Louis D

Vintage Japanese made binos can sometimes be better (it was the golden era of extra-wide fields in the 50s & 60s), but they can be a crap shoot due to age.  Here's a pair on ebay that doesn't look too bad.  Looks to be mid-60s to mid-70s era.  If you're not a seasoned ebayer buying second-hand binos, you're probably better off going for Chinese made new.

Aside from the instafocus feature, which is counterproductive in astronomy, that pair you referenced would be a good choice.

For a 3 year old, you might want to go even lighter in the future.  However, that gets expensive if you still want a quality view.

I have those same 15x70 binos in Galileo branding.  Yes, very heavy even for full grown man, but great when properly braced.

As you probably know, I enjoy trying different eyepiece types on a given target to see which I prefer.  Sometimes, the widefield wins out, other times, it's a narrower field of view eyepiece.  There's no one perfect eyepiece for all occasions, so it's nice to have options.

5 hours ago, doubledoubleswifty said:

The presenter is explaining opposition.  "But you'll ever hear that Mercury or Venus are at opposition....have orbits which are smaller than the Earth's so they can't appear in the night sky".

Opposition: When a planet that orbits further from the sun than the Earth (Mars/Jupiter/Saturn/Uranus/Neptune) is exactly on a line with the Earth and sun so it rises as the sun sets and sets as the sun rises, just like a full moon is the moon at "opposition".  It's on the opposite side of the Earth from the sun, so it's visible all night long.

Mercury and Venus orbit between the Earth and Sun, and as such, can only be visible for short periods of time after sunset and before sunrise.  I think that's what the presenter meant by "can't appear in the night sky".  They can only appear during twilight and shortly before and after twilight.  You'll never be able to see Mercury or Venus at midnight because the night side of the Earth at that time is facing toward the outer solar system, not the inner solar system where those two planets orbit.

I just use a pair of 23mm Vite/Svbony aspheric 62 degree eyepieces in my binoviewer for widest field views without vignetting.  They're super light at 3 ounces per pair and very slim, so I can easily get my nose between them.  You can see how they perform at f/6 in my FOV image take through a 72ED in comparison to other eyepieces including the 25mm BST (Paradigm).  They perform extremely well at f/12+ natively binoviewed in the 127 Mak and at f/18 with my 3x nosepiece binoviewed in that 72ED.

3 minutes ago, sarahsmiffy said:

Ok a dobsonian could be the way to go for me then.

only thing is I’m 4ft11 -I’m a bit concerned if the eye piece maybe too high in some positions. Any tips or experienc

An observing chair can boost you up for when you are observing near zenith; alternatively, just stand and lean against a step stool for stability.  Standing while observing for hours leads to fatigue and inability to hold your head in alignment with the eyepiece.

Here's a good image to give you some idea of the height of that 6" Dob under the Orion USA brand.  Admittedly, that guy is taller than you.  That version has digital setting circles (DSCs) to help find objects.  It doesn't track, but it knows where it's pointed in the sky once it's been star aligned.  Instead of GOTO, it's push-to.

1 hour ago, sarahsmiffy said:

Would it allow me to see nebulae and galaxies in the right light ?

Depends.  You can see the Orion nebula and a few other bright nebula in just about any scope in urban skies.  You can see the core of M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) in just about any scope in urban skies.  With the right nebula filters, you can see a few more nebula from urban skies.  Galaxies, however, are reserved for truly dark skies.  Sometimes you can make out the cores of the brightest ones from intermediate skies in large scopes.  They rarely look like photographs except in the biggest scopes under truly dark skies.

Your best targets for smaller scopes are solar system objects, star clusters, and double stars because they are bright and contrasty.

2 hours ago, Jakerm1995 said:

Upon looking at the map, it does show that where I am is in the orange/yellow area, I hope that it isn't too bad.

That's at the zenith (directly overhead).  If you look toward a horizon, you may be able to pick up darker skies in a direction with no cities in the distance.

27 minutes ago, sarahsmiffy said:

thats the sort of image quality i'm looking for.

Really good and much better than my moon from my iphone with the astromaster !

Here's an over 15 year old moon photo I took with a 6" Dob at the time and a 2003 Olympus C4000 camera.  I would think modern cameras should be able to do far better.

20 minutes ago, sarahsmiffy said:

Alot of people seem to be recommending the skywatcher dobsonian, are they not awkward to use ?

