Highburymark

Congratulations Dave - a superb replacement. Look forward to your impressions when you’ve spent a bit of time with the new scope. Particularly interested in practical issues - weight, ease of mounting, focuser, ergonomics.

Fantastic image Nigella. Incredible detail.

It’s the London light outside Kensington Town Hall I struggle with Jeremy.

It was very busy today. Lot more people than I was expecting. Good to meet up with the night vision contingent and discuss all things image intensified.

Without doubt people’s individual eyesight affects their ability to see differences between eyepieces. You need to tick several variables to get the best out of eyepieces: obviously seeing, position of target in the sky, type of target, collimation etc. But good eyesight is one of those variables - not only to appreciate sharpness, but colour and contrast too. But it’s worth repeating that, on axis, the differences between 95% of eyepieces on the market are very slim. With most expensive EPs, you’re paying for better edge performance and wider views in faster telescopes. A very small number of exceptional planetary eyepieces will show more detail on axis, using a combination of better glass, coatings and polish - but even then you need excellent seeing (and good eyesight) to really appreciate the benefits. For many observers, the easiest way to ensure a step change in views - particularly of solar system objects - is to use both eyes and get a binoviewer.

Though I’m now a confirmed refractor man, I started off with a superb Mak, and so retain a huge regard for them as planetary and double star scopes. I wonder if your impressions would have been closer if you’d used the same diagonal for both scopes throughout. That alone could have skewed the results towards the Tak - depending on the quality of the SW mirror? If it was the 2” dielectric though, it should be pretty good.

The problem I’m having is with small birds like warblers, trying to work out what bird you’ve seen fleetingly, with age and sex making things doubly difficult. But I doubt that even a £4k piece of kit like this would provide conclusive answers.

£4,000 for a single stack 60 with a B1200 blocker, which you really need for binoviewing. Goodness knows what the Feathertouch version costs now. What puzzles me is these dedicated Lunt scopes use smaller internal etalons, which is where all the cost is located. Yet the double stack 60mm etalon - a full 60mm aperture - is £1200 cheaper. Doesn’t make sense. It’s a real shame because they are lovely scopes, priced sensibly in some markets, but not in the UK.

Is already upsetting some birding purists. Like go-to mounts, night vision and smart scopes in astronomy, it rather hands things on a plate to the observer. I’ve reached a stage in birdwatching where many of the species I’ve yet to see are incredibly difficult to positively identify, so I say, bring them on. Brilliant technology, and if it helps people appreciate nature, then all’s good. But £4k!! I’ll wait for the SVBony version.

Excellent job Dave. Nice collection of eyepieces covering all needs.

I don’t have any experience with table top dobs, but I’d have thought they’d be ideal for such a trip. I’ve taken scopes in cabin baggage many times. I started with a 105mm Mak - it was great but not ideal for DSOs. Since then it’s always been refractors between 80mm and 100mm. I’ve settled now on a TV85 which is ideal, but (for example) an 80mm ED is almost as good. They really deliver - and provide the wide views that are so impressive in dark skies. The only drawback? Objects like globular clusters aren’t resolvable with just 80mm aperture. A Heritage or C5 might be a better choice for globs and galaxies.

They are not really designed for fast scopes unfortunately. On axis views would be great, but expect to see fuzzy stars around the field stop - even though the AFOV is relatively narrow. I do like the idea of minimum glass eyepieces at lower powers though. Widefields tend to dominate at that end of the market, yet if you don’t mind a narrower fov, top quality minimum glass eyepieces (including the best microscope EPs) can improve transmission and contrast of DSOs - for example squeezing out more detail of galaxies and nebulae.

I agree John - and the ‘several hundred £s’ is now rather more for all but the very cheapest dedicated scopes. Have a look at current new prices for the Lunt 60, and you’ll see that even this modest aperture scope, with a small internal etalon (cheaper to produce than the better performing, full aperture external etalons) is many thousands new. Double stacked is almost double the price.

I’ve had various set ups - a Quark which was poor, two Lunts which were great double stacked but both (one in particular) underwhelming single stacked. A couple of Baader/Solar Spectrum Sundancers which were basically nice etalons, but with other (significant) problems, and a double stacked Solarscope 70mm, which is wonderful - though once again, nothing particularly special single stacked. I’ve learned enough to show that all brands are highly variable in both quality and bandwidth, but Quarks/Solar Scouts and Coronado are more variable than the others - a view backed up by specialist forums like Solarchat. But these are mostly cheaper, entry level products. Interestingly, the real Rolls-Royce etalons were produced many years ago by Solarscope and pre-Meade Coronado. Though if you dig into the history of commercial solar Ha filters, all four brands share a common ancestry. One thing’s for certain - Stu’s route is a very cost effective route to wide-aperture observing. But the Beast will require good seeing to really shine!

I’d agree on the reaction of the public - many are disbelieving of what can be seen in Ha if they haven’t looked through a solar scope before. Last year I was fortunate to catch an X-class flare develop and diminish in real time - it was without doubt the most spectacular thing I’ve witnessed since starting astronomy. Even after (I’d estimate) a thousand observing sessions over a decade, it’s still thrilling to be able to study our own star in such detail. The drawbacks are cost of course, and variability of filter quality, but Stu has shown it is possible to do things reasonably affordably.

Brilliant Stu - it sounds incredible. Early morning/early evening solar sessions for the rest of 2024 I reckon. Particularly impressive that you’re getting such good surface detail. Kudos to Peter - an amazing scope.

Sorry to hear this and hope they are indeed ok. It’s why some eyepieces have undercuts! I’ve had a couple of scares with rotating binoviewers over the years, and undercuts have saved the day.

This is a specialist binoviewer - primarily designed for those who can’t reach focus with traditional BVs. The complex optics aren’t quite up to the quality of simpler binoviewers, and yes, it only offers a relatively narrow field of view. Certainly not ideal for DSOs. I’d only recommend it if you can’t use other units. At that price you could possibly get a Baader Maxbright II - with nice wide views, and excellent quality. Or the cheaper Chinese BVs (WO, OVL, TS, Celestron etc) are pretty good - narrower prisms though.

Then there was that bizarre Vixen 1.25” 100mm finder eyepiece, which I thought was an April fool when first pictured

Didn’t know about the 80mm - certainly never seen anything of that focal length here in Europe, apart from the 3” Masuyama 80mm. But that costs around twice an Ethos 21mm IIRC. I’m happy with the 67mm TeleVue which I use most nights with night vision. Did try it in a C8 once without night vision and it was pretty decent.

I would ask on solar chat - they’ll know about this filter. But have you tried the standard Lunt kit? I didn’t think the double stack 50 was dim at all. But you’ll be limited to powers up to about 70x - that’s more to do with the lack of resolution than brightness. For visual it’s critical that you cover your head and block out any external light. Then high power views are much more impressive.

Magnificent Stu - glad to have made a small contribution to this project - 2024 should be memorable for solar Ha. Happy new year!

I also agree with this Jeremy - in fact the screws on my Tak extender 1.5x have soft ends - not sure if the same rubber-like substance is used on the new barlow or not, but it works well. Afraid I can’t get too worked up about the issue.

Agree. I use Clicklocks on two pairs of binoviewers with eyepieces as short as 4mm - and they are perfect. And an added benefit: none of the undercut melodrama.

Any thoughts on this eyepiece yet Jeremy? Don’t think anyone’s reviewed them on SGL. Most comments on CN are pretty favourable, claiming the TPLs outperform most competitors. I’d only be interested if they beat TV Plossls - but haven’t seen any direct comparisons yet. I’m not too bothered about edge performance in fast scopes - more concerned with on axis.