F15Rules

Looking back at the OP's question "..and does it really matter?", my response would be an emphatic " No, it doesn't!"

Why do I say that?

Because I believe there are SO many variables affecting each and every one of us, that a simple bench type formula simply can't cope with all those variables. Consider a few of them:

- Atmospheric conditions, moisture content, Jetstream, humidity etc

- Local geography and micro climates, ie hilly, flat, prevailing winds, grass/vegetarian/soil conditions

- light pollution (nearby eg street lights and further away eg city/town/industrial light domes)

- scope..size/type/quality of optics, cooling time, quality of focuser etc

- mount ..size, type, quality, eq or altaz/push to (the highest theoretical magnification of any scope will only ever be reachable in a meaningful way with a driven mount)..at 400-500x mag on those rarest of nights, "nudging" a scope every few seconds won't allow prolonged observing for several minutes, during which you might just get those few moments of perfect seeing.

- eyepieces..optical quality, focal length, whether used singly or in pairs ie binoviewing, coatings, fov etc

- critically, you/me, the Observer.. our eyesight, our age (tolerance of cold or heat), our motivation on a given night, our alertness or fatigue levels, our dark adaptation, our pre-preparation (observing lists or casual "quick peep"), observing alone or with friend(s)..

The list is almost endless.

In my own case, I know for a fact my right eye (historically my observing eye) has deteriorated in the past 5 years, so I've had to train my left eye to be my cyclops eye. I also binoview more as it definitely helps using two eyes on some objects (not all).

My present site is Bortle 4, so quite good, but we have a microclimate which often means seeing doesn't settle til midnight or later, whereas in my previous Bortle 5 area the light dome was more obvious, but the flat landscape meant that I could get out earlier on clear nights and have decent seeing. And, since I was working then, that was important to me, as I had to often rise early to travel for work. Now, being retired, it's easier for me to have a late night from a commitment perspective, but I'm now 5 years older and struggle more with motivation for late sessions (especially in cold winter nights!)

So, no formulas for me. But I do still tend to think of low, medium and high powers, and, with my 5" Tak, that is usually Low, c 30-50x (31mm UWA), Medium 70 - 130x (9-14mm, eg Morpheus 9mm, Pentax 10.5mm, Zoom c12-15 mm setting) and High (7-3.5mm, eg Barlowed Pentax/Morpheus/Zoom, for c (140-300x).

Note: My Tak manual says try up to x500 on the best nights! - but in the UK c 300x or so would be the very best I could use where I live, even though I don't doubt the scope's optics are good enough to go higher- if I lived in Arizona, perhaps.

So, these days I just enjoy whatever I can get and am grateful for that😊😊

Dave

26 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Wish I could see, but neither my iPhone nor iPad has been able to load UKABS for a few days - asks me for password. Anyone else found this?

Try this, Jeremy?🙃.

H.And.L.e123

28 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

it's a bit plain and boring tho, no distinctive styling to make it pop when fitted to a scope 😉 

..Jeremy won't care..it's a handle!😂

https://www.astrobuysell.com/uk/propview.php?view=191340

Dave😋

I've been without a Baader Barlow for too long, so my thanks to @Knighty2112 (Gus) for the prompt delivery of this mint condition Hyperion Zoom 2.25x..

It'll transform my MkIII Barlow to a 3.5mm -10.5mm high power unit, giving me on my Tak 5" a range from 297x down to 99x👍..

Also, (and this is the great thing about Baaders' zooms at 2.25x), it will work with my Pentax 10.5XL to take it from 99x up to 223x - a little more than a 5mm XW, so effectively giving me 2 Pentax quality mid- hi power planetary eps😊.

Dave

10 hours ago, Paz said:

I think I have the following roughly, including pairs for binoviewing...

2 Naglers

8 Delos

1 TV Plossl

4 Vixen NPLs

9 Vixen SLVs

1 BST

2 ES82"s

1 Baader 8-24 Zoom

1 Baader microguide

10ish non descript plossls

I make that about 39 eps, Chris..so you're just over halfway to Louis' total...👍😋

Dave

10 minutes ago, Louis D said:

72 unique eyepieces.  Several are duplicated for binoviewing.  I also have dedicated microscope eyepieces for my microscopes, but I only use one pair of them for astronomy, so not counting the rest.  I have a TMB Planetary II 2.5mm incoming, so 73 then.

