Highburymark

Nicely spotted - I must have just missed this yesterday. Can’t afford to miss a second on the Sun at the moment. Whole disk is alive.

On 10/05/2024 at 17:32, PeterStudz said:

That’s brilliant! We use to go quite often. First time must be just over 25 yrs now. Then we had our daughter… of course there was COVID. 

Last year we went for 2 weeks when many of the nights were during a full moon. Not my decision, but have to fit things in with my wife, holidays, when the dogs can be looked after etc. So on that occasion I took binoculars. Now, I like binoculars and they have their uses but a small telescope will still be so much better - if you can get it out there! 

Fantastic. 
If John will forgive me for diverting the thread for a moment, this part of Crete is steeped in history. Right next to Loutro is a tiny cove known as Old Phoenix. When I walked there from Loutro it only had a couple of old buildings. Incredibly, it’s named in the Bible as the port in which St Paul tried to shelter during a storm on his last journey to Rome 2,000 years ago. This area was also used by the retreating allied forces in WW2 to get troops off the island after the German invasion. Amazing place. Even more amazing with a telescope.
 

Excellent - I know there’s a lot of luck involved, but it feels like an achievement, so congrats

Wow, sorry to see the end of that sunspot group - although it may well come round again. Extraordinary detail today, and decent seeing meant I could use the 120mm. By some distance the best sunspot I’ve ever had the privilege to observe.

1 hour ago, Thalestris24 said:

Anyone see any aurorae last night? Nothing visible here, of course

 

I managed to see it from north London - fairly faint but unmistakeable. No real colour, but nice nonetheless.

The huge prom has now dispersed into a colossal cloud of plasma - need to block out as much external light as possible to see it in detail, but it’s some sight.

Thanks Peter - what are the chances of seeing it from N1 in London I wonder? Would be an unlikely astronomy ‘first’ for me if it’s detectable. 

19 minutes ago, Nik271 said:

It was good wasn't it? I was free all the morning and just let the Quark stay on constantly powered on my 70 F7 refractor. Around 10am there was an X flare, it looked like AR 3664 was cracking open and you can see the brightness inside the Sun through the gaps. Lasted a long time too - at least 30 minutes.  Definitely made my day! 

Excellent - I’ve only seen one X-class flare before. Didn’t realise there’d been one today.

Even though I wasn’t thrilled with my example, maybe a C6 makes sense here? Definitely the best aperture/size/weight compromise for travel and mounting. 
I know you have a few nice refractors around 4”-5” John - presume you don’t want to travel with any of those? If you’re just going after DSOs under dark skies, the SW achro might be perfect. But I think otherwise I’d go for one of the Heritage range. I love the idea of a tabletop scope for travel.

11 hours ago, PeterStudz said:

A few years ago I took a little 4.5 inch reflector on holiday to southern Crete. We stayed in Loutro which is Bortle 2. The biggest advantage here is that there are no roads and no cars with those annoying headlight things! And every night a clear night. 

The telescope was our first (it’s in my profile picture) - a SkyWatcher 1145p, originally on a wobbly EQ1 - one of those things people tell you to avoid and NOT buy. But mounted on something a little more stable it’s been fabulous. The OTA, mount, eyepieces etc easily fitting into a carryon hand luggage bag. We did put the tripod in hold, but I’m sure you could get something in carryon too. 

I can well remember looking at the Milky Way, looking at the star chart and thinking (is that really the swan nebula I can see just by looking up?). Sure enough, pointing the  red-dot at “the smudge”, then looking through the eyepiece, there was the swan nebula. I’ve never been able to see this at home in my 8” Dob, Bortle 7 back garden.

The lagoon nebula in particular was stunning. I’ve never seen anything like it. Far better than any image that I’ve seen and for me the most impressive DSO that I’ve seen so far. And all in one of those telescopes people are often told to avoid. We are going back this year and  hopefully organise things a bit better. 

We’ve been to Loutro a couple of times too - amazing place, and the darkest skies I’ve seen in Europe. Sadly all I had with me was a pair of binoculars. Bet the little Skywatcher was perfect.

