Highburymark

I may well come round to your way of thinking Derek when I've had chance to use the Ethos more in dark skies. But it's going to have to prove itself against the Delos to which I have become emotionally attached. We have shared too many memorable nights together.

The Panoptic's fabulous, but not fab enough to dislodge a 17.3 Delos (which is probably my single favourite eyepiece, though am slowly absorbing the charm of the Ethos 13).

Shane - I had the opportunity to spend half an hour with the 15mm Panoptic on Friday night. The eye relief is fairly tight - same as the Plossl at 10mm - but it felt more comfortable than that. With the eyeguard turned down - and the extra 18mm AFOV and superb optics - it wasn't a problem.

John - you set the standard to which all us junior gricers aspire - your eyepiece gricing abilities even extend to end caps.

Scope is hibernating at the moment, and don't have a single picture to hand. But if you take the eyepiece and LS50 from one pic (ignoring the Nexstar mount) and put it on the mini giro/manfrotto mount in the other one (ignoring the Equinox), that's my solar set up.

Very nice cases Jeremy - out of interest which eyepieces do you use for solar with your Lunt?

Wow - impressive Michael - an education in itself, that case.

Thank you sir - shame that my OCD doesn't really extend beyond eyepiece cases.....

Nice case. I have had a slight feeling of indulgence every time I've added a new EP over the past year, but after spending the previous 15 years with nothing more exotic than a few Meade plossls, I've learnt to get over that hurdle. It hasn't been cheap, but then if you are committed to the hobby and you are able to acquire decent kit, you may as well do it now and enjoy it for longer.

I wonder if sales of eyepieces and accessories go up when we have a prolonged period of bad weather? They certainly do in my neck of the woods. As the cloudy days have turned into cloudy weeks and months, the only things that have kept me sane have been SGL, and completing the eyepiece project I started ten months ago. Today I added the Ethos 13 - the final piece of the jigsaw - and although the chances of me being able to use it at the moment are practically nil, I can at least look forward to some fantastic views if ever the skies clear.

They're excellent eyepieces - adaptable, competitively priced, and superb in slower scopes.

Drat.I was afraid someone would say that. :-)

Thanks - and maybe it is blasphemy to the astronomy gods to only have one eyepiece for a 2" diagonal....

With thanks for the recent advice, yesterday I added a 2" WO diagonal and TV Panoptic 35 to the arsenal. Worryingly, I'm moving dangerously close to the point when I can say I have all the eyepieces I need.

Am waiting for someone to post a pic of their powermate/ES 120 degree combo.....

Is it obvious from the above that it's a cloudy Sunday afternoon/evening here in London?

And the Nikon 17mm/Powermate combo just outweighs the TV60 as the Ethos is about 80g heavier than the Nikon.

By my (notoriously untrustworthy) calculations, the powermate/Ethos 21 combo outweighs your TV60 by about 100g.

Not the first person to say this but what an excellent report John. A lot of work but the number of views this thread has attracted shows how much it's appreciated.

My first (night viewing) refractor

The front etalon surface lens needs to be 180 - 270 degrees offset to the rest of my set up to really bring it all out. I have read much info on this since you pointed out the 'clocking' technique to me. Thanks ! I want to try and come up with an elegant solution to buffer the slop which occurs when backing off the filter. I have some ideas and if they ever come to a reality I will let you know. The other option is to get it machined from scratch but its going to be around £120 Wow - I'm impressed. This really is the telescope that never stops giving - as long as you have the curiosity and patience to never stop looking

Oh and I forgot to ask, how is the new focuser performing?

Jabeoo - brillant the new filter is delivering the results you'd hoped for. I haven't had a single clear non-work day since we last swapped reports, but had wondered how you were getting on. Are you still using TeleVue plossls mainly - at what magnification? And have you had any success with turning the filter to alter the sweet spot?

I'd noticed that the Docter zoom had gone from the APM website too - nice looking eyepiece but FOV was relatively narrow - 46-56 I think. interesting there's just one fixed EP - which Bill Paolini in his book says is "considered by some experienced observers to be the best EP of its focal length ever made and without peer" . So what they're like in a binoviewer on a clear night is mind boggling.