A couple of newer ones didn't make it into that the group photo like the 20mm Meade 5000 UWA and 40mm Lacerta ED.

😱😱😱😱😱🤦🤦🤦🤦😂😂😂😂

Like others, I stoped buying AN and Sky at Night mags regularly some years ago..the only time I would buy one now would be at an airport shop to read before, or during a flight abroad..but that could just as easily be a motoring magazine too! I agree it's nice to physically have something to hold though..in my case a book these days.

Years ago these mags were the only source of colourful photos of exotic objects, and they instilled wonder, inspiration, even, to most amateurs. These days images like that can be found instantly online or on forums like this, and tbh, the "wonder" factor has been diluted, for me at least.

My biggest inspiration these days comes from looking through my scopes, whether at tiny point sources of light on clusters, globulars or the Milky Way, a sparkling half moon, the planets and brighter nebulae. Not a "grey smudge" man myself, but fully respect those who do like them, and also our imaging colleagues who deserve kudos for persevering in looking at laptop screens for hours on end..each to their own👍😊

Dave

I've got two sets, one for cyclops viewing, one for binoviewing..

Cyclops set is 1 TMB/Burgess 5mm, Morpheus 9 & 17.5mm, Pentax XL 10.5mm, Axiom LX 23 & 31mm - 6 in all plus 2 Barlows.

Binoviewing set is 4 pairs:

Meade Japan 3000 series 25mm, WO clones 20mm 65deg, Kson 16.8mm orthos, and WO clones 12mm 60 deg.

I'll probably reduce this to 3 pairs and likely let the 25mm or 20mm pair go, as I use binoviewers more at medium and higher powers.

I am pretty certain that there will be changes from here.. (sorry, Steve @Saganite)😋😂

Dave

20 hours ago, SzabiB said:

Amazon men paid a visit for us, just in time. We are off to Outer Hebrides on Monday.

After long an excessive research and many good advice from members, I got the Amazon Basic tripod and the Opticron Adventurer T WP 10x50. (I straight wanted to go for 20x80, but to have multiple use and do some wildlife watching, decided to start with smaller)

Going to try it out tonight. 

 

Have a great trip!

We just had two fabulous weeks up there, staying on Lewis/Harris, Skye and Mull..and visiting Iona from Mull too.

I took my 9x63 Orion Mini Giant binoculars and a nice Vixen SP102 achromat with me. We had great weather by day, but at night the first week was washed out by the full moon, and in the second week there was much more cloud, sadly.

But the bins got a lot of use and we were able to watch red deer from the garden while on Mull👍.

A fabulous part of the world..

Dave

View over Tobermory Bay, Mull

Our holiday cottage on Mull, with Vixen set up in hopes of clear skies..

But we did see red deer most days from the garden, as snapped here via my Orion bins👍😊

My lovely wife taking a paddle on Calgary Beach, Mull..could be the Med!

One of our daughters and her husband joined us for week two..again on Calgary Beach with few others about..

Thanks Knighty..so, it was Europa I saw..my observations were made between c 10pm and 11.30pm..

Paul, no problem at all..and don't underestimate your refractors..I have owned both the Tal and 127L models and both will show Vega's faint optical companion, easily..it's not a close double, and through a refractor it's at approximately midway between the "5"  and "6" positions on the clock face, about 56 arc seconds from Vega itself, see following nquote from Wikiversity:

"At one time (1932), Vega was listed as a double star.[15]

In 1963, Vega is listed as a visual double star.[16]

In 1983, it was listed as a double star.[17] This was repeated in 1994.[18] It is still listed as a double star in 1996.[19] The update in 2001 also lists it.[20] The star with Vega is 56.41 arc sec away and is designated as BD+38 3238D of unknown spectral class. That these two stars are undifferentiated between double star or binary star for some 70 years at only 25 light yrs away is remarkable."

HTH 👍

Dave

Also, please note, I've corrected a couple of typos.. based on Pete Lawrence's article, I believe it was Io, not Europa, whose shadow I saw. And my view was inverted compared to Pete's, so I'm assuming his view was via a reflector, while mine was through a refractor. Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong though! 🥴😂

Thanks,

Dave

40 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

I was all eager to get out but I have a big stye which is affecting my vision plus come 12am clouded over. Cracking picture Dave really great capture.

