Louis D

The Barlow may also push the exit out a bit, increasing eye relief. It may also induce kidney beaning (SAEP) with some eyepieces in my experience. This is because the eyepiece is expecting a converging rather than a diverging bundle of rays. Telecentric magnifiers solve these two issues by adding a second lens group above the magnifying lens group to reconverge the light rays.

Have you flipped over the mount to see if there is a 3/8" photo tripod female thread in the center of the azimuth axis? If so, you can just screw it onto any photo tripod that uses a 3/8" bolt thread to attach tripod heads. It would even work with a 1/4" tripod thread via an inexpensive 1/4" to 3/8" adapter.

If the NLV/SLV top screwed down flush with the eye lens like the old LV roll down eye cup, then I'd have no gripe against it. However, just like the BST Starguider eye cups, it does not, and so it robs about 4mm of usable eye relief from the eyepiece. That's enough to go from comfortable to unusable for an eyeglass wearer like me with deep set eyes.

I have the original mushroom top 30mm ES-82 which is most similar to the 30mm Meade 5000 UWA. Decloaked, mine weighs 973g, a savings of 396g. In a recent thread here on SGL, another member reported their decloaked 31mm Axiom LX weighs about 10%, or 100g, more than my ES-82. It was reported to weigh 1082g in that thread.

No one really knows why they introduced the 3 new LER eyepieces to replace the older ones they're adjacent to. Perhaps they had gotten so much feedback about tight eye relief in the older versions that they thought it would be prudent for them to redesign them and issue longer eye relief versions. So far, I haven't seen a detailed comparison of each focal length against its older predecessor, just some anecdotal reports. If you've seen one, could you link to it?

Man, I envy your face structure then. I can barely manage seeing the entire field of NT4 eyepieces with my deep set eyes. I've thought about using a monocle 🧐 for astigmatism correction since my really tall and narrow nose bridge wouldn't come into play as much with one. I've never been keen on wearing contacts, so that's not an option for me.

I use the GSO CC with a fixed separation of about 75mm. I simply added a 25mm M48 spacer ring between the included eyepiece holder and the optics nose piece. As long as you're within 5mm of the design distance, it's hard to perceive much residual coma. Generally, eyepiece field curvature and edge astigmatism drown it out. I've only had to parfocalize one eyepiece with it, the 12mm Nagler T4. It focuses about 20mm below the shoulder, so I added a 20mm M48 ring to the 2" skirt along with 5 4mm thick O-rings of 50mm ID. When you're 20mm out, the residual coma is quite apparent. I have no idea if the TS Maxfield CC will be as forgiving as the GSO CC, but it might be. Keep us informed of your experimentation in case someone else wants to try it in the future as well.

A Vivitar Series 1 100-500mm telephoto lens from my photography hobby that I adapted to telescope usage with a 25mm macro extension ring, some PVC pipe fittings to get to 1.25" ID, lots of thumb screws, and a 9mm Vixen LV I bought to use with it straight through due to lack of back focus. It made for a really cool, variable focal length, variable f-ratio telescope. Once I had split the Trapezium with it, I was hooked and bought a Dob the next year.

The back focus distance would refer to the focal plane of the eyepiece which is generally close to the shoulder or reference surface of the eyepiece where the lower insertion barrel widens out to the upper barrel. You could simply add M48 spacer rings screwed into the bottom of the eyepiece that would then screw into the top of the CC as one approach to get the required 55mm of spacing. This is how the Baader MPCC is generally used with eyepieces. Alternatively, you could try to use it with an eyepiece holder such as the Baader ClickLock with M48 female thread, again with M48 spacer rings as needed to reach the proper spacing.

Have you had a chance to compare it with the newer 6.5mm 82° LER that the OP is asking about?

Another possibility in that price range having a similar field of view with better eye relief would be the 6.5mm Morpheus.

