. It will most likely allow higher mag lunar/planetary views however. Just a thought.

I do the same, what a fast way to get top views without being encumbered by many heavy eyepieces.

Youre welcome, it was Johns excellent review that triggered my purchase years ago. I have not been able to "buy" sharper, deeper or more contrasted views- this EP hangs in there with the best. It does have an opened up view which I like but ortho purists like to point out- but hey its one of Zeiss's designs. For some reason the 6mm BCO is not my favourite.

If you can handle 8mm of eye relief its hard to beat a 10mm BCO- combine this with the Baader 2.25 Barlow and you have an awesome combo. I use it frequently. If the 10mm ortho has too short ER a 12.5mm Fuji ortho is another excellent and well used eye piece and barlows well. Upping the wallet ante reveals the Vixen SLV's and upping it more the Vixen 3.4mm HR is the best EP I own for lunar/planetary. ps... I typically avoid 82 deg + eye pieces for lunar/planetary, the 70ish and under offer much for this purpose.

Totally agree. Unless there is a poor reaction between the scope and the eyepiece ie my Zeiss zoom and f3.8 newt, the eyepiece is the last thing on the list IMHO. For info: the PCII straightens this EP out at f4.1.

I'm wondering what the aperture of this scope is?

My "best newts" have 19%-21% obstruction but they also have vg optics on vg mirror cells that will cool and collimate easily. I've played around with a truly non scientific experiment, going from 19% to 37% obstruction using various scopes. Up to about 25% all seems well and 30% and up shows contrast loss on the moon, on certain size features. All optics have .91 Strehl or higher.

I just focus other TV EP's using the PCII after setting it up for a 21E- or any other TV EP.

My 24" and the Delos do not produce eye reflections for me- YKSE, a respected member here mentioned lens cleaning in that CN thread- have you tried cleaning this eyepiece?

I have tried piles of eyepieces and the Delos has never done this eye reflection- my 10mm Luminos was famous for it. Do you have a link to the CN thread?

Delos...

As long as there is enough room when the screws are partially backed out it should be able to be skewed in either direction and tape is a good idea. The OP could line the scope on something with the finder screws loose a move it to see if it lines up and how much is needed. Obviously there there is no burr or plastic moulding holding it out?

In the long past John I've used shims to align hunting optics because of poorly drilled mounting holes. You can use anything thin for the shim- I used to have dedicated brass shims made just for this but any thin plastic or even paper, matchbook cover can be used. It can be placed just on a quarter of the shoe at the front or back depending on the direction needed. Usually only a very thin shim is required to skew the finder to work.

yes, perceived by us. The actual contrast is fixed between the brightness of the sky and the object. As we use filters, up mag lower mag it changes how we see things through the system.We are trying to "please" the brain so to speak.

I believe there is a "range" of exit pupils that work, somewhat based on the individual. I can't give a mathematical reason or physics reason but it boils down to the tradeoff between magnification and image apparent brightness through the eyepiece. Too much mag will kill a filtered view, way too dark. The wider pass UHC lets more light through so a bit more mag can be used, the Hb less light so less mag and is much more fussy. Hbs have a narrow exit pupil range around 5mm-6mm- my VX10 shows the HH easily at 5.2mm exot pupil, stray a small amount from this and it disappears. Go up and the HH gets small in the EP, go down too dark. Blackwell and Clarks ideas at play. For others: contrast is a fixed between the brightness of the sky and the brightness of the object. The only variable in our control is the darkness from which we observe from.

100% agree and confirmed.

ie my 24" f4.1/PCII @1.15x gives f4.7 which is close enough to compare my nominal f4.8 15" to. Using the same 20mm eyepiece for a ~4mm exit pupil the 24" gives 125x mag the 15" 91x mag, the difference in views is huge.

FOV? Going from 40x to 50x at the same (appropriate) exit pupil is huge regardless of the FOV IMHO.

Thinking about this I recall finding the dot can be challenging at times and we need to be in the right spot physically for it to work right- I assume the OP is lined up himself? My Rigel will throw "ghosts" in the screen when viewing off axis. Shim?

More mag at the same eye illumination in general. Mag matters ie Blackwell and Clark and eye illumination matters as we all know. This is pretty much it IMHO and its hugely important again IMHO.

Hi David, you have some fine optics! I want a Mewlon myself. I use the Denk Binotron 27 binos that Russ figured it all out first- all I do is screw my "OCS" onto the 2" diag nose and then insert into the scope. The binos then insert into the diag. I can use these binos on everything from my 24" down to the 90mm APO frac. He made the extra extension for free.

If it were me John I'd check the optics on this 150 Heritage closely and if they are top notch I'd forgive this minor niggle and get that RDF on target... thoughts?

The 200p's work very well as is but do respond to flocking and stray light control- just like my VX10... Rob Teeter made good scopes, I've chatted with him but in reality price matters and its too bad hes had to re think his telescope business.

Can't you shim the finder itself