Thanks Paul, just to be clear, the photo wasn't mine, it was published online and credited to Pete Lawrence 😊.

Here is the Sky at Night article I quoted..

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/skills/jupiter-moons-how-see/

I hope your sty clears up soon, they can be very painful!

Dave

For the second night in succession the skies cleared nicely after dark here in Lincolnshire 👍.

Scope was Tak FS128, used with Morpheus (9mm & 17.5mm), TMB Burgess 5mm Planetary, Pentax XL 10.5mm and Axiom LX 23mm.

Transparency good, Seeing Good, declining to Fair.

Highlight of the session has to be the transit of Europa acoss the disk.. see image below (credit to Pete Lawrence ( just rotate the image to show the refractor view). The shadow was very clear, although strangely I could not clearly make out the GRS at all (seeing was very changeable and "wobbly" at times).

Also a good view of Saturn with Cassini partially resolved (at each edge only).

Other objects observed included Epsilon Lyrae, Vega (good view of it's 10th magnitude wide optical companion to the south south west - have you seen it?), and M13 globular cluster in Hercules, nicely resolved at 100 -150x.

A nice 90minute session, hope you had good skies too!

Dave

On 20/09/2022 at 11:51, SzabiB said:

These two boxes arrived (of course with full cloud cover 🤣)

 

Super quick delivery from FLO. Order was placed on Friday morning and made it to the Highlands this morning.

 

End of the wobble era...here is my new DOB.

The dog hates it, he is freaking out 

Lovely dog..is he/she a Doberman or Doberman cross?

If so, a Dobe and a Dob seem like a match made in heaven!😁

We still dearly miss our much loved Kobi the Dobi, who passed away 3 years ago this December 😔..best dogs you can own IMHO..💙

Dave

Just got in from a short but satisfying session on Jupiter and quick peek at Mars, using Tak FS128, Revelation binoviewer and 25/20/16.8 & 12mm pairs natively, plus with 1.6x nosepiece in nose of the bv for higher magnification.

Jupiter was beautiful, multiple bands some with jagged edges and varying colour tones. Main 4 moons perfect disks.

Seeing was very good, transparency variable, with good dark skies closely followed by spells of Milky light cloud.

Just come in, hoping for fully clear skies tomorrow according to Met office app..

Dave

Made a few changes with the acquisition of a Pentax XL 10.5 mm and TMB/Burgess 5mm, and sale of Nagler T2 12mm: also the addition of a nice Hyperion Zoom MkIII😊

L-R rear: TMB 5mm, Morpheus 9mm, Pentax XL 10.5mm, red light torch and Carton Japan 28mm.

L-R front: Morpheus 17.5mm, Axiom LX 23mm, Axiom LX 31mm (uncloaked), 1.6x Barlow nosepiece, Baader MkIII zoom.

Dave

13 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Yes it’s the Amazon basics model. The only thing I had to do to mine was to apply some quality grease onto the ball joint as it was rather dry when I got it delivered. It’s now smooth as butter in its movements.

Here are some really helpful user/maintenance instructions for this mount and it's variants..written by our resident Binocular guru, Steve Tonkin, aka Binocular Sky on SGL.

Many thanks, Steve!👍

Dave

TG-manual.pdf

3 hours ago, bosun21 said:

No you are all set to attach your 20x80’s directly to the tripod.

As Bosun says, the tripod combo should work fine..you will need an adapter to thread into the binoculars and onto the pistol grip head, unless you have one already..

Dave👍😉

This lovely Pentax XL 10.5mm in mint condition with original box, arrived today, and it looks hardly used.

The forerunner of the XW range, very little difference except the 65 deg fov versus the 70 deg of the XWs.

I had one of these several years ago and loved it.. it delivered superb views, but it had a small piece of debris from the manufacturing process inside which annoyed me, and couldn't be removed, so I sold it cheap with full disclosure..(you could shake the debris off but I just like things to be er, perfect🥴😁). 

This one I intend to keep all being well. It will be interesting to compare this with my Morpheus 9mm, also a great ep but with a 76deg fov.

Although the difference between 9mm and 10.5mm doesn't sound much, it's actually 15%, which in my 1040mm FL Tak with a 2x Barlow gives 230x with the Morpheus and 198x in the Pentax, or 115x vs 99x native..a worthwhile difference, so I may well end up keeping both😊.