I recall travelling in Germany around the end of June, beginning of July decades ago with my wife and noted how constantly cloudy and cool it was. I don't think it ever got above 65°F. At the time we lived near NYC, and it was 96°F with full sun when we left Newark airport and then again when we returned to it. It was rather startling that there was a 30°F difference between the two mid-summer. We had each brought one pair of jeans in case it was chilly and two pairs of walking shorts. We ended up never wearing the shorts and instead wore those jeans until they were stiff with grunge. I'm guessing UK weather is similarly cool and cloudy. It must be something to do with the North Atlantic currents. It sounds a bit like the weather in the US's Pacific Northwest.

Using a 24mm APM UFF in my AT72ED yields a 3.6° true field of view (TFOV). While that's decently wide, it's only maybe a degree or so wider than what's achievable with 2" eyepieces in an 8" f/6 Dob. Why limit a natively wide field instrument in such a manner? Put a 2", 40mm Pentax XW in the 72ED and now you've got a 6.1° TFOV (nearly twice as wide linearly and almost three times more area), which puts it in binocular and low power finder scope territory. Instead of barely framing Orion's belt (Collinder 70) or the Pleiades and looking straight through the Hyades, you can now see them in a wider context and actually perceive the Hyades as an open cluster. Looking around the open clusters of Perseus and Cassiopeia becomes an entirely different experience because you can see how they group together in thick and thin patches, large and small. Cruising the summer Milky Way across the sky is also a lot of fun. You can see how various nebula group together with OCs in a single FOV.

It should work well for that as well as Jupiter's moons and some of its belts along with Saturn's rings. Don't expect to pick out Saturn's moons very well, though. They are tiny and dim and benefit from aperture. If you spring for a 2" diagonal and 2" widest field eyepiece, you won't need any sort of finder scope for it. That, and the views while sweeping the Milky Way can be breathtaking at those low and wide mags. You'll also need an alt-az mount and tripod, so budget accordingly.

Probably would be okay for a start, but you'd be limited to about 125x max for planetary work, and that is pushing it. This would be fine for typical UK nights. You will see a lot of purple fringing at that power on planets based on my experience with an Astro-Tech 72ED with FPL-51 glass. Resolution is a bit limited by the relatively small aperture. It would be good for open clusters and nebula, especially large ones. Bright planetary nebula and globular clusters really need more aperture, as they regularly need more than 100x (150x for GCs). Smaller nebula will be limited by the small aperture if the power is increased to resolve them better. Smaller OCs will remain satisfying. This scope would be good for travel as well due to its compactness and light weight. If a scope is too big and heavy to move to an observing site, it's not likely to be used. You might also checkout the TS-Optics 70 mm F6 ED for comparison. It might have nicer mechanicals (R&P focuser, etc.) and be a bit more compact for a similar price if imaging is in your future. I believe it to be the same as the Altair Starwave ASCENT 70ED. I know the non-R&P focuser on my AT72ED slips with 1kg loads near zenith while the R&P focuser on my 90mm TS-Optics APO does not.

Except that @Paz specifically wants a pair for binoviewing, so I'm assuming limited to 1.25" eyepieces. I would think a pair of 17.5mm Morpheus might be a good fit in that case. Anyone know the difference in field stop diameters between these two eyepieces? Regardless, a pair of either would add quite a bit of weight to a BV setup.

If you can find some used LVs for under $70 (which used to happen quite a bit here in the States), they would be a bargain upgrade. I don't know that I'd pay $169 for SLVs when Tele Vue Delites are $269 and Pentax XWs are $266 here in the States. Either would give a very nice boost in performance over the BST Starguiders.

Here's a photographic comparison from Rohr of various fringe filters through an achromat: ohne Filter is without any filter. The Contrast Booster does the best at completely eliminating fringe. Here's the what the various spectrums look like through each filter: It's clear that the CB filter is the most aggressive at cutting violet and blue.

