Louis D

My understanding is that ED glass was more common in eyepieces 15 to 25 years ago.  Then China cornered the market on rare earths and starting jacking up the prices on them except to Chinese customers.  As a result, most newer non-Chinese eyepiece designs dropped using ED glasses because they had become cost prohibitive.  To get the same level of correction, eyepieces tended to get longer or fatter to make up for the loss of ED glass properties.

For widefields, I would recommend 10mm and below Pentax XW and the discontinued XL.  The XWs give slightly darker backgrounds, while the XLs are easier to hold the view and are better corrected to the edge.

I would also recommend most of the Delos.  The perform equally as well as the XW and are much better at 12mm to 17.3mm.

The only ES I would recommend would be the 12mm and 17mm ES-92s that view just like the Delos, only with a wider field of view.  They are massive, weighty, and 2"-only.

The Panoptics are sharp and provide a dark background, though they have a bit of field curvature.

The Delites are supposed to be a step up in sharpness and contrast from the Delos, though a notch below the best narrower field planetary eyepieces.

The Morpheus are a slight step behind the XW/Delos/Delite.  I would avoid the 14mm because it has slight curvature and astigmatism at the edge.  The 14mm Delos would be the better choice.

The Nikon NAV-SW have fewer reports, but some folks swear by them.  The NAV-HW are regarded as slightly better than the Ethos, but just a notch behind the 12.5mm Docter.

The 12.5mm Docter is considered phenomenal in most respects, but it only comes in one focal length.

The 30mm APM UFF is an excellent choice at that focal length.

At high powers, the Tak TOEs and Vixen HRs are considered the best that are currently available.

15 minutes ago, merlin100 said:

I had a ganders at the moon and Venus this evening. The phase of Venus was very apparent using both the 8mm and 3.2mm EP's.  Although Venus was a bit darker in the 3.2mm EP, it was still bright. 

On the moon, both the 8mm and 3.2mm EP's weren't that clear. I used a 10mm EP (OEM) and I could also see the scintillation through that too.  The atmosphere wasn't quite good enough for higher power observing. Lastly, I checked it with the supplied 25mm EP and the scintillation was far less obvious. 

Center a bright star (Venus might even work) and defocus it pretty far.  You should be able to see the atmospheric (or telescope tube) turbulence as bubbling in the defocused image.  You can sort of judge the quality of the seeing in this manner.

Stick your hand in front of the objective/end of tube to see more cool thermal effects.  It reminds of the view through a thermal imager.

16 hours ago, merlin100 said:

I had a quick look through the 8mm and 3.2mm on Venus this evening.  The phase was quite distinct, but I don't think seeing conditions were at their best, due to a slight haze in the sky.  The moon was a low crescent, dipping below the roof lines before I could get a ganders at it.  I think I'll have to wait till it's more prominent...

Just for the hell of it, I tried them on Arcturus.  It was bright enough, but again, I couldn't get a sharp image because of the haze.  As I already knew they would, the celestial bodies move very fast at high magnification!

If you get a clear night, let stars of different magnitudes drift to the edge and note if they change shape indicating edge aberrations.  Also, try refocusing a star at or near the edge to see if that improves its sharpness.  Racking a star near the edge inside and outside of best focus can easily reveal if the eyepiece has edge astigmatism because the star will stretch radially on one side and tangentially on the other.  If it is minor, it will appear nearly pinpoint at best focus.  If it's bad, it will appear spiky at best focus.  If you keep objects centered with a driven mount, edge astigmatism does not matter very much, but if you use an undriven mount, especially at high powers, you really want edge to edge sharpness to extend "dwell" time to observe an object before nudging the scope again.

Closest for me was my 32mm GSO Plossl and 8-24mm Celestron Regal zoom I took with me to Nebraska for the eclipse.  Everyone at the viewing site thought the views looked fine through each when used in my ST80 travel scope.  Eye relief was sufficient in both even for eyeglass wearers.

See these previous discussions on SGL, CN, and elsewhere:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/653616-eyepiece-turret/

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/442049-does-anyone-use-an-eyepiece-turret/

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/628144-turrets-and-what-4-eyepieces-you-use/

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/576353-eye-piece-turrets-takahashi-tec/

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/668439-geoptik-eyepiece-turret-any-experience/

https://www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/user-reviews/review-of-the-tec-eyepiece-turret-r2598

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/645543-npae-turret-nice-if-you-can-afford-it/

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/how-to/build-a-rotating-eyepiece-turret/

9 hours ago, johninderby said:

The first floor means different things in the US and the UK 🤔

Ground floor is synonymous with first floor in the US.  You'll often see elevators buttons marked G-2-3-4-... instead of 1-2-3-4-... here in the states to make it clearer.  That must get confusing to Americans trying to get back to ground floor in an office building to see the buttons marked G-1-2-3-4-...  Which button to I press, G or 1, to get back to street level?  You'll also typically see a ⭐ next to whatever button gets you to street level to reassure users.  I wonder if UK elevators do the same.

