Louis D

Just got an inch today after having gotten nothing for weeks. Our whole house has shifted mightily due to the dry soil conditions. The problem is, we don't get slow, gentle rains that last for days on end like the eastern US. We often get rain measured in inches per hour that can be done in a matter of minutes to hours which leads to flash flooding. Here's my son's current apartment's underground parking garage being flooded in 2018 (Pointe San Marcos): And here's the apartment complex he just moved out of being nearly flooded in 2015 while being built (Red Pointe [formerly Woods of] San Marcos): That's two major flooding events within three years of each other for just one Texas town. That, and my son has a knack for picking apartments that have flooded in the past. He never parks on the lowest level of the parking garage, just in case.

That's pretty much what PerkinElmer and Corning have done in the US. They now only work at the high end on industrial, academic, and governmental contracts. I'm sure they could make awesome amateur telescopes and eyepieces, but at what price?

I didn't notice Jupiter looking any brighter naked eye at greatest conjuction. It just drowned out Saturn making it more difficult to spot naked eye.

Given our never ending watering restriction due to droughts, and HOA requirements to have a green lawn, we've been tempted to do the same. We also can't get any grass type to grown in deep shade under some of the trees, so artificial turf would solve this problem as well. My problem is my backyard neighbor put in planters along the back fence on his side blocking my yard from draining (acts like a 1 foot high dam). Water backs up several inches deep and about 4 feet across along the back fence.

Any change for shipments to the US? So far, the US hasn't closed its borders to UK shipments and travelers to my knowledge.

Well, they're only $100 on Amazon US with free shipping, and in stock, so $180 CND seems high since that's $141 USD. It probably uses a spherical rather than parabolic primary mirror, but at f/9 it might be tolerable at lower powers. You should be able to get good views of the moon and many open star clusters. The eyepieces should probably be replaced with 1.25" Plossls for starters to get better views. I believe it comes with Ramsden and Huygens 0.965 eyepieces along with a 1.25" to 0.965 adapter. The mount is going to be wobbly and difficult to track objects with at high powers, so best to stick with lower powered viewing for now.

There's one for sale on CN classifieds that hasn't been marked as sold yet: https://www.cloudynights.com/classifieds/item/237345-celestron-edge-hd-925-ota/

This year, I put down hundreds of pounds of pea gravel on the walkways around my house that had become cow paths. The grass can still grow up through or across it (St. Augustine grass has runners), and water will still drain down through it. It's been a game changer to reduce mud on my yard shoes. I also put it on the drainage alongside my side fence that had been eroding badly during each rain.

I look at it from an exit pupil perspective. You've got an f/12 scope, so your 22mm is producing 1.8mm, or just about the ideal exit pupil already. You could move up to a 12mm to 13mm for a ~1mm exit pupil. I generally don't go below 0.7mm most nights, so that would equate to an 8mm to 9mm eyepiece. Taking these two together, you would do well with a 9mm and 12.5mm Morpheus set without giving up much field to the ES-82s while gaining viewing comfort. I would look to add a 2" 40mm SWA to a 56mm Plossl widest field eyepiece as well for viewing nebulae with a 3.3mm to 4.7mm exit pupil. You don't need to go super expensive with an f/12 scope for nebula observing, either.

For reference, here's an annotated Damian Peach image from APOD composited from multiple exposures taken early on the day of the Great Conjunction to bring out details across the image: It doesn't look much like the FB images, does it?

That's the fancier click-stop version that came with the nice focal length window. It was introduced sometime after 2000, but most certainly with the original optical prescription inside.

Televue introduced the 27mm Panoptic in 1994. Since I bought my copy used in 1999, I know it has to be pre-2000 vintage. It is still an excellent eyepiece. It's just tight on eye relief for eyeglass wearers. That 28mm RKE is also vintage. I picked it up from Surplus Shed which had bought them as surplus lot. It's a fun eyepiece to use due to the floating image effect.

The entire Nagler T4 line was introduced in 1998. I now have all 3 of them, just not in the same image: The 12mm and 17mm both suffer from strong SAEP. Otherwise, they're really good eyepieces. That Bausch & Lomb 15x UWF 31-15-74 has to be pre-1980s at the latest because they got out of microscopes years ago. The pair I have work excellently for binoviewing.

