Louis D

You should have a 0.83 degree true field of view with supplied 25mm Plossl.

   50 degrees AFOV/(1500mm telescope FL/25mm eyepiece FL) = 0.83 degree

Thus, the moon at 0.5 degree should easily fit in the eyepiece field of view.

12 hours ago, miguel87 said:

If the LP is so bad you cant star hop, you have no chance of viewing the object

Not once you apply enough power.  M22 is just barely visible as a smudge at low power in my southerly skies on good nights and completely indistinguishable on bad nights, but jack up the power to around 200x, and it starts to resolve and becomes quite apparent.  Luckily, I know where to look for it among the bright teapot stars of Sagittarius, but this is not the case for many DSOs which are often nowhere close to any brighter stars, so that's where having DSCs come in handy.

As far as full goto, however, I've found tracking is only a necessity for group viewing and sketching.  I can manually track objects at high powers in wide field eyepieces using Dobs and alt-az mounts by nudging and letting the object drift across the field of view.  I also find I see more detail in a moving target than in a stationary target.  I may even jostle the scope a bit to make a faint fuzzy pop out from the background better.  After all, it's easier to see a well camouflaged animal when it moves than when it remains still.

4 hours ago, John said:

As has been said, there a lots of different was to enjoy the skies and no wrong ones, unless its adding light pollution !

Personally I don't use GOTO systems and enjoy hunting new targets down. I can see though where not taking too much time to find something is a good thing eg: when time is short and when non-astro family and friends are waiting !

Also GOTO is invaluable for imagers.

 

I spent forever trying to nail down Uranus and Neptune with my Dob, but I was never quite sure if I was on target since I wasn't quite sure what they should look like.  I added DSCs to my Dob as a result and nailed both on the first try out.  I then went on to find various planetary nebula that had eluded me as well.  Soon after that, though, I was satisfied and have used them rarely since.  They have gotten handy again as light pollution has increased in my area over the last 10 years since I can't even see basic constellation stars on some nights due to haziness and sky brightness, so star hopping is all but impossible.

Or what brand of focuser if an aftermarket unit.

On 29/04/2020 at 00:31, Dr Strange said:

There are two types of telescope. Refracting and reflecting.

Technically, there is a third, hybrid type, catadioptric which uses a combination of lenses and mirrors such as SCTs and Maks.

With all this talk about putting eyepieces in cheap wooden boxes, I would probably recommend reinforcing the edges and/or corners of them with metal brackets after finishing them.  It would be crushing to have the bottom or a side pop out/off sending the contents tumbling.

On 29/04/2020 at 13:17, Waldemar said:

Absolutely true, it makes no sound at all even not when slewing @ 13°/sec.  but the high price is not just for being silent...

Are they using harmonic drives?

14 hours ago, Stardaze said:

Have been looking for a little bag to carry maybe 3-4 EPs and Cheshire etc, can’t seem to find anything. There’s plenty of little bits bags in fishing that could be converted I think for next to nothing. 

I picked up a B&W Type 1000 Outdoor Case for $10 on sale from Fry's to put my 6 Paradigm (Starguider BST) eyepieces in vertically.  Perhaps you could find something similar from a discounter near you.

I wonder how well the new crop of low cost, Chinese 50mm and 60mm finder scopes with helical focusers work for guide scopes.  Anyone tried one?

The 23mm aspherics are pretty decent and very light.  I really like them when binoviewing.  I don't have the 10mm aspheric, but it's supposed to be pretty good as well.  The 4mm is not well regarded.

The 6mm and 9mm 66 degree eyepieces are generally regarded as pretty good but suffer from SAEP, so eye positioning can be critical to avoid kidneybeaning.  The 15mm and 20mm are basically Konig or Erfle variants and do well only in slower scopes.  The 15mm and 20mm GSO SuperViews are generally regarded as better performers for not a lot more money.

3 hours ago, Jiggy 67 said:

Really I need to stick with 1.25” as my filters are that size but the dual size barrels does expand the options

I don't find myself using filters with my 2" eyepieces very often, if at all, so I wouldn't worry about that criterion very much.  I think I used to use a 2" OIII on the Veil Nebula with my 27mm Panoptic and my 15" Dob with a 1900mm focal length years ago, but that's about it.  For shorter focal length scopes, I mainly use 2" eyepieces for wide field star sweeping, viewing large open clusters, and for centering objects for viewing at higher powers.

I have the 35mm Aero ED, and it's pretty good for the weight and money.  It probably performs at least as well as the 36mm Aspheric for a lot less money.  The discontinued 35mm Baader Scopos Extreme was sharper, but narrower, far heavier, and now discontinued.

The 30mm APM Ultra Flat Field (UFF) is an excellent eyepiece all around.  It pairs well with the Delos and Morpheus lines as far as correction, field of view, and ease of viewing with eyeglasses.

I assume you realize that that is the secondary mirror shadow.  If not, take a look at the front of your scope.  Do you see that big assembly in the middle of the corrector?  That's the secondary mirror assembly on your Mak.  It reflects the light from the primary back to the hole in the center of it so the eyepiece can form an image at the back of the scope.  You have what is known as an obstructed system.  That black dot will always be there, although it gets squeezed down to a tiny pinpoint at best focus.  If you clearly see the dot, you're out of focus.  For fun while out of focus, spread your fingers apart on one hand and slowly wave them in front of the corrector while looking through the eyepiece.  You'll see a shadow image of them in the out of focus star image.  An if it's a cold day, you should see thermal currents rising off them as well.