2 hours ago, Mr Magoo said:

Thanks for the heads-up. I was too late for the prom, but spent a pleasurable 2.5 hours sitting on a park bench in the sunshine, in a nice little park one street away,

with my M500 Mak and a homemade ND sun filter. 3664 is really impressive.

Mark, what scope and eyepiece did you use?

 

Sounds like a perfect afternoon.

I use a couple of 70mm Solarscope Ha filters in my TeleVue refractor (and a large reflective shroud to block out any extraneous light). Frankly, today a double stack set up wasn’t necessary. The proms would have been just as impressive with any solar scope or filter, and single stacked. 

Great day for solar Ha and WL today. The hedgerow prom is one of the largest I’ve ever seen

Nice comparison.
The world is split into two different types of people. The first compares a TeleVue plossl with that of another brand and exclaims “wow”! The second performs the same act and goes “meh”. I have always belonged to the first group, but some respected observers rate other Plossls just as highly. 

On 06/05/2024 at 11:16, Mark SW said:

I asked that question about H-β August 2021 and the response was not what I expected.

S&T editors (Steve) (deepskyforum.com)

from the same source

"j.gardavsky here are some of my H-Beta nebulae as observed through my 6" F/5 achro and through the binoculars, but still not included the LBNs and the nebulae from the HII surveys from my last observin projects."
 

Thank you 

Mark

 

He also uses exceptional eyepieces for faint nebulae hunting - the very best Leica and Zeiss microscope EPs. 

The wider eye lens on the XO makes it more comfortable than a similar plossl or ortho, even though the eye relief is under 3mm. I almost never see the field stop when I’m using it, just hang back a little and use it mostly on a tracking mount as Don suggests. The TOEs (and I presume the HRs?) are obviously more comfortable though, with 10mm eye relief. 
I think it makes real sense at these higher powers to keep at least one specialist planetary eyepiece along with a widefield or two. The two options complement each other perfectly, and allow you to go deeper when conditions permit. 

On 05/04/2024 at 00:51, RobertI said:

How very interesting. I assume this requires fairly accurate tracking to work well. I wonder how ‘real time’ the stacking is - I think it would need to be very fast, of the order of a second or less to recreate that feeling of visual observing and make it worth while going to the effort of squinting through an eyepiece. Even then I assume it takes many stacks to reveal dimmer objects. Not sure about being a replacement for visual eyepiece observing, or a competitor to Night Vision (though hopefully cheaper), but I can see the benefits of the eyepiece view to help quickly setup for some quick and dirty imaging. 

Very interested to see what they have come up with as Unistellar have ditched the electronic eyepiece on their scopes I think. I wonder what the patent is for.

Agree it’s not competitive with night vision. Completely different technology. For visual astronomers wanting to overcome light pollution, observe live DSOs and go deeper, better to put the £1300-£1500 towards a real night vision system. Entry level astronomy grade NV tubes are considerably less expensive now than a few years ago.

20 hours ago, Nakedgun said:

~

14 pages on this one eyepiece? 

Brother!

 

 

 

.

Probably a symptom of almost no new eyepieces for the past 4/5 years, combined with the unique popularity of the 3-8. 
What other launches have we seen? 
Tak TPL. Two new Pentax XWs. APM zoom. Maybe a couple of others I can’t think of.
Think this is the new normal. It’s a completely saturated market. SVB did well to exploit a rare remaining niche, where the only alternative is 4x the price. APM to a lesser extent with its zoom. 
 

Very nice indeed Dave - thanks for posting

9 hours ago, Don Pensack said:

It is when curvatures match that you see a flat field.  When curvatures are opposite, the edge is far out of focus when the center is focused.

FC is always more of a problem with larger field stops, too, so FC will be less visible at the 3.5mm end than at the 8.1mm end.

Yes indeed Don - but this has always made me wonder why we don’t see more people having field curvature issues with the many brands of flat field eyepieces (APM, Altair, Lunt, SVBony etc)? As there’s field curvature inherent in many telescopes. I haven’t used any of that range myself, and I don’t doubt they are excellent, but why buy flat field eyepieces unless your scope has a perfectly flat field?

