Highburymark

Great stuff! You don’t need to spend a fortune to get a good dielectric 2” diagonal Victor. The Skywatcher (or equivalent) one is absolutely fine - just as good as the more expensive ones in my experience.

One thing I’ve started doing is using a manual blower at the start and end of every observing session on telescope and eyepieces - even if it’s a 5 minute solar session. It’s so easy and it significantly lengthens the period of time between major cleans. I mostly use Zeiss wipes for eyepieces, but Baader fluid is very good for dissolving pollen and other nasties.

Great report! Felt like I was there with you, and shows just how flexible and capable a good 4” frac can be. Excellent Mars capture too.

You have a wonderful pair of Morpheus eyepieces, perfect for binoviewing - I’d stick with these and use GPCs and/or barlows for higher powers. I do most of mine with pairs of 24mm and 18.2mm eyepieces, then use 1.7x and 2.6x GPCs and sometimes Barcon barlow for closer views (adding spacers between the BV and barlow to increase power). Be aware though - the 1.7x Baader GPC is only 1.5x in reality.

Good luck to everyone travelling to Galloway this weekend. Hope you get clear skies.

I suspect the difference between them is wafer thin Jeremy. Of the reviews I’ve seen, they are both slightly ahead of the best widefields. It’s just a question of how often you get to use them. The 3.3 gives around 225x in my scope, which has been too much for Mars until last night, and too much for Saturn, Jupiter and Venus all year from my urban location. But clear now it’s worth waiting for that rare special night.

I bought a Takahashi TOE 3.3mm a while (6 months-ish) ago, but have resisted posting any opinions because, frankly, I hadn’t had enough experience with it under steady skies to do it justice. But tonight that changed. For the first time this opposition, Mars was perfectly calm through my 4” refractor. Which meant I was able to test the TOE against my other planetary eyepieces - TV Delites 4mm and 3mm. The two Delites are the sharpest and most comfortable high power eyepieces I have ever used. They are the reason I sold my Nagler 3-6 zoom, and Nagler T6 3.5mm and 5mm. But for the first time tonight, they were humbled by the TOE. The Delite 4mm delivered beautiful views at 185x, more detail and colour than I have seen on Mars ever, I think. My previous best results were in the Canaries several years ago. But tonight - when I inserted the TOE 3.3mm, I was amazed to not only see a larger disk, but a sharper and more detailed one too. It was exquisite. Eye relief was super comfortable, and a nice wide field was appreciated for my manual mount . I spent 40 minutes just drinking it in. I briefly tried the 3mm Delite, but it proved too much. Now it wasn’t perfect - it didn’t get rid of my floaters. or magically counteract the changes in seeing. But tonight I finally saw just how how good this eyepiece is, and why it’s getting such rave reviews from experienced observers in the States.

Very nice indeed Jeremy! Would love one but think I’ll wait for the 140DZ.

Great report Victor and what a terrific first light. There is nothing that compares with a nice apo refractor on the Moon. As you say, it’s almost shocking. I can pretty much guarantee that the colour you saw around Mars was not the fault of the telescope. I use a Takahashi FC-100 for planetary and I haven’t had a single session this opposition that hasn’t shown a blue aurora around Mars. Similarly I’ve used ED scopes that show colour on the Moon one day, and not the next day. Atmospheric conditions and eyepieces play a big part. Look forward to hearing more about the new scope.

No - what I said was a bit confusing - I played around with the pressure tuner all the time. Just meant I tuned it in single stack first time before adding the second etalon. From then on didn’t take the ds filter off, but used pressure tuner and ds tilt tuner. Looks like a nifty bit of kit, though the filters are well machined, and you can easily unscrew them by a single rotation without any danger of them falling off. Just have to be sure you don’t forget about it, and unscrew it by another rotation next time, and the time after that, and the next time, and ........

Excellent Victor - looks beautiful!

They look superb. Lovely finish and attention to detail.

That’s the way I always did it when I owned pressure tuned double stacks Al. Single stack first, then tune with the double stack filter. The double stack stayed on the scope from that moment on - never took them off. Continue to experiment tuning the DS filter during each session - you’ll find it helps bring out different solar features, depending on activity that day. It’s a great set up - congratulations!

Worth checking out solarchat Nigella - where members have been experimenting with triple stack for ages. All about light throughput and compatibility of filters. From the images you’ve posted recently I don’t think you’re in need of any extra help. 👌

Think this just re-emphasises the variability among all solar manufacturers’ products. Normally I would expect Solarscope to outperform everything else on the market. Certainly I’m very happy with my SF70DS filters (after previously owning two double stack Lunts - 50 and 60 - both of which were excellent, but the SF70s are a real step up). Most obvious benefits are greater contrast on surface features, bigger sweet spot, and ability to go up to 120x while retaining sharp views. Gavin’s experience is different. From his reports it sounds like his Lunt etalons are extremely good. Others on this forum (Brian - Solar B in particular) have had real problems with Lunt filters - disappointing bandwidth and finesse producing washed out surface views. It is really luck of the draw what you get - and that certainly applies to Coronado and Daystar too.

Nice one Gavin. Very interesting journey you’ve been on that you’ve had better results from your 60mm Lunt than Solarscope 70mm filters. Not often that happens, but looks like you’ve got a cracking set up now. Must be pretty good if you could get decent views yesterday when the Sun was so bland - sign that the bandwidth will deliver great contrast when we get more activity. Keep meaning to try triple stack with my Quark and SF70 filters, but not convinced it’s going to be bright enough. To jump in and answer Vin’s question - despite being a dab hand with his mobile phone camera and night vision system, Gavin doesn’t do solar imaging.

Great choice of scope - significantly better double stacked, as single stack often fails to produce satisfying surface detail. One eyepiece is not enough unless, as pointed out above, it’s a zoom - of at least reasonable quality. Otherwise three Plossls would do the job well - with magnifications of around 25x, 40x and 55x. Once you get familiar with the scope, it’s very easy to set up and use. You can be observing in 30 seconds. For imaging, you need the B600 blocking filter minimum.

Congrats - I’ve just added a 2” Chroma ha filter to my night vision set up, and it’s superb.

I use a night vision eyepiece to enhance visual observations. We are all grouped under ‘EEVA’ on SGL, but there are so few of us using night vision (5 on SGL??) we don’t crop up on these forums very often.

It’s a Stargazers‘ Lounge acronym for electronically enhanced astronomy. Embryonic, and viability not yet proven 🙈

It seems we have completely opposite weather systems John. Wet and cloudy down here, but glad you got some observing time. The huge active region has been fascinating to follow.

Very interesting Mike. Love following your eyepiece journey!

I was lucky enough to buy a T2 BBHS amici prism from another SGL member Mike (I-Peace) a few months ago. I’ve used it mostly for Moon observation, and can say it is perfect. No spike whatsoever, and I use it at magnifications up to 225x. Quality every bit as good as my other T2 diagonals - a standard BBHS and a Zeiss prism. I know Mike dealt directly with Baader when he was buying it and did send one or two back he wasn’t happy with I think.

Those little SW mounts are pretty robust - I’ve had scopes over 6kg on mine and it’s been great.

Not sure there are any new modding opportunities with this range - Lunt’s been making removable internal pressure tuned etalons for years - though they are double stack units (for the LS80 and LS100.)