Anti-reflection coating has advanced a lot, even in the last 20 years. SAEP (kidney beaning) in UWAs is under much better control today as well. That, and stray light control has improved in many premium eyepieces. That 14mm Meade 4000 UWA has very well corrected field flatness and astigmatism across the field, but it does a terrible job of controlling stray light and kidneybeaning. The 14mm Morpheus is better on both counts, and yet has a bit more field curvature and edge astigmatism. The 14mm Pentax XL has excellent stray light control, no edge astigmatism, and no SAEP, but it does suffer from field curvature. The Pentax XWs have slightly better coatings leading to slightly darker background sky. The 5.2mm Pentax XL has very few flaws to this day. Perhaps it could use those slightly improved XW coatings. The Nagler T1s had loads of SAEP at longer focal lengths and tight eye relief at 4.8mm and 7mm. I'm sure their coatings could also be improved upon. The Vixen LV line view a bit dark for unknown reasons. My 9mm from 1997 shown below gives excellent views otherwise (great stray light control, no SAEP, excellent coatings, flat field, and sharp to the edge). They also exude quality when you pick one up and look it over.

It depends on the series and vintage within it. If it has orange lettering, it is definitely pre-2000 like my V1 S-W 5-8mm zoom from 1999 (pictured with my 1998 vintage 5.2mm Pentax XL):

Probably my oldest eyepiece is my 14mm Meade 4000 UWA smoothie (mid to late 1980s, I believe), shown here with my also vintage 14mm Pentax XL that I've owned since new in 1998:

Most Dobs and tripods are typically pickup only in the US simply due to the bulk. However, people are shipping SCTs, Maks, APOs/EDs, and mount heads, and even those get expensive. It comes down to supply and demand. While no one might want to shell out $1000 to $5000 on a particular item locally, someone in the US more than likely will (we're like the whole EU as a market). When they're in it for that kind of money, tossing in another $50 to $200 for shipping is peanuts. As far as the really big and expensive items (20"+ Obsession Dobs, etc.) that you really can't safely ship at any price, people tend to agree to meet up at some intermediate point for exchange and make a short vacation out of it. They used to meet up at big star parties or NEAF for these exchanges, but they've all been cancelled.

You could also try putting anti-vibration pads under each foot of the baseboard. They can help dampen vibrations to under a second. You can cheap out and get great performance with Sorbothane pads such as these. Just don't forget they're under each foot at the end of the night. If you're on dirt or grass, there isn't much of a reason to use pads.

I've seen this in the US as well. Ads on CN have been running double to triple the typical volume, and asking prices are at near new prices on desirable items. When you figure in actual shipping and online payment charges, they're often well above new prices that typically don't charge for these two conveniences.

Stupid American question. What's an HCA? I gather it is a healthcare related acronym that we don't use here.

I'd probably go with a 30mm APM UFF, a 17.5mm Morpheus, a 12.5mm Morpheus or APM 84° High Eye Relief Flat-Wide, a 9mm Morpheus, a 6.5mm Morpheus, and a 4.5mm Delos. That totals somewhere between $1298 and $1354 before tax, which is about £1,000. You didn't specify if we needed to include tax. Americans rarely price things after taxes because they're not hidden with the exception of gas (petrol) taxes, and they vary from state to state.

I enjoy the 92 degree field of view of the ES-92s, but also quite enjoy 65 to 75 degree fields of view as well. There's room for all fields of view depending on the mood of the observer.

It would be nice if Bresser also offered a low profile focuser option with a minimal secondary obstruction of around 20%. The current setup has a 28% obstruction which is quite large for a visual Newtonian.

I use a GSO dielectric 2" diagonal that happens to have an SCT nose thread. I replace the original nose barrel with a 15mm SCT to M48 thread adapter. I then screw the TSFLAT2 into it. The original nose barrel is about 15mm too long and over corrects field curvature as a result. I discovered this method with my AT72ED (430mm FL). I thought I would need to shorten it up on my new to me 90mm TS triplet APO (600mm FL), but it surprisingly works fine at this spacing as well. Shortening it up didn't seem to improve matters, so I left it long to have more barrel in the focuser. I may play with it more in the future. I'm not taking photographs, after all. I'm just trying to get rid of most of the annoying field curvature. If 90%+ of it is gone, I'm happy. I've found this spacing works well for pretty much all of my eyepieces despite the fluctuation in focusing distance. Again, this isn't photography, being in the ball park to eliminate 90%+ of the curvature is enough to move it from annoying to barely perceivable. It's the same for my GSO CC, if 90%+ of the coma is gone, I'm good with it and don't feel a need to fine tune the distance for each eyepiece. Only my 12mm TV NT4 focuses way off and had to be parfocalized (20mm below the shoulder) for both CC and FF.

And by corollary, eyepiece reports in non-flat field refractors should not critique eyepiece field curvature since it is very difficult to separate it from that of the scope. I use a TSFLAT2 in each of my refractors to come close to a flattened field. Unless you spend all of your time observing objects on axis such as planets using a tracking mount, I can't understand how so many people can stand the strongly curved field of short ED and APO refractors.