Dave

+1 for Paz' choice.

Having used many bins over the years as a supplement to my scopes (and also for nature watching), I've settled over the last 2 years on two pairs (just one size won't do it all for the above use IMHO):

- Orion Mini Giant 9x63 made in Japan. Mine are over 20 years old and are great. I can hand hold them for a short session, but the views on a tripod are so much better (I use a "Ravelli" branded trigger grip and tripod, now available under the Amazon Essentials brand, same item).

The Orion's  also came in a 15x63 version. Quite light and great sharp field stop with a very respectable 5 degree fov in my 9x63s (full aperture, no stopping down). I use mine with Bino Bandits which do a great job of keeping out stray light!

- Vixen Apex Pro 8x32 roof bins. Great quality, 7.5 deg fov, very sharp and work well for both nature watching and Astro. No roof related artifacts or spikes, just sharp natural views with very sharp field stop.

No longer available new, but worth seeking out used.

HTH,

Dave

12 hours ago, RobertI said:

Ok, perhaps the title is a bit of an exaggeration, but I have never been that excited by eyepieces, and I’m wondering why. Do I get excited by telescopes? Most definitely. Mounts? Oh yes, some lovely mounts out there, a Rowan AZ75 is definitely on my list. But not eyepieces. With my new 102ED refractor (admittedly not ‘premium’) with its fancy FPL53 glass, I have considered a new premium eyepiece, but I’ve struggled to find a good case for the spend. I know that the best eyepieces have fewer aberrations, less scatter, etc, but from what I’ve read there is very little difference in what you can actually SEE. And I recall one famous reviewer who said he could make out very little difference between a premium eyepiece and a cheaper zoom when viewing the planets. I bought a couple of Baader Hyperions at least 10 years ago, and have supplemented them with a BST, a Baader Zoom and a OVL Panoptic for wide field, and I have been neither delighted or disappointed by any of them, they do the job, but none have transformed my viewing pleasure. My binoviewer did, but that’s another story! So am I missing out on a whole world of eyepiece pleasure? What am I doing wrong? 🙂

Perhaps Rob's original post should be pinned on SGL as "must read" helpful advice to all visual newbies?🤔..it could save many people a lot of money over many years, me included!

I would only say this: if you have limited funds, as most of us do, buy few, but buy the best you can afford, especially if you own a half decent scope.

It's often been said that single high power, medium and low power eyepieces (or a good zoom and one wide field low power eyepiece eg 24mm-32mm) could give you all you need for many years of observing..

..how often have we started a session with 5, 6 or more shiny eyepieces at the ready, and within 5 or 10 minutes its "I'll just try eyepiece V cos it might be better than eyepiece W"..closely followed by "X,Y and Z - and then back to the start again?

The less eyepieces you have, the more time you can spend looking through them, and I have found that the longer I look at an object, the more I see..because my dark adaptation and averted vision come into play and subtle details can pop out..and this is true of both good and "pretty good but not premium" eyepieces.

Oh, and every scope deserves better than some of the "junk" eyepieces that come bundled with new scopes!

Dave😊

On 10/09/2022 at 13:45, Ludd said:

Vixen tripod doing jellymaking duty

At first I thought you were describing the solidity (or otherwise) of the tripod!🤦😂

Dave

On 09/09/2022 at 20:46, Greymouser said:

Can someone please persuade me of the folly of scratching this itch?

Ok, I'll have a go..🤔😋

Reasons not to buy..

* Heeeaaavvvy!!

* Likely significant CA at F5.9 (but I've never looked through one)..

* Relatively niche market so would it be easy to sell on without a hefty loss?

* The "Marmite" colour scheme..you either love it or hate it..personally I hate it, cos scopes should be white!😋

There..I've done my best, but my money is on your buying one anyway!!🤦😁😂

Dave

Just arrived on the Isle of Mull today after a week touring Lewis/Harris/Skye with great daytime weather, but cloudy nights..

We're now in one place for a few days, so this evening, with promising looking skies, I've set up my trusty Vixen SP102 on SP mount and Tak tripod.

The scope is shown loaded with a Celestron 2" Axiom LX 23mm into a Baader Zeiss BBHS prism with 34mm clear aperture which is the same as the Axiom's field stop, so no vignetting.

We are 9 miles from the nearest lights, so fingers crossed it will stay clear!

Dave