Louis D

2 hours ago, Red Top Miguel said:

Thank you very much Ricochet, I will amend my order to reflect the 5mm, 8mm, 12mm and 2x Barlow BST Star-guilder.
 

Any newbies reading this, please ask before a buy the guys/ladies here are full of so much helpful information and possibly save you from wasting you’re money  

Thanks again Mick! 

 

If you want to max out your true field of view (TFOV) in that scope, I would get a GSO/Revelation 32mm eyepiece.  It will work pretty well at f/5 and won't break the bank.  However, I notice they're sold out everywhere in the UK, so I would get FLO's version as it should be very similar.

19 hours ago, Sunnydays said:

I spoke with a very nice man with Highpoint scientific and asked about the zoom lens... Highpoint Scientific Apertura 9mm - 27mm Zoom Eyepiece - ZOOM927?? This may be a good starting point for me. It allows one to focus(no pun intended) on the basics of astronomy, the scope etc.. at first, without having to deal with removing eyepieces, and will do the job. Starting out this way may give me what i need and i can move to single eyepieces as I begin to learn the finer points??

I'm not a big fan of this style of zoom eyepiece due to the very limited eye relief.  If you did want to get one, I would order it from FLO and have it cross imported to the US for at least $30 less than High Point.  There's no import tariffs into the US for personal purchases below $800/day, no VAT because you're outside the EU/UK, and no sales tax since FLO has no nexus of business in any US state.  That, and it supports our sponsor.

The zoom most recommended on here is the Baader Hyperion Zoom Mark IV 8-24 mm.  Again, you'd be saving over $80 cross importing it from FLO to the US.  For some reason, Baader products are much cheaper in Europe than in the US.

If that's out of your budget, then the Meade/Celestron/Agena 8-24mm zoom is usually the next best choice.  The work fine and are well priced.

My personal favorite is the Celestron/Olivon Regal 8-24mm zoom originally sold with spotting scopes.  It lacks a filter thread, but has better eye relief, eye cup, field correction, wider field of view, and smoother zoom motion than the cheaper Celestron zoom above.  Also, the top doesn't rotate during zooming, unlike the BHZ above, so winged eye guards can be used with it.  Sometimes, you can find it on Cloudy Nights classifieds or ebay local to the US.

20 hours ago, Sunnydays said:

Thanks so much!! Would going in 5-10mm increments , lets starting at 25mm, 15mm, 10mm be a good start, to get more clarity? I was trying to look at Saturn yesterday with the 25mm but, was not clear and focusing did not do much?

Generally, power progressions are in square root of 2 or 1.4x increments.  Thus, 35mm, 25mm, 18mm, 13mm, 9mm, 6.5mm, 4.5mm, 3.2mm would be one power progression.  Often, folks skip by powers of 2 and go 35mm, 18mm, 9mm, 4.5mm.  However, at high powers, the jump from 9mm (or 8mm or 10mm) to 4.5mm (or 5mm) may be too much for the seeing conditions, so they my try 6.5mm (or 7mm).  That's because power rises rapidly with decreasing eyepiece focal length.  At long focal lengths, many folks will skip directly from 35mm (or higher) straight to 13mm or so, depending on the object.

5 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

As you have stated you have a lack of storage, something like this is an idea worth considering when funds allow. It is small and lightweight but importantly will give you a massive boost to your night time viewing prospects.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dobsonians/sky-watcher-heritage-150p-flextube-dobsonian-telescope.html

I was going to suggest it, except that I don't think it's available in the US from any dealers.  I also don't know if any UK dealers will ship it to the US.  I'm pretty sure they're not supposed to ship the 130p version due to an exclusive licensing agreement with AWB OneSky in the US.

I'm going to go in an entirely different direction and recommend a Baader Morpheus 9mm if you won't be upgrading your scope any time soon.  It will get you a 2.25 exit pupil which is just about ideal, it is an excellent, nearly ultrawide eyepiece that should deal well with your fast primary, and it will produce about 50x which is good for a large number of objects.  Personally, I would prefer one really good eyepiece, especially in a very fast scope, over a bunch of mediocre ones.  If you can get an extension tube, you should be able to use your Barlow with it to observe planets and planetary nebulae.