For completeness sake, and so y'all can understand my misunderstanding of car sizes over there, here's the top 25 best selling cars in the US. Notice that the top three are all full size pickups (as is #12).

As I said above, these big gas guzzlers are reserved for weekend and family duty here in the States. They do become the commuter vehicle when the normal commuter car is in the shop for repairs. I can attest they are expensive to fill up even in the States for daily driving duty. However, they are great for hauling the family on weekend outings and weeks long road trips. According to the web, the average number of cars per Brit (1.2/household) is lower than in the US (1.9/household). Thus, it's less common to have extra vehicles for leisure trips in the UK. I know our household peaked at 5 vehicles when we had 5 drivers for a time living at home, all going different directions at the same time. We're down to 3 vehicles for 2 drivers now that we're working empty nesters.

My apologies. I could almost fit that in the back of my Astro Van with the seats removed. That's basically a commuter-only car here in the States. Generally, we would have a larger vehicle for weekends and family trips that sits idle during the work week. I have no idea how much space you'd have left for a scope and mount/tripod after putting your normal luggage in it. Maybe an image of it fully loaded for a trip would help. Or possibly 15x70mm binos. Heck, I was quite happy scanning the skies around the eclipsed moon with my 8x42mm binos Friday morning.

I know some camera lenses like the Tamron Adaptall-2 SP 90mm Macro f/2.5 had a violet hot-spotting issue with digital sensors that was nonexistent with film. It was due to a reflection off the digital sensor back to the near planar rear element and then back to the sensor: Perhaps Baader has better controlled the reflections from the back of the filter than previously?

We had clear, cold, and calm skies, so a beautiful view of the eclipse last night from Texas. Only problem, it peaked at 3am local time, and I had to get up and go to work in the morning. As a result, I set my alarm, got up, saw it looked great, woke up the wife (she had said she wanted to see it if it was clear), and we enjoyed the view through 8x42 binoculars and naked eye. The Pleiades looked great almost right next to it. Orion was due south and amazing through the binos. The Hyades in between were rather subdued, even in the binos. I was way too sleepy to get out a telescope or tripod, so I snapped some hand-held images minutes after the peak with the kit lens on my DSLR and went back to bed. This one came out the best: It fairly accurately displays the range of brightnesses and colors visible, just at low resolution.

A quick comparison of the Telrad versus the QuikFinder after decades of using both: Telrad has basically no parallax issues between the circles and the sky, so your head can bob around. The QuikFinder has a bit of parallax, so the circles drift a little across the sky as your head bobs around. You need to keep your head centered with the QF's window. Telrad circles are much easier to acquire than the QuikFinder circles. I don't know if it is because they are thinner (which they are), the window is smaller, or what, but I'm always having trouble locating the QF's circles. The Telrad is much less frustrating to use in that respect. Telrad circles won't pulse without an add-on. This is built into the QuikFinder. However, I don't find this difference to be at all a big deal. Telrad is huge and best for bigger Dobs. QuikFinder is diminutive, so well suited to smaller scopes. Telrad dimmer switch tends to become a non-dimmable switch over time. The QuikFinder switches seem quite stable over decades. Telrad AA batteries should be regularly replaced to avoid irreversible corrosion damage to the internals. Simply replacing the battery holder doesn't fix the damage done. The CR2025 lithium button cell in my QuikFinder is still going strong after 20+ years with no leakage. Telrad has a 4 degree outer circle. QuikFinder stops at 2 degrees. That extra circle is very useful in light polluted skies where stars visible to the naked eye tend to be more sparse. Attaching the Telrad to its base is a bit fiddly in the dark. I simply can't tell if it is seated all the way without turning on a light. You think you've backed out the locking screws enough for it to drop in when in fact you haven't. The QuikFinder has a tab and a click-lock that are impossible to screw up in the dark.

You forgot to add Little Johnny proclaiming "God bless us, every one!" at the end to complete your Christmas Carol. 😁