Highburymark

Amazing flare right now!!!

Nice report! Glad you’re enjoying the new eyepiece. I meant it in two ways Stu. First, the physical experience (compared to a classical planetary eyepiece like an orthoscopic) is obviously so much more comfortable. As long as you don’t wear glasses, they are perfectly designed for long sessions on the Moon, planets or double stars. And for some reason I don’t seem to get the same problems with floaters that I’ve had with other EPs. But I also have images of Jupiter from last year with the TOEs (225x, 272x and 360x) clear in my memory. Going from Delite 7, Ortho 6, XW5, to the TOEs, I saw something I’d never seen before - features actually looked more resolved in the cloud belts of the planet as I pumped up the magnification. The intricate detail was presented smoothly and sharply right up to silly powers. I’ve observed Jupiter and Saturn many hundreds of times over the years and never seen features stand out in such definition. And no strain at the eyepiece - hence a smoother experience

TV85, by far, as it’s my main solar (and travel) scope.

It’s also extended to binoviewer/binoviewers. The same rules apply I think. Noun is “a pair of binoviewers” and adjective “a binoviewer case”. Just guard against an apostrophe for a straight plural, as in: “I’ve just bought two pairs of binoviewer’s.”

Thanks to your heads up Roy I managed a 3-minute session in the garden before rushing out for work yesterday - very interesting prom

Very nice image Pete! Ags - Thing I remember from trying WL for the first time with an SCT was how difficult the Sun was to find without a well aligned finder. Worth getting some solar film for your finder if you don’t have a proper solar finder for your C6

Excellent shots!

These are remarkable Victor. I know nothing about solar imaging with phones - didn’t know such results were possible 👍👍

Precisely why I said I ain’t no Takahashi eyepiece fanboy. The differences between most modern eyepieces are so small that they come down to personal preferences. So when something really stands out, it’s worth highlighting - just as the Vixen HRs were praised when they were still available. Astronomers had been calling out for some new, top tier planetary eyepieces for ages before Vixen and Takahashi duly delivered. If we are now going to lose the TOEs as well as the HRs, it might be the last chance to grab one.

I’d heard they were just shutting down production for a while as a result of supply difficulties Jeremy, but this was a few weeks ago. Hope this latest report isn’t true.

The 3.3mm would be superb in the 76mm. 170x-ish - perfect for planets. These eyepieces are made for high power - where other eyepieces might start to struggle. Also, the 3.3 is a peach.

In my refractors, I can see the difference between XW5/Delite 4 and 3, and TOE 4/3.3/2.5 every time I compare them. Unless you need the width of the Pentaxes and Televues, I don’t think anything beats the TOEs for comfortable, high powered lunar and planetary viewing. Rather than break down the technical differences between these eyepieces, I just see more with the TOEs- more detail in Jupiter’s belts, smaller craterlets on the Moon, greater definition in the Cassini gap on Saturn. Martin’s description “smoother” is spot on. I also had a Nagler zoom in the past and loved it, but would rate the Takahashis as slightly sharper. I’m constantly amazed at how well the 3.3 and 2.5 soak up magnification. Ordinarily I would rarely go above 225x on the planets, and yet have had Jupiter and Saturn at 360x in the TSA-120 with barely any degradation in views - obviously in excellent seeing. Haven’t compared them with any Vixens or XW3.5 though. And otherwise I have no particular love for Takahashi eyepieces - the orthos I tried had to be sent back because they had debris on the field lens.

After many years tinkering with my solar white light and hydrogen alpha set ups, I’d concluded that the only filter that brings out a little extra detail is the Baader continuum in a Herschel wedge. No filter has improved the view in my Ha scopes, including a couple of ND filters I’ve tried - they just darken the image in my experience, though I know some people report better results. But this afternoon, I was observing the Sun in Ha. Lovely views, as the Sun’s extremely active at the moment. In particular there’s a vast area of swirling activity around three major sunspots. Because I was using fairly low power, the view was reasonably bright, though not excessively so. As an experiment, I thought I’d bung a (Baader single) polarising filter on the eyepiece, wondering why I hadn’t done so before. I was not expecting any improvement, and yet I was surprised to see even more contrast within the active region - it definitely heightened the thin filaments and plasma patterns. I wasn’t turning the eyepiece to vary the brightness - so the incoming light wasn’t polarised. The filter just provided a slightly dimmer and nicer image of the surface features. The next experiment would be to try them on binoviewers by attaching a polariser to each eyepiece. The only other place would be to insert the filter before the diagonal and after the blocking filter (marked with blue tape in the attached pic), which I suspect could cause possible vignetting or introduce aberrations(?). Now - I know Quark and Herschel wedge owners have used polarisers to good effect, but I wonder if anyone else has used them with a standard Lunt/Coronado/Solarscope telescope and seen any improvement? Maybe I’m late to the party here. But I thought it was worth sharing my experience in case any other members might also benefit.

Extraordinary - thanks for posting this!

Beautiful detail!

Gorgeous shots Charl!!

Wow - great shots for a phone. So much to enjoy in white light and Ha at the moment.

AR has been crackling with activity today in Ha. New areas brightening suddenly, then fading back. Seeing not great, but even at 40x-50x it’s a stunning sight.

Very nice - and 0.3A!! If it’s working it will be stunning. Astrograph a good idea. Otherwise Solar Spectrum is distributed by Baader in Europe. Shouldn’t be too difficult to get it set up yourself if you have the right kit. The main things you’ll need, apart from a refractor, would be an energy rejection filter (essential to take advice on this depending on the size of refractor - above 80mm and you’ll need a D-ERF), a telecentric extender and the correct adapters. There should be details online of precisely what’s required. Obviously no risks should be taken if right info isn’t available. You could also call Solar Spectrum in the States.

Wow - nice shots! Actually, the prom I saw was later and much larger - even bigger than in my crappy sketch. But it was very faint. I needed to black out all light to see it well. Unfortunately had a high layer of cloud today so viewing not great.

Great report of a great day Roy!

Images will be interesting Vin. That huge prom has pretty much disappeared in half an hour

Just seen - behind the emerging bright area is a colossal prom - it’s pretty faint, but huge!! Need to black out any light to see it clearly. See sketch.

Oops - two sunspots - I missed one

Very interesting viewing in Ha. The whole region is very bright, a huge plateau of activity the width of several Earths with various spikes of plasma evolving rapidly. Just ahead of this what looks like a large spot. V quick scribble shows current view