Question is, what do y'all call the level in the ground?  We call it a basement.  Perhaps you call it the underground floor in keeping with the ground floor nomenclature or perhaps lower level as in an office building?

I store my Dobs in the back of coat closets on my first floor.  One has end caps and the other one collapses into a box (truss style).  No mirror coating degradation in 20+ years this way.  Everything in my shed gets a coating of mildew due to the high humidity of summers in Texas (swamp level dew points).  The garage simply doesn't have the spare space for a telescope with two cars, water softener, water heater, and power tool storage.  The main house A/C keeps the humidity at bay during our cooling season from mid-March to mid-November.

I've read that they're pretty decent.  Sorry I don't have any first hand experience with it.  Have you ever see or picked up a 10" Dob in person?  They're not exactly small or compact.  As long as you're aware of that, it can be a very good choice giving years of astro enjoyment.

Have you read through @johninderby's thread on his 10" Bresser Dob? (Apparently, we simulposted.)

As that is the only BST focal length I don't have, I'm quite interested in hearing your thoughts on it.

Clear skies!

I would just pick up a pair of cheap 8x40 porro prism binoculars off Amazon with Prime.  If they aren't well collimated or are unsharp, send them back and try again.

An 8" Dob is a lot sharper to my eye than a 5" Mak if we're comparing in the £400 range (don't forget to budget for a decent mount and tripod for the Mak).  The Dob is just a single parabolicly curved primary mirror and a flat secondary mirror.  The Mak has two spherical curves on the corrector, a spherically curved primary mirror, a spherically curved secondary mirror, and a flat in the diagonal.  It's a lot harder to get 4 matching, well figured spherical curves than to make a single, well figured parabolic curve and a decent flat for £400.

Once you pump up the power, Bortle 6 skies become a lot less milky.  I should know, I observe under them in my backyard.

As long as you can block the light from the street lamp getting to your telescope and eyepiece, it doesn't impact your views all that much.  I had to put my recycle bin on top of my garbage bin last night to block my ******** neighbor's unshielded back porch light that shines like a beacon into my backyard.  Talk about light trespass.

Even in twilight, you can observe solar system objects and star clusters; although you're so far north, the planets must be really low for you, so it might not matter how dark the skies are if they're on the horizon.

As long you have nearby dark skies, you should be able to observe in those directions to good effect.  My nearby cities lie to my west, so I can't observe that way at all.  Smaller towns lie north and south, so the skies are a bit better in those directions.  However, it's just farmland to east, so I can get nice views in that direction.

The Bresser/ES Dobs have really good trunnions for the altitude bearings, so balance is less of an issue for them.  I've read they are better in other ways than the Skywatcher/Synta Dobs, such as the anti-reflection coating in the tube.  If you've got the time to observe, why wait?  The summer has many good objects to observe.

Makes me glad I have no electronics on my telescopes save for a 1990s era Skycommander DSC box.

25 minutes ago, merlin100 said:

Perhaps the 5mm will work out nearer the 6mm you recommended then?🤣

Here's the 5mm Paradigm/BST up against some other high power eyepieces.  It seems to be pretty close to the quoted focal length based on its neighbors' magnifications.

I've yet to find a single eyepiece egregiously far off as far as focal length goes.  Usually, eye relief and AFOV are commonly exaggerated.  Alternatively, the 6.5mm HD-60 should play up the fact it has a 65 degree AFOV like a Pentax XL as seen in the last image.

3 hours ago, John said:

All the BST Starguiders have a 60 degree apparent field of view (AFoV).

 

Claimed, but below is what I measured using eyepiece projection out the eye lens.  AstroTech Paradigm is the same as the BST Starguider.

The 5mm and 8mm underachieve while the 18mm overachieves.  The 5mm and 8mm definitely have a different look to their insides as compared to the 12mm to 18mm.  The 25mm has a larger eye lens and longer eye relief indicating a different design as compared to the 18mm and below.

The 4.5mm, 6.5mm, 9mm, and 12mm HD-60s overachieve while the 18mm and 25mm underachieve.  Notice the 18mm and 25mm have larger eye lenses indicating a different design as compared to the 12mm and below.

By comparison, the Pentax XLs, XWs, Delos, and Morpheus are all spot-on their claimed fields of view (or consistently overachieve by ~2 degrees).

I always like how my 5.2mm Pentax XL resolves globulars into sparkly diamond dust.

I would recommend the 30mm APM UFF for edge to edge sharpness and little to no inherent field curvature.  I replaced my 27mm Panoptic with it and have been very happy with that decision.  At very high powers, folks swear by the Vixen HRs and Tak TOEs.  In the middle, the TV Delos, Pentax XWs, and Baader Morpheuses are very good choices.  The TV Delites are another good choice with slightly better correction at a slightly narrower field of view.  There are lots of excellent options out there beyond these as well.