Quite the opposite.  The mount is rock solid compared to anything using axles for pivots at the same price point.  So much so, you can keep a light touch on the tube to nudge it to follow an object across the sky.  Vibrations settle out very quickly and they are much more immune to crosswinds than a long tube up on a couple of pivot points on a tripod.  Using a tripod mounted scope seated is a real pain.  For me, it's difficult to get them low enough for me to keep my feet on the ground when observing at mid altitudes.  Dobs are pretty easy by comparison.  That 6" Dob's eyepiece height varies from about 40" to 22", give or take.  The eyepiece is always in an easy to access position being at the upper end of the tube rather than at the back end of the tube.  A 6" parabolic mirror will provide sharp, false-color-free views of the moon and planets.  Plus, you can use 2" eyepieces in it someday for wider field views rivaling those of a much shorter focal length scope that can only use 1.25" eyepieces.

4 hours ago, sarahsmiffy said:

Not keen on a dobsonian as you have to prop it on something or crouch !

I don't see why you'd need to prop a 6" Dob on something to use it if you are seated.  It would give you the best views of the sky you could hope for for under £250 (£219).  It can break down to put the base in the trunk and the tube across the back seat of a car.

If I'm looking in the right place on the map, you should have great views to the southwest, so you'll be able to see lots of solar system and deep space objects as they are setting.  My southwest view is blocked by houses, but it wouldn't matter if they weren't there because that's the direction of a very large city and Bortle 9 skies.  The sky in that direction is basically gray at night.  I live in much brighter skies than you do, and I can see lots of objects to my east and south/southeast.  You're actually in a pretty decent place for astronomy by UK standards.  I'd say get the 8" scope and get out there.  Download Stellarium and learn how to use it to understand where things are in the night sky and how they more hour by hour and night by night.

4 hours ago, wookie1965 said:

A old Meade zoom 8-24mm

The better question is, what the heck happened to its chromed brass barrel?

Read Don Pensack's recent report on the 30mm APM UFF if you're not convinced already.  He is not easily impressed being a long time observer and straight talking eyepiece dealer.

4 minutes ago, MarkAR said:

Along the same lines, what about imaging with a 0.8 reducer/flattener and a 2x or even 4x 2" TeleVue Powermate.

You're probably okay because the Powermates are telecentric magnifiers that don't leave the ray bundles diverging.

You'll have vignetting with widest field eyepieces because the barlow will spread the beam outward, allowing some of the ray bundles to slam into the tube walls and be lost forever.  The reducer will then recollimate the central diverging rays and bring them back closer to their original angles of incidence with the exception of those edge bundles which are gone forever.  As a result, the edge near the fieldstop will fuzz out to darkness.  I actually use a barlow/reducer combination to reduce the power of my home-brew binoviewer OCA/GPC.  I put a Meade 140 2x nosepiece on the front of my 1.25" diagonal and a 0.5x reducer on the nosepiece of my binoviewer.  I get about 0.7x and severe vignetting in 26mm Plossls with this setup, but the views are wide.  Without the FR, I get 3.0x, so a massive reduction in power.  For my Dob, I put 45mm of spacer rings between the two and get exactly 1.0x and severe field curvature but no vignetting at 26mm.  32mm Plossls vignette anyway due to the 22mm clear aperture of the binoviewer, so those lost edge bundles aren't a big deal for this application.

I'm confused.  Doesn't the eyepiece have helical focuser on it to bring the reticle into focus?  I'm guessing it's the ribbed ring right below the eye cup and just above the illuminator ring.  Does it not turn?  If not, you've got a defective eyepiece.  If it does turn, focus the reticle first and then use the knurled rubber helical focuser on the diagonal to focus the objective onto the reticle.

I found a description of the eyepiece by itself here.  It says in the description "Can be focused by twisting the top portion of the eyepiece".  That would refer to the ribbed section.  Grab the illuminator ring in one hand and the ribbed section in the other and give it a good counter-clockwise twist first to see if it will go up.  If it appears to be all the way up, try twisting it in the opposite direction.  Pretty much all reticle eyepieces, even the cheapest ones, are focusable.

I would try downsizing to an 8x40/42 bino or even pick up some vintage extra-wide field 7x35 binos off ebay.  You want wide angle and hand-holdability and probably no more than a 5mm exit pupil given your light polluted skies if you want to scan for constellations.  Next, buy a reclining lawn chair.  You will be much more stable laying back like the kids in that cover illustration.

