Louis D

I recommend that you investigate adapting microscope eyepieces from Zeiss meant for surgical microscopes. Denis of binoviewer fame on CN could help guide you.

That works! Thanks.

Just be aware that if they are the same as the WO and other brandings, there's a 22mm or so lip inside that will vignette widest field eyepieces. I've got the same type, and can verify the unnecessary baffle. Since I only use it with binoviewers of 22mm clear aperture, it doesn't matter much to me. Perhaps @FLO can verify if the StellaMira version does not have it.

I'm guessing English is not your native tongue. Can you put "parallax" into context so we can figure out the proper English word for it?

If we're talking wants in general, and you've got new software, would it be possible to have the user jumped to the first new post since they last read a particular thread? Cloudy Nights has always done this, and it makes it so much quicker to get caught up on threads. This is especially an issue if a thread has grown additional pages, and you choose a page that is past the last one you read. If you click back to the last read page to find your spot, there's no line showing new posts anymore because you chose incorrectly, so you're stuck reading lots of posts to try and figure out what was the last post read.

Well, at f/6, this is what I got with my ~24mm eyepieces: If you want to maximize your true field of view without using a 32mm Plossl and have decent correction and eye relief at 24mm, the APM UFF and its kin would be your best bet at 1.25". This image shows the coverage of a couple of 32mm Plossls in the same setup: Which is just about identical in true field of view and similar correction to the 24mm APM UFF for a lot less money. It's your money. 😁

I stand corrected from another thread on SCT vs Mak corrector toughness. I had said I could not find a single image of a damaged Mak corrector, and now we have proof they can be damaged. Key word is damaged rather than completely shattered as would have probably happened to a C6 corrector plate in this situation. Definitely give masking off the area with a curved piece of blackened card stock a try. What's the worst?

I'll bet that they live in a tropical area of PR without A/C based on my travels there. If they do have A/C, then warm up time will be a bit of an issue. A 127 Mak only takes about 30 minutes to equilibrate to a 10 degree F change (going from 75 inside to 85 outside, which might be their situation). My 90mm triplet APO actually takes longer to equilibrate.

That's too bad about the housing development. When I moved into my house in Texas, there were no more than 50 homes in a 2 mile radius. Now, there are about 20,000 homes. However, it wasn't the homes that were the worst. It was the commercial development and 6 lane tollways and interchanges that were built nearby that killed my dark skies. We now have car dealerships, strip malls, sports fields from elementary to professional levels, amphitheaters, etc. It all dropped my skies several Bortle levels in most directions. My best dark skies are about a 2 to 3 hour drive to the west or moderately better 1 hour east.

I already had multiple 2" diagonals and eyepieces for other scopes, so I just added a 2" thread adapter and visual back for about $60 ($25/$35 for each). The second used 127 Mak I bought for my daughter already came with both, so no additional cost there. Without a 2" diagonal, I couldn't use some of my favorite eyepieces like my 12mm and 17mm ES-92s, 22mm NT4, or 30mm APM UFF with the 127 Mak. A $60 upgrade to use my existing eyepiece collection seemed like a no brainer. Your second point misses the point that if this is a travel scope (camping, for my daughter), you don't want to bring along multiple scopes just to get a wider field. I added a 60mm finder scope to my daughter's Mak so it can take in wider views of around 6 degrees while star hopping.

No, pretty much all 2" diagonals come with a 2" to 1.25" adapter/reducer. However, the increased optical path length of the 2" diagonal will cause an increase of 200mm or possibly more to your native focal length, so you're best to stick with 1.25" accessories unless you really want that wider field on occasion. I already have a bunch of premium 2" eyepieces that I wouldn't be able to use on the 127 Mak without a 2" diagonal, so I'm good with the increased focal length.

Greetings from Texas, @Dolybell. No one telescope is the best tool for everything astronomy related. As such, I'd recommend your husband start out with either a 6" or 8" Dob if space allows or a 127mm to 150mm Mak on an alt-az mount for strictly visual use. There are some 6" Newtonian options on alt-az mounts available in Europe that are not marketed in the US, so I won't go into them at the moment. A 6" SCT is also an option for your stated budget. All of these will require manual tracking which actually becomes second nature pretty quickly. They also require the user to learn the sky enough to locate objects. Again, with help from phone apps like SkEye and computer planetarium software like Stellarium, along with those binoculars for wide fields of view, this, too, will become second nature pretty quickly. Given your dark, inland skies, you're very fortunate to have good conditions for "star hopping" to locate objects. It's very satisfying not to have to setup a computer or polar align just to observe. This is not say that computerized and equatorial mounts don't have their place, they do. It's just that for beginners, I've found simpler is better. Right now, everyone decided to be an astronomer during lock-down, so all astro inventory has been depleted. Wait times can stretch months or longer. I don't recommend getting a gift certificate to any particular vendor because you don't know which vendor will get stock in of a particularly desirable scope first. You're trading cash which is good anywhere for a certificate good at exactly one merchant. Unless it comes with a 20% or more discount, I can't recommend one. The main American vendors of repute are Astronomics (Cloudy Nights sponsor, like FLO is for SGL), Agena Astro (like FLO, huge and online only), OPT Telescopes, Woodland Hills (telescopes.net), High Point Scientific, and Orion USA. There are also B&H Photo and Adorama out of NYC, but neither are astronomy specific since they are mainly photography retailers, so after the sale support is often nonexistent. Additionally, there are Skies Unlimited, Optics Planet, Telescopes Plus, and Anacortes Telescope; however, I have no direct knowledge of them as a customer. There numerous smaller, specialty vendors, but these are the main general retailers I'm aware of. Work with your spouse to figure out what works best for him (and you). Let him know you're fully supportive of dropping some big bucks on a decent telescope; he'll be so excited to know you're onboard. I dropped around $2000 in today's dollars back in 1998 for my first scope and accessories with my wife's blessing. I went to a few star parties first to figure out what I would like to use. I would never have spent the money without her blessing.