Bortle 5/6/7 skies depending on the direction any time of the year since I'm right on the edge of farm country.  However, summer skies are lighter than winter mostly due to swamp-like humidity levels at night.  We are often at 98% humidity most of the night which gives a slight mistiness to the air that helps to reflect light pollution further into the darker parts of the sky.  I'll see haze around stars or the moon and think I've got equipment dewing until I look up naked eye and see a glow around bright objects.  To add insult to injury, it can stay over 90°F until after midnight as well, so I have to run a box fan across me perpendicular to my observing direction to avoid dripping sweat on my equipment and to blow away mosquitoes.

Here's my yearly nighttime chart from that website mentioned above, with the radix on the summer solstice:

It gets fully dark year round for at least 6.5 hours, but it means staying up much later on work nights to access it in the summer than in the winter.  Between that and the oppressive heat, humidity, and mosquitoes, I tend to do much less observing in the summer than in winter.  Our winters tend to be mild, dry, and bug free.  However, the atmosphere is much less stable than in the summer, so planetary observing does suffer.

@bomberbaz How did the 25mm BST perform with the Powermate?  At almost f/10, the edges should have been massively improved.

2 hours ago, markse68 said:

Perhaps it is an eyeball reflection but then I don’t know why I’d not see it with the others. Can you get multi coated contact lenses? 😁

Perhaps on hard contacts. 😉 Don't give Zeiss any ideas on how to charge $600 for a single pair.

9 hours ago, PoI-LordBlackwood said:

Hmm let me see... 

I would always go with a 30 mm at around 66 degrees for quite a nice view. The power isn't as low as the 40mm but it gives enough view for a very detailed observation of large DSOs. If you can get 70 degrees or more but that's only if you want to do visual astro and you have the budget (it is kinda expensive)

The OP's scope is a 1.25" only telescope, so a 30mm eyepiece is going to yield closer to a 52 degree AFOV.

9 hours ago, PoI-LordBlackwood said:

That's quite nice! 

Personally, I would get a kit like the one sold by Orion (Premium Telescope Accessory Kit 1.25") or the one by Celestron (I forgot) because I think the variety within is quite sufficient. Furthermore, we get several filters which really comes in handy when I'm trying to block out any light pollution. By the way, anyone knows a good and relatively cheap light pollution filter? Been searching for nearly a month without much success...

The OP's eyepieces already cover what's included in most eyepiece kits.  Filter kits come up fairly regularly on CN classifieds for $20 to $30 all the time if the OP wants to get filters.

4 hours ago, rwilkey said:

For his specific question I would look at the 32mm Explore Scientific 62° series eyepiece which will give great views.

Again, 2" fit only.  It's not going to work in a Meade EclipseView 114 mm:

3 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

Your current eyepiece collection does not need anything between 26 and 40 in an F4/450 OTA. 40 gives x11 which is basically a spotter scope, the 26 is x18 and this is a widefield set up really or simply a higher magnification finder/spotter. You will gain nothing putting an eyepiece inbetween these two.  UPDATE: The 40mm is giving you a 10mm exit pupil, this is too large and you are losing light so in effect your views will be very washed out. Personally I wouldn't be using this eyepiece in your scope.

Totally agree here.  In fact, not only is the 40mm yielding a 10mm exit pupil, it's also showing the central obstruction as a 3mm to 4mm shadow dead center which would be almost impossible to work around until fully dark adapted.

Rather than spend money on more eyepieces, I would probably recommend the OP to get another scope with a longer focal length and more aperture for higher power work.  This scope, and everything else in the OP's sig, will be fine for low power work.  Something like a 6" f/8 Dob would be a nice improvement without getting too bulky.

You could try "chasing the threads" with a cheaper filter.  Basically, keep threading and unthreading the filter to work it farther and farther onto the eyepiece until you feel confident it is threaded on far enough to avoid coming loose during observing.

I've had one for some time now, but I can't say that I've experienced anything quite like that.  I am irritated by some chromatic aberration near the field stop that is not present in the XL 5.2mm or XW 3.5mm.  Do you see bright stars turning into prismatic rainbows near the edge in your XW 7mm?  If you get your eye exactly lined up with the star, the prismatic effect mostly goes away.  Perhaps this and your experience are related?  Try lining up your eye with the incoming light rays from the edge image to see if the effect changes.