4 hours ago, John said:

The Nirvana is probably the best you can for for it's price. I think it would provide as good performance as the ES 6.7 for a lot less £'s which is why I suggested it.

My personal choice at 17mm are the currently the 17mm Explore Scientific 92 degrees and the Tele Vue Delos 17.3mm but these are £300 plus eyepieces if bought new. Big eyepieces as well

 

 

I would add the 17.5mm Baader Morpheus.  It's supposed to be a top performer as well for less money than the Delos.

There's also the 7mm Celestron Luminos in that rough price range.

Look for the GSO/TPO/Apertura/Zhumell/AstroTech/TSOptics/Revelation 2X ED 2" Barlow.  It is really good for the money, is full aperture, has an excellent 1.25" adapter included, and the optical nosepiece is 2" filter threaded so it can be screwed directly onto 2" eyepieces for about 1.5x or onto the end of a 2" diagonal for about 3x.  If you can locate a used Tele Vue Panoptic Barlow Interface (PBI), it works very well with this Barlow to make a poor man's Powermate because the GSO Barlow has almost exactly the same focal length as the TV Big Barlow the PBI was intended to work with.

11 minutes ago, Cuto100200 said:

Just trying to get a good broad amount of information on all the stuff, I don't want to rush into buying stuff and then realise I should have got something else lol, and thank you for the suggestion, never heard of astigmatism, time to go search that up haha.

With regards to eye astigmatism:

1. Do you wear glasses?
2. If you do, check your prescription for CYL or Cylinder correction.  It will be quoted in diopters.  The bigger the number, the more astigmatism you have in your eye.
3. Check this chart from Tele Vue to get an idea at what exit pupils you can tolerate your astigmatism.  Exit pupil is the eyepiece focal length divided by your telescope's focal ratio.  Astigmatism less noticeable as power increases and exit pupil goes down.

3 hours ago, Don Pensack said:

I'll be interested in reading your comparison.  I did just that with a 31mm Nagler, 30mm UFF and 30mm XW just 2 months ago.

Did you post a write-up somewhere?  I recall your recent 30mm UFF write-up on CN.

I would hope at $665 that the 31mm Nagler T5 is pin sharp from edge to edge with no field curvature, no chromatic aberration, and no astigmatism.  My 30mm ES-82 has very noticeable chromatic aberration in the last 10%.  However, I only paid $220 for it years ago, so I'm content to live with it.  It's not apparent in the image below, but it is very noticeable if I let a planet drift from edge to edge during observing.  It is way better than Kasai Super WideVue which looks like a prism starting at 20% out from center.

3 hours ago, Don Pensack said:

Would you want a 25mm Delos if it was 2" and weighed close to twice what a 17.3mm weighed and cost 50% more?

Actually, I want a 25mm ES-92 for under $600.

19 minutes ago, Cuto100200 said:

Are there any other eyepieces in the 16-18mm type of range I should look at or would the Nirvana be the optimal choice? 

So you changed gears mid-thread.  If price is no object, and you must wear eyeglasses due to astigmatism, the 17mm ES-92 is my favorite in that focal length range.

See if that bottom section unscrews and contains all the lenses.  If it does, see if it will thread onto the end of your diagonal like a filter.  You should be able to reach focus in this configuration, but at a higher magnification factor.  I know the GSO 2" ED 2x Barlow can be used in this manner.

48 minutes ago, Neil H said:

Hi Carole I went for the golf weights as they are oval not square, look on eBay the golf ones are pricy compared to the square car wheel balance weights but the car ones are so cheap even for a box 

Of course, because the golf ones are surely "high precision". 😉

1 hour ago, Shooting star said:

See what your saying. I'll need to understand the design more and deep dive the reviews.

And someone who is probably aware of multiple rebrandings of the same thing with varying degrees of packaging ergonomics and attractiveness.

51 minutes ago, Shooting star said:

Ah I see. Thanks. Sounds like one to avoid. Don't like the idea of rebranded.

Aside from Televue, Brandon, Vixen, Takahashi, Masuyama, Pentax, Nikon, Olympus, Docter, Zeiss, Leica, Meopta, Swarovski, and a couple others I may be forgetting, pretty much all the rest are simply market brandings for readily available, Chinese or Taiwanese made eyepieces.  Often, Vixen and Takahashi subcontract out their eyepiece manufacturing to other Japanese companies.  Even Baader is suspect since their Hyperion line is basically the same as the Orion Stratus line.  Most eyepieces are made by GSO, JOC, KUO, Synta, Long Perng, etc.  If they're good, it doesn't really matter what the lettering on the eyepiece says.

Simply go around to the other side of your Newtonian and lean over it to reach the eyepiece.  The image will appear upright when viewed this way.  I have no idea how long you'll be able to hold this position, but it works.

There's generally not enough focus travel to put any prisms in the light path of a Newtonian to flip the image the right way around, so you're pretty much stuck with the above workaround.

If you really want a correct left-right and top-bottom imaging spotting scope because terrestrial use is most important to you, get either a refractor, an SCT, or a Mak telescope and put an Amici prism diagonal on the back.

At night, it doesn't really matter if the sky is flipped or rotated unless you're trying to match an eyepiece view against finder charts.

46 minutes ago, Dean270 said:

Thanks Ian.

 

Anything to watch out for on the second hand market? Really want to avoid buying a dud.

 

Avoid ebay and other non-astro classifieds.  Stick to dedicated astronomy classifieds associated with your home country.  The folks who post on them are generally on the up and up.  That, and you'll probably want to drive and meet face to face if buying a largish Dob.  At that point, you can check it out, ask the seller to show you around it, aim it at terrestrial targets, etc.