That makes me feel better I wasn't losing my mind when I found using an OIII filter on it useful. Based on what Dan said below, he made it sound like OIII emission was minor.

Forgive me, but I couldn't resist. I downloaded your image and ran it through my 20 year old copy of Photoshop Elements 2.0. I did color/levels auto corrections followed by a manual levels adjust and increased saturation. It loses a bit in the faint areas, but gains a nice punch in the brighter areas. I'd say you've got a "bright" future ahead of you in astro imaging. 😎

First, don't bother with a 2x Barlow given the f/12 focal ratio and 1500mm focal length. The 8mm will provide just about the highest usable power with your scope. The 25mm BST or a 32mm Plossl would work well for widest field. The BST would be wider and would fit in well with the rest of the BSTs. If want to go wider, you can put a SCT thread adapter on the rear thread, install a 2" visual back on it, and then use a 2" diagonal. With a 2" diagonal, you can use wider 2" eyepieces. There is some vignetting and some odd reflections of bright stars with them, but I've found it actually works very well. Here's an image comparing the difference:

The Chula Vista Trailhead parking lot at Mt. Pinos, perchance? If I'm ever in CA with a telescope, I'll have to give it a try based on your ceaseless praise of that site.

I have carrying handles on the sides of my Dob base, so I just carry the whole thing out in one go by hugging it close to my body. On an alt-az mount, it would be far too top heavy and awkward with the legs sticking out to safely get out the backdoor in one go. The tripod legs are always getting caught on the door frame. I can just manage it in one go with my 90mm APO and 127 Mak mounted on my DSV-2B, but I would not want to try it with an 8" Newt.

Unless you've got the 2" visual back and diagonal of the US version. In that case, you can use widest field 2" eyepieces to good effect. There is some vignetting, but it isn't very noticeable to the human eye. Below is a comparison image I took through my 127 Mak to show the difference and resulting vignetting. The APM UFF 24m would be equivalent in TFOV to the 30mm/32mm Plossl.

The contrast ratio remains the same regardless of aperture. If a filter passes 94% of the OIII lines with a 15nm Full Width, Half Maximum (FWHM) bandwidth, it will pass that amount of the emission lines and reject the light outside that width around the emission lines. As long as the passband is well centered on the emission lines, it's going to be effective at increasing contrast without reducing the OIII lines from the nebula. Having a wider passband will make the image brighter by passing more undesirable light around the OIII lines, but this is not desirable at any aperture since the whole goal is to increase contrast by rejecting as much undesirable light as possible. I find OIII filters applicable to any aperture. Image brightness is determined by the exit pupil, not the aperture. Greater aperture does allow for a higher magnification at a given exit pupil and greater resolution. Basically, if the nebula dims too much with the OIII to be enjoyable, back off on the magnification to increase the exit pupil to brighten up the nebula. It will appear smaller, though.

Welcome! I hope you've been able to get out under the stars with your new scope.

So does my oldest daughter. She's been to Japan for vacation twice in the last few years. It's her favorite destination for travel.

Well, that's unfortunate. 🤔 Nothing else unscrews? If you can't clean it off, you could at least bake it in the noon sun to try and kill it with UV light to prevent further spread.

Yes, but did you try loosening the tiny grub screw with a fine screwdriver to see if it releases the donut so you can access the top of the reticle? It's right above the big illuminator hole. I don't want to try it with mine since it's working fine.

I looked at my copy of that eyepiece (the 20mm 70 degree, correct?). There's a small grub/set screw above the illuminator hole. I wonder if you could loosen it to drop the entire illuminator donut off of the upper barrel so you could access the top side of the reticle for cleaning.

If it is the same optically as the 9mm Meade HD-60 as many folks claim, then it is a very nice eyepiece. I've found it to be very well corrected across the field with excellent eye relief. I haven't done a critical analysis of stray light control or contrast, but it views similarly to my 9mm Vixen LV and 9mm Morpheus. It would certainly be a step up in comfort and field of view relative to the Plossl. Here's a comparison image of the views through my ~9mm eyepieces in a field flattened AT72ED f/6 refractor. There's a Plossl and Kellner in the mix for comparison sake.