Commanderfish

Bump

Bump!

Now sold, thanks!

Televue Nagler 3.5mm Type 6 in beautiful condition; bought this to use in my smaller scopes but then bought a couple of really big dobs! As such this has been kept in a nice cosy padded eyepiece case! Lovely sharp edge to edge views, typical Televue. Would prefer to keep it in the collection but need the funds toward a new car. Both end caps included. £199 + P&P (probably about £5)

Explore Scientific 20mm 100 degree eyepiece, Nitrogen purged waterproof. Beautiful condition. Optically perfect. 2" barrel threaded for 2" filters. Both dust caps and original box included. I've had some fantastic views with this, wonderful widefield, good contrast, low scatter, and has somehow been useful in all of my 5 scopes (from FL 480mm up to 1600mm). It's just one of those super useful focal lengths. I'm raising funds for a new car so sadly I'm putting this up for sale. Will probably regret it at some point but oh well. £250 plus P&P (should be about £5 RM)

I have the Apollos and use them on a tripod; they are fantastic, clear and crisp with very well controlled CA on the moon (not noticeable on other objects). I have handheld the Apollos, but I don't think that I would be satisfied with handheld views through any binos at x16, whether 2 kg or 2.5 kg. I'm 41 and quite fit - e.g. I carry my 25kg Labrador around occasionally, but I still prefer the totally stable views that come from a mounted telescope or bino - you see so much more when it is steady. For handheld to be acceptable to me I'd need to be down around x8 I think. So I guess the question for you is, will you realistically spend any time handholding, given that you are used to the stability of a mounted scope? If it's not likely that handholding will cut the mustard, then the Apollos are an excellent bino and I'd go for those given the price difference. PS 16x70 is an excellent all rounder size for binos so i reckon you are on the right path either way...

M13 is one of my top three DSOs, but as it is visible from Spring through to Autumn I didn't consider it a summer DSO specifically. When I think of Summer DSOs I think of the Southern Treasures which you can only see at this time of year - as per my post above.

At this time of year I do a little tour in a (more or less) straight vertical line. Starting at the bottom: M8 - Lagoon Neb M20 - Triffid Neb M20 M24 - Sagittarius Star Cloud M18 - Open Cluster M18 M17 - Swan (Omega) Neb M16 - Eagle Neb M11 - Wild Duck M11 Of those, the Sagittarius Star Cloud is probably my favourite - extremely pretty and also mind boggling - thousands of stars, clusters and nebulae in another arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, seen through a chance hole in the interstellar dust between galactic limbs, all in an area just 1.5 degrees wide.

My scopes are all between F4 and F7.5 so I have a pair of the 32mm for use in binoviewers, I also use one on its own in my ST80 uber finder. It gives a very nice sharp bright image and maxes out the field of view for a 1.25". The exit pupil is still a little big at 6.4mm for finding faint fuzzies so I also use a 16mm 82 degree Nirvana to search for galaxies and other faint fuzzies at 3.2mm exit pupil.

The 32mm and 40mm have the same field stop so your field of view is the same. However, the 40mm gives a higher exit pupil and therefore brighter image. This can be useful if you want to use filters such as Oiii, or on high F ratio ("slow") scopes like SCTs. On an F10 scope the 40mm would give a 4mm exit pupil, which is about as big as you are going to get.

Just going back to EP choices for the VX12 F4; I've been using my OOUK VX10 F4.8, with the same 1200mm FL as yours, and a Paracorr giving F5.6 and 1380mm FL. I have found that my most used EPs are (just bear in mind your exit pupils are about 10% larger than this): 41mm Panoptic: x 34 Mag, 7.4mm Exit Pupil and 2 degrees true field - wide field sweeping (13mm Ethos: x106, 2.4mm Exit Pupil, 0.84 degrees true field - great for framing some open clusters like M35 - 38) 10mm Ethos: x138, 1.8mm Exit Pupil, 0.72 degrees true field - galaxies (and planets during poor seeing) 8mm Ethos: x172, 1.5mm Exit Pupil, 0.58 degrees true field - planets. The 13mm gets used the least at the moment because M35-38 aren't up at the moment. The 41mm would give you too large an Exit Pupil in your scope at F4, so I'd go for an Explore Scientific 30mm 82 degree or Nagler T5 31mm. In your scope, the 30mm would be the eyepiece I would start off with each time, then moving to a 10mm, then an 8mm if the seeing is good enough. So I would recommend that the first thing you buy would be a 30mm for wide field. There's actually an Explore Scientific 30mm 82 degree for sale on here for £199, can't go wrong buying used as you can always sell it on for the same price (maybe more if the pound drops again - the new price will go up, pushing up the used price too). I bought one over a year ago with a view to testing out the focal length before changing to the more expensive 31mm Nagler T5, but I like the ES30mm so much that I can't see me changing it to the 31mm T5. Next I would go for an 8mm Ethos in your scope as this gives you a very useful 1.7mm exit pupil (with Paracorr). It gives you x173 mag, but if this is too much for the seeing conditions (i.e. on low planets), you can pull the Paracorr out (coma is less of a issue at higher magnification anyway) thereby reducing the mag to x150, which the seeing conditions ought to be good enough for most of the time. So if you are only buying the Paracorr and 2 eyepieces, for about £1230 (assuming you buy a used ES30mm and the others new), you could get the Paracorr type 2, ES 30mm and an Ethos 8mm, effectively giving you three EPS: 30mm with Paracorr: x46, 1.78 degree TFOV, 6.5mm EP 8mm without Paracorr: x150, 0.67 degree TFOV, 2mm EP 8mm with Paracorr: x173, 0.58 degree TFOV, 1.7mm EP

Nice work!

Yep great EP. I have one and it is very close in performance to my Ethos 21.

Hi Martindale, I'll take the 16mm Nirvana. PMing you.

Tak 102 as a GUIDESCOPE?!!! Sacrilege!!