2 hours ago, Philip R said:

Hi guys & girls,

I have just come across this article on Baader Planetarium website: https://www.baader-planetarium.com/en/downloads/dl/file/id/287/product/1540/faq_problems_with_filters_can_have_the_strangest_causes.pdf

Thought you maybe interested.

Or it could be the Baader filter itself causing halos, although I didn't see that mentioned in the article:

I can't help you sort out which 30mm 80 degree UWA clone is best, but I can point you to my new thread showing the view through my Agena Astro version of this eyepiece in a 127mm f/12 Mak.  It improves to the point of being a very usable wide field eyepiece.

I took a bunch of images of the field of view (FOV) through many of my eyepieces in my 127mm f/12 Mak for comparison against those I took through my AT72ED f/6 refractor.  I haven't had the time to pull together comparison groups for all of them as I did for the images taken with my AT72ED.  However, I did pull together one for the 29mm-30mm group since it shows how much marginal/terrible eyepieces can improve in a slow telescope.  It also shows how spherical aberration of the exit pupil (SAEP or kidney-beaning) becomes more obvious as black donuts.  It also shows chromatic aberration of the exit pupil (CAEP or ring-of-fire) as a rainbow effect.  Last, it shows that really good eyepieces become razor sharp.

The above images were taken with the high resolution Samsung Galaxy 7 camera at f/1.7.  The edge images were taken by pointing the camera straight at the field stop for best sharpness.

The above "full width" images were taken with the lower resolution LG G5 super wide angle camera at f/2.4 so center and edge can be seen in a single image.  Notice how this camera's smaller aperture is more sensitive to SAEP and CAEP than the Samsung's camera.

The above image is from my original group of FOV images taken through the AT72ED which is an f/6 telescope.  I included it for ease of comparison.  I did not include a "full width" image for the APM UFF when I composited this image since its entire image fit within the Samsung camera's FOV.  By comparison, notice how much the Rini, Kasai, and Agena eyepieces improve by going from f/6 to f/12.  The ES-82 shows CAEP at f/12 and is sharper while the APM UFF shows some SAEP and has incredible edge sharpness at f/12.

The slower Mak seems to show any inherent eyepiece SAEP or CAEP more obviously than the faster refractor.

The Mak images all show greater image scale due to its 1540mm focal length versus the AT72ED's 430mm FL.  Both sets of images were taken from the same distance, to within a few inches.

I will try to add more comparison images to this thread as my time allows it.  Each one takes over an hour to edit and composite.

30 minutes ago, Dannomiss said:

I know its only a RDF but when you spend £200 you expect things to be right

Not really in amateur astronomy.  Perhaps $2000 to $4000 on a Chinese APO, but it's generally a crap shoot on most low end Chinese made stuff.  As an example, to get the Synta 200p/8" Dobs to work effectively, there are plenty of threads on here and CN detailing how to improve them to make them reasonably usable.  Had they bought a Teeter scope to begin with, they wouldn't have had to mess with it.  However, that would have been 10x more expensive.

Even in 15x binoculars, I can usually tell that Jupiter is a disk with the Galilean moons as pinpoints on a line on either side of it.  Are you sure you were looking at Jupiter?

I noticed everyone seems to use counterweights on the other side of the mount when no scope is mounted over there.  Is this done avoid the mount tipping over sideways or because it doesn't do well unbalanced?

I've used rubber O-rings to parfocalize my TV Nagler T4 12mm since it focuses so far out.  I even had to add an M48 spacer ring to the 2" skirt to leave enough 2" barrel to lock onto.

ebay is a good source for odd sized rubber O-rings.  You want to shop by inner diameter (ID) since that will be fitting around the insertion barrel.  Parfocalization rings generally have sharp set/grub screws that dig into the insertion barrel.  O-rings are harmless to the barrel.

If you could find the right buyer, you might get $200 for it based on sales in the US.  The problem is, it is old, huge, heavy, commercial quality, and non-computerized, so it appeals to a very narrow group of buyers into vintage scopes.  There might be someone who would want to either turn into a solid tube Dob or just scavenge the optics to make a truss Dob.  I have seen some folks put retractable castors on these and wheel them out of their garage onto their driveway for use.