19 minutes ago, Shooting star said:

What would you say is the difference between the Vixen SLV and the Starguider eyepieces. How different a viewing experience is it? 

The Vixen LV/NLV/SLV are 45 to 50 degrees AFOV, 16mm to 18mm of usable eye relief, high quality lens polish, and very good multicoatings.  They offer up excellent edge to edge sharpness over a limited field of view for the eyeglass wearer on a budget.

The Starguider BSTs offer 57 to 62 degrees AFOV, 12mm to 18mm of usable eye relief, mid-quality lens polish, and good multicoatings.  They offer up a near-superwide field of view, good central sharpness and decent correction to the edge on an even tighter budget.  They may not be the best for eyeglass wearers, though.

That's the one focal length in that line of eyepieces I don't have.  I have read it does very well when conditions allow.

1 hour ago, c4llum83 said:

Following a recommendation on here somewhere I used a sliced deodorant can to neatly (sort of!) cut the holes in the foam.

I didn't even realize aerosol deodorant still existed after it fell out of favor in the 70s and 80s.  It's pretty rare here in the states at maybe 2% to 5% of total shelf space and sales.

1 hour ago, c4llum83 said:

I even have space for one more at some point depending on what could best complete the mismatched set lol (I'm mostly interested in lunar observation). 

Don't feel like you have to be a slave to a single case.  I started out that way, but soon realized that as I upgraded, I liked to keep the old eyepieces around for comparison sake and relegated them to a second-string or B-team case.  Eventually, this expanded to a C-team case, an overflow case, a binoviewer case, a travel case, and a couple of cases dedicated to complete mid-range sets.

1 hour ago, c4llum83 said:

Much as I love to see the lenses on their sides in all your cases, I needed to store vertically in order to fit in up to 10 eyepieces plus filters etc. 

Good choice, the vast majority of my eyepieces are kept vertically to save space.

1 hour ago, c4llum83 said:

I'm particularly proud of the internal led red light made by repurposing an old folding kindle booklight (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0069W345G/ref=cm_sw_r_wa_apa_i_k9jOEb0EA1JB4) which now has a nice sweet wrapper filter!

I think glowing red cases are so cool looking.  However, I have enough ambient light in my backyard, that I never have trouble picking out eyepieces there.  Perhaps if I ever get my vacation/retirement home in the mountains of southwestern New Mexico, I might have to revisit the whole lighted case issue.

5 hours ago, woodblock said:

Thanks Peter, I've always assumed that if see a light moving steadily across the sky at night then it must be a satellite. I often see planes but usually you can see more than one light and usually a red light. But last night almost anytime I looked up I could see somewhere in the sky what appeared to be a satellite. So then I thought that perhaps they were high flying aircraft. The last two nights when I've been taking pictures I've taken one with a trail.

There have been a lot of new satellites recently put up by competing concerns trying to bring internet access to the entire world.  Also, there's a lot fewer planes flying right now, so that probability has significantly dropped.

45 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

ahh that was it, yes I remember reading about his scope, nice to have the room to be able to build and use something like that  

The American West, like the Australian Outback, both have lots of room to spread out in.  Mike Clements is in Utah, which has vast stretches of emptiness like most of the rest of the Mountain West and the Desert Southwest.

On 20/04/2020 at 15:09, belfieldi said:

The best thing to buy first, is a copy of 'Making Every Photon Count' https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html. It will give you a fighting chance of identifying the right kit for you.

I was wondering why the following books are never recommended on SGL for beginners:

The Deep-sky Imaging Primer [by Bracken]

Getting Started: Long Exposure Astrophotography [by Hall]

Beginner's Guide to DSLR Astrophotography [by Lodriguss]

The Astrophotography Manual: A Practical and Scientific Approach to Deep Space Imaging [by Woodhouse]

Is it because Making Every Photon Count is just that much better or the ones I listed are just much too advanced for beginners?

Amazing what a tiny bit of misalignment in optics can make in an image.

4 hours ago, Mike409 said:

Hya guys I need some help looking at buying a scope for the moon and deeper space my budget is 2000 grand and I’m a pure

So, that's 2000 grand = 2 million?  Pretty deep pockets there.

19 minutes ago, Mike409 said:

Hya guys thanks for your response I just thought an auto one finds planets easier I’ve only looked through s scope once which was cheep and I don’t want to be disappointed in a cheep scope I would like in time to connect may to a lap top and 

Except for Uranus and Neptune, planets are super easy to find due to their brightness.  DSOs can be much harder to find, but the thrill can be in the hunt.

4 hours ago, Mike409 said:

novice so I need an automatic and the only thing I’ve learnt is  a 12 inch mirror is best any help appreciated I’ve looked at Meade and skywatcher thanks guys 

For 2000, I would look to get a nice, custom made, used truss Dob with a hand figured mirror.  I can't tell where you're located, but in the US, these come up all the time on the astro classifieds.  The optics and mechanicals are much better than commercial Dobs and really hold their value well.