Here's my images of and through my 13mm to 15mm eyepieces.  The BST (Paradigm) does well, but not as well as the shorter focal length BSTs.  It is the smallest and lightest of this group by far, so it has that going for it. 😁

The full view images were taken with an ultrawide angle camera of lower resolution and resampled to match image scale in the central region.  The Meade suffers from SAEP, thus the darkening.

I have the 35mm Aero ED, and it is nice and light, pretty decent over 75% of the field, nearly maxes out the TFOV in a 2" eyepiece (44.4mm field stop), but a bit tight on eye relief if you wear eyeglasses to observe at low powers.  It's also relatively inexpensive.

The Vixen is nice, but nothing special given its price.  If I were going to spend ~$200 on a 30mm eyepiece, I'd definitely get the 30mm APM (Altair) UFF.  It is nearly perfect in all respects.

Here's a few comparison images of and through my 29mm to 42mm eyepieces so you can see how they perform center to edge and how their relative sizes compare.

4 hours ago, Stu said:

@Louis D that is interesting, always thought it must be very tricky to do, but it sounds like our brains are smarter that I thought! Certainly very handy if it works, I found the OVL type Zooms are pretty good.

Not only that, I've found that my brain can compensate for slight differences in power between the two eyes and merge the images successfully.  This whole thing about finding matched sets of eyepieces is completely overblown as it relates to magnification.  What's more important is making sure they focus at the same height relative to the tops of the eyepieces.  You physically can't compensate for one eyepiece being 5mm closer to one eye than the other eyepiece.  You can't get to both exit pupils simultaneously, so you see only part of the image in the one too far away.  I've run into this buying a second eyepiece years later for binoviewing and either the field stop location has moved up or down relative to the shoulder or the eye lens recession has changed relative to the first eyepiece.

My version of that scope has four 1/4"-20 mounting holes in the dovetail plate, so yours probably does as well.  You should be able to find one that gives you decent balance on your tripod and attach your tripod head to it there.  The 5kg limit may assume mostly horizontal usage, so it may struggle with it tipped way back and may want to turn turtle at high altitudes.  Be prepared for such an eventuality and to catch it in the act.  Never leave your scope unattended on one of these tripods since you're pushing its limits and your luck.  Beyond that issue, the biggest usability problem with low cost photo tripods is the head.  They have sticky, jumpy motions.  They don't lock down well.  It's difficult to set the tension so you can smoothly pan in either motion.  The connection between the head and the center column tends to be wobbly.

If it's all you've got, by all means use it, but be aware of its limitations and temper your expectations.  Even professional grade fluid video heads struggle with a telescope tipped way back.  There's a reason most alt-az mounts put the telescope on the side of the mount rather than above.  It allows for the scope to remain mostly balanced as it tips skyward.

1 hour ago, Steve Clay said:

I've  just bought a BST bino viewer from sky's the limit. Are zoom Ep's an option. I already have an ovl 7-21.5  and it's not a massive problem to get another.

Absolutely!  I use a pair of Celestron Regal zooms in mine.  They allow you to quickly dial up the power when conditions allow or dial it back for when conditions deteriorate.  As far as getting them at the same power, I turn them simultaneously and then fine adjust one to match the other in power after refocusing.  It's pretty amazing how easily your brain figures out the moment when the two views are identical and you can stop zooming.

To answer your original question, the Orion is Synta made (PRC) while the Zhumell is GSO made (ROC).  Both have good optics and similar construction.  The Zhumell definitely has the better focuser (dual speed) and a nice optical finder worth over $50 alone.  The large trunnions on the two ES scopes I mentioned will make for much improved altitude motions over either the Zhumell or Orion.  I don't know much about the ES focusers, though, or who makes their scopes.  I assume JOC (PRC) since they own ES, but I could be mistaken.

I used my 20 year old ST80 and Baader Solar Film for viewing the 2017 eclipse's partial phases and, with the filter off, during totality.  I also took it to work and set it up in the parking lot to glimpse the recent Mercury transit between passing clouds.  It worked just fine for both, and I didn't notice any CA or SA, but I wasn't pushing the power above 50x, either.

1 hour ago, New Young Star said:

As for Red dwarf, I will look in to that thanks. any trick welcome.

1 hour ago, Stu said:

One thing to note, I think you are reading our post count ranks as our names. I’m Stu!

@New Young Star I forgot to first say welcome to SGL, so welcome aboard. 

You're not the first to mistake our post count rank name for our username/handle on here.  Look up in the gray (grey?) bar above the post rank nickname and avatar for our username/handle on here.  I'm Louis D. 😃