Highburymark

Exactly. The hope is this would be like the car industry 30 years ago, when the vehicle manufacturers decided to move into the approved used market - bit more expensive than Arthur Daley but more peace of mind for the customer. At least that’s the theory. I wouldn’t be confident buying a used NV tube from an ex-military auction or eBay.....

Definitely a step in the right direction if this business can provide good quality, reliable, secondhand night vision tubes to astronomers at more affordable prices. This technology does have a shelf life - for new units it’s around 10,000 hours, so used ones should still provide many years, if not decades, of top performance. Peter’s eloquent post on how the technology is evolving suggests that the future for night vision astronomy lies not so much in the long-term reduction in the price of new tubes, but in the growth of the ‘pre-owned’ market. And as he says, cheaper and older systems are still good enough to transform our views of the night sky.

Definitely plugs the gap between the Chinese and more expensive units. Nice and light compared with the MkV too. But looks like the GPC will put another £80 on the price.

Think it depends on what you want to see. I had an Equinox 80 for several years to take on holiday to relatively dark sites, primarily to see some dsos as I’m stuck in London most of the time - so these trips provided the best opportunity for me to see a few globulars and nebulae. I felt the extra 8mm helped bring out objects I couldn’t see normally. It is quite a sturdy telescope - significantly bigger than the 72, but fine as part of carry on luggage. At F/6.25, it gave lovely expansive views too. But pushing 4kg with diagonal and eyepiece, so can understand the appeal of the 72.

In response to both charl and Dave’s previous two posts, I’ve tested my Quark at length - at every tuning position in 100mm and 85mm refractors. I’ve binoviewed the Quark. Tried polarising filter. I’ve even tried double stacking with the LS60 (so far disappointing). It’s just the wrong piece of mica to bring out surface detail, but I can’t complain. Proms are spectacular and I’m lucky to have the LS60 for when the surface gets active again. It’s a chromosphere model by the way.

Have to say my Quark gets pretty close too, but not quite at your magnifications Peter. Surface details poor but who cares when the proms are so good.

That would be interesting Dave. Although I’ve got 5 years’ experience of solar observing, I realise I know so little about the imaging process - and about other ha scopes and filters. I’ve got a double stacked Lunt 60 - excellent all-round scope, mostly used for full disc views, sharp surface detail and proms up to 75x. And a quark - excellent for proms with 4” frac up to 100x and beyond, but poor surface detail - particularly at the high mags which quark provides. Prior to this I also had an LS50. But I’d also like to get an idea of what other equipment is capable of - from PST and PST mods up to Solar Spectrum etc.

That’s interesting - thanks charl. I presume it’s easier to do less processing and still get decent images from proms rather than surface features like filaments?

I’ve never done any astro imaging. Visual only, day and night - though I am constantly amazed at the achievements of many solar imagers on SGL and elsewhere. But often those beautifully processed pics showing sharp and high contrast surface features like filaments don’t bear much relation to the view through the eyepiece - and this can sometimes lead to disappointment among first time observers. So I was wondering, is there a resource/website where newcomers to the hobby could see example raw shots of the Sun alongside the final, processed images? Ideally - quality-wise - these shots would be somewhere in the middle of the hundreds of images which would be sorted and stacked during processing. As long as they represented the eyepiece view reasonably closely. It would also be incredibly useful to see how different scopes and filters compare with each other. Considering the price of much of this equipment, there’s not much out there for the uninitiated to learn from, so they know what to expect. Buying an ha scope or filter is still something of a leap of faith. Of course that’s partly inevitable with such technology - every system is different. But that would seem to make such a resource even more valuable.

I suspect the ratio of imagers to observers has grown significantly too - I guess FLO would be able to tell us if that’s reflected in the retail market over the past decade or so. The unstoppable march of light pollution makes it inevitable really, particularly in small countries like the UK where the vast majority of the population lives in large towns or cities, and where suburbia spreads across what used to be green belt. In terms of live observational astronomy, night vision technology offers hope, though obviously prices need to come down - that may take some time. I think solar is going to keep growing. But despite all the problems that light pollution poses, I still think there’s more than enough in the night sky, even from the brightest urban locations, to reward the observational astronomer.