I notice there’s a Sky Rover version online for around £275 new. Obviously it’s the same basic scope and an excellent price, but they don’t specify FPL-53, which the other brands do. Just say ‘super ED glass’ or something similar - might be worth checking.

I’m not picking up much field curvature at all - maybe it complements the opposite field curvature in my scopes? The 3-8 works well in all three of my refractors in this respect. In the F/6 60ED for example, just a tiny shift of the focus is needed at 3.5mm to make edge stars sharp. 
On the issue of parfocality, it’s very close to parfocal through the range. I don’t need to refocus between 8mm and 5mm, but below that, a small tweak required.

On 17/04/2024 at 12:56, AlcorAlly said:

@Highburymark How much does it weigh please, without the diagonal/eyepiece? 

It’s advertised as 1.52KG for the OTA out of the box - that must include the built-in mounting ring and dovetail. Sorry I don’t have any scales at the moment.

14 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

I haven't started my review yet. I still have to give it a full workout on the 4" Tak. On the 12" I was able to use it at the 5mm, 4mm and 3mm settings on the moon a couple of nights ago. Field curvature wasn't as evident as longer focal lengths and not intrusive. The eyepiece was sharp at all settings against the 4mm Nirvana, 7mm, 6mm and 4mm Circle-T orthos, 6mm SLV, 3.5mm and 5mm LVWs, with some variation - it wasn't a match for the 8mm LVW and the orthos looked 'cleaner'. It couldn't match the 4mm and 3.3mm TOEs in any area; the TOEs were sharper, clearer and had better contrast; they were able to pick up the tiniest of craters - I won't be selling them!

I did note the magnification looked the same as the 3.3mm TOE at the 3mm setting - objective rather than scientific. I also had to fold down the eyecup to feel comfortable. My tiny 4mm ortho was easier to look though!

Yep - the lower setting of the 3-8 is closer to 3.5mm I reckon.
 

The various branded versions of this F/6 60ED refractor are all excellent. I paid £300 for mine a couple of years ago, but you’d be looking at a good secondhand deal now for £250. Clean, sharp optics with FPL-53 glass, a silky smooth and strong focuser, and sliding dewshield all add up to a very compact and capable package - and a proper telescope for visual or imaging.

Definitely go for the 60mm DS, even though it’s painfully expensive. The resolution and contrast increase are worth it. Personally, I’ve never thought proms suffered with a double stack system - they always look similar to single stack. And I wouldn’t read too much into the sweet spot point either - every etalon is different, and it’s impossible to know how two filters will combine until you try them out. Just my 2p worth on all the issues raised.

I’ve only had a couple of night sessions with the zoom so far, both with average seeing (on Moon and double stars), so still too early to form detailed impressions. Ergonomically no problems at all - mine is pretty easy to operate, not too stiff at all. The zoom action doesn’t feel quite as smooth and robust as the Nagler 3-6, but that’s a minor quibble. The optics are - as others have suggested - right up there with far more expensive eyepieces. I feel it’s at the two extremes of the range where other (I used Delite 3mm, XW 5mm and Baader zoom at 8mm for comparisons) eyepieces are marginally crisper. But I need to do more testing before making any definitive impression, particularly on planets. It’s bright and has good contrast. The biggest issue for me is lack of eye relief at 3-4mm. I can’t comfortably see the field stop at high magnifications without eyelash/lens contact. This might seem irrelevant when I have a Pentax XO 5.1 in my arsenal, which has even less ER (a ‘sporty’ 3mm, compared with around 6-7mm for the SV Bony), but with that eyepiece, I know I have to hang back, and therefore use it for short, critical detail views only. I couldn’t use the SV 3-8 at 3mm for long observations. But otherwise it’s clearly a really excellent little eyepiece. I don’t think it will beat existing class leaders, but for 95% of astronomers who don’t have problems with eye relief, it’s a single solution for planets, the Moon and double stars. Mine even came with a free T-shirt.