The ES-52 line is really only advantageous at 15mm and below relative to a similar Plossl thanks to their more generous eye relief.  Those are all 6 elements in 3 groups eyepieces.  Presumably, they all have a negative/positive design similar to the Vixen SLV line at those focal lengths.

The 20mm, 25mm, 30mm, and 40mm are all 4 elements in 2 groups eyepieces.  Presumably, they are Plossl variants.  As such, I don't know what advantage the first three offer over a Plossl.

The 40mm is interesting in that it is a 2" eyepiece allowing for a 36mm field stop diameter instead of the usual 27mm FS limit imposed by a 40mm eyepiece in a 1.25" barrel.  Does anyone know of any other 40mm 2" Plossls?

You could try M5 set/grub screws if you can find them and then paint them over.

On 20/06/2020 at 01:06, Simon Dunsmore said:

Hi John, 

Yes, sorry the link is 

https://agenaastro.com/blue-fireball-1-25-2-eyepiece-adapter.html

I've been giving it some thought though, I'm a little worried about leverage on the draw tube. If I add the adapter, diagonal, barlow and eyepiece. I'm leaning towards keeping the 2" diagonal for my existing scope (skywatcher 130 pds and 72ED) and biting the bullet and buying an Altair 1.25 dialetric diagonal for the Mak.

No, don't get that adapter.  Get a proper 2" visual back and adapter as noted above.  You won't notice much if any vignetting, but bright objects will have an oval aberration on the opposite side as they pass the edge of the rear baffle.  I put the Mak to SCT Adapter linked above on mine and then put a standard SCT 2" visual back on that.  That way, I can use the same 2" diagonals in both my refractors and Maks.  If you already have the SCT threads on the back of your Mak, skip the adapter and proceed straight to the visual back.  You'll be able to expand your true field of view from 1 degree with a 32mm Plossl to 1.7 degrees with a widest field eyepiece such as a ES-68 40mm.

4 hours ago, Gsc1ugs said:

Do you have any makes models to look out for please?

The Bresser/Explore Scientific/JOC Dob is very nice as well as the Revelation/GSO Dob.  The Skywatcher/Synta Dob is a slight step down mechanically.  All are similar optically.

Before rushing out to buy an 8" Dob versus a 127 Mak, consider the vast size difference.  Where will you be observing from?  How far will you be carrying the scope?  Do you plan to transport it by hand, car, other?  Do you want to learn the sky or simply let electronics point things out to you?  What is your budget?  What is your weight lifting limit?

I use a 19" plastic tool box to hold my bits and bobs that don't need foam padding like collimators, various adapters, spare counterweights, spare batteries, etc.

I use a vintage Tamrac video camera case from the 1990 era to hold my 127 Mak.  For my daughter, I use a purple gym bag to hold her 127 Mak and associated gear with bubble wrap around each object.  She can leave the closed bag out at campsites and no one thinks to steal it.

I use heavy-duty, surplussed Manfrotto photographic tripods for my DSV mounts.  They're old, but still have years of life left in them.

I've used clamps, L-brackets, and weights hanging in a plastic grocery bag to achieve balance with some Dobs.  When the angle gets low, the weight settles on the ground board and no longer pulls the scope downward.

I've used PVC plumbing bits to adapt refractor objectives to diagonals.

I use laser sights and picatinny rails to attach them, both intended for guns, to aim my telescope.

I use multiple Plano Protector 4 Pistol cases to hold lower value eyepieces, binoviewers, and diagonals.

I use a Tamrac photographic filter wallet to hold most of my astronomy filters.  It lives in the tool box mentioned above between uses.

2 minutes ago, johninderby said:

eBay now blocks any attempt to find out the sellers address to prevent someone from collecting the item and paying in cash then having the seller saying it wasn’t sold and not paying any eBay fees.

In the US, sellers generally cross-list on Craigslist hoping for a no-fee local sale and then cancel the ebay ad if sold on CL.  Sometimes, they'll suggest searching CL for the item to find their contact information outside of ebay if you're local to them and want to pay cash.

On another note, I opened a bank account specifically for Paypal to limit my exposure to fraud issues.  I opened it with $50 20 years ago, and due to refunds sometimes going into it instead of back onto my CC, and interest earned, I've got about $150 in it now.  Since CC companies pretty much cover all losses due to fraud, I only stand to lose up to $150 due to fraud using PP.