Excellent post Rusted. Much is made of an experienced eye seeing more detail on night targets. It’s also true for solar, I think, though more down to really knowing how to get the most out of your equipment.

That’s the fella - lovely image Dave

There was a beautiful prom on view today - if you check on ‘Gong H Alpha Network’ you can still see it. It often takes a few sessions to get to grips with a solar scope so hope you see more next time

Here’s a pic of the MkV and the T2 adapter/ring. It doesn’t come with either a 1.25” or 2” nosepiece. If you want to use a 2” diagonal instead of a T2 prism/mirror, you would add a 2”/T2 nosepiece (Baader #T2-16), so the order would be: Binoviewer with GPC screwed in - heavy duty ring - 2”/T2 nosepiece - 2” diagonal. Worth making sure first that your refractor will reach focus with such a system.

Hi Alexandar. It’s not just shorter light path that makes Baader diagonals so useful with the Mk V - the binoviewer comes with a ‘heavy duty’ ring which screws directly onto the T2 diagonal , and which makes positioning the binoviewer at any angle very easy. It’s a wonderfully designed system - and extremely strong, which is necessary as the Mk V is a heavy piece of kit. To use it with a 2” diagonal you’d probably need to add a T2/2” adapter between binoviewer and diagonal - adding further to the light path.

Great collection of images Gavin. Looks like the FSQ has tightened up the haloes around bright stars, and cleaned up astigmatism too. Particularly impressive if you were using the 55mm plossl throughout and not Panoptic 41.

I’m visual only too, though I use an Epsilon 130d for night vision. At F/3.3, t’s the perfect scope for this - I’m delighted with it, though perhaps don’t test it quite to the extent that an imager would. Holds collimation extremely well too. Would have thought it was a great travel companion for imaging too. For travel I picked up a lovely TV85 recently. Taking astro equipment abroad is quite demanding on telescopes, so I needed something that was really robust. I also use it for daytime activities too - bird observation in particular. Had always heard that the 85 had bullet proof build quality, which it certainly does, but was heavy and had slightly less than perfect optics. In fact it’s only 3kg for the OTA, compact for carry on baggage, and I’ve been really impressed by the sharp, colour free views, even at high powers on Moon and bright stars. But if you can find one, the Baader apo must be one of the best travel refractors ever made. Nice and fast for imaging as well as exquisite triplet views through the eyepiece.

Good luck - and do report back if you get one Steve. I believe Sharpstar is a relatively small and specialist operation, unlike more mainstream Chinese suppliers. So maybe more interesting products to come.

Well my F/3.3 Takahashi Epsilon (130mm) sucked up enough light to show the Cygnus nebulae very clearly from central London this evening - superfast scopes work well with a 3nm ha filter and night vision equipment. So the Sharpstar looks very interesting for EAA. Must be a tricky telescope to produce. They have a good reputation as a manufacturer of apo refractors, but haven’t seen more specialist imaging scopes like this before.

I just use cheap red dot finders and finder shoes on my FC-100 and Epsilon. They work fine.

Beautiful telescope - and worth waiting for - congratulations Rob

Apologies if this has already been covered elsewhere on SGL, but Baader has finally announced details and pics of the new Maxbright binoviewer on its website. 425 euros - though the price will rise by adding necessary GPCs. 26mm fov, clicklock eyepiece holders. T2 connections of course. Looks very nice.

Have always wanted to try the Ultimas or Baader/Orion equivalents - so many positive reports. From my own experience, I’ve compared Meade and Celestron Plossls with the TV32mm and while they come quite close, the TeleVue clearly pulls ahead on transmission - particularly noticeable on solar ha.

Excellent! £24 is ridiculous.

Among the slightly larger plane-friendly refractors, the TS 90mm F6.7 triplet made by Sharpstar is also interesting. Sliding dew shield, pretty light and compact, and binoviewer friendly. Obviously pricier than the smaller EDs, around £950. But great if you want a true apo with a bit more aperture, flexibility for imaging etc. Sharpstar also produces its own version - carbon fibre tube - sold by 365 in the UK.