Louis D

27 minutes ago, UKDiver said:

Phillipines internal flight. Everything weighed, including the passengers. Weight distribution more important on smaller planes perhaps. Or cutting fuel to minimum!

I was once on a puddle jumper flying up the Hudson River corridor.  Before the flight, the pilot walked back to the passenger area (18 passengers as I recall in 6 rows of 3) and rearranged us left right and front to back to get the weight distribution correct.  All carry-on luggage was piled into a bungee corded closet in the back.  It flew slower than single engine planes using the same corridor.  Looking at internet images, I think it must have been a Short SC.7 Skyliner:

The GSO made StellaLyra CC is very good visually for the money.  It also helps to flatten the field somewhat.  I've no idea how well it works for prime focus photography, though.  If you are also a visual astronomer, it could serve double duty for you.

For low power finderscope usage, draw tube slip focusing is usually good enough, so go ahead and remove the focuser.  You adjust it once, lock it down, and never bother with it again.  It's how I use a Celestron 90° Amici prism diagonal and eyepiece with an old Russell Optics 60mm finder scope made from a 60mm binocular objective.

The Clement Bellerophon III requires only 1" of backfocus and yet has 1.5" of focus travel.  I'm not sure they have a Synta refractor adapter, though.

I have never had my carry-on bags weight checked that I can recall, only my checked bags.  When would they weight check your carry-on bags since you never put them on a scale during check-in?  Do they have a different process in Europe than the US?

Check the weight against what you feel comfortable lugging through an airport and shoving in an overhead bin.  My back isn't what it used to be, so I can't carry much weight for those sorts of distances anymore.

1 hour ago, Carbon Brush said:

5 minutes later their modified (but allowed) luggage left very long scratch marks on the floor through the terminal building.

Too bad the airlines neither own nor maintain the concourses, or that would have been a great response.  The local city will be on the hook for repairs instead.

1 hour ago, cajen2 said:

I'm well used to the views given by my Pentaxes and SL 80° EP. I'm sure a 92° view is also excellent, though I feel there is a law of diminishing returns operating here: one can't take in the whole view at a time. Plus the ES 92 is £470 here! 😱

It's something to do with the edges going beyond my eyeglass frame above and below with the ES-92s.  They're $800 before sales tax here.

If you think the 12.5mm Morpheus is engaging, try the 12mm ES-92 which is breathtaking in comparison.  When I swap back to my 14mm Morpheus, the view seems claustrophobic.  It's all relative to your most recent experience.

What's your total eyepiece and accessory budget?  I prefer to invest in a few really pleasing eyepieces to start with and then fill in the gaps as funds become available rather than buying a bunch of so-so eyepieces that will end up being resold down the road.

6 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

I'm not getting my collection out, will take too long to put them back and my OCD will be trying to make me put them back in  a more organised way, lol  🤣

I hear you.  I had a panic attack getting everything out for that group shot.  I literally took photos of each case ahead of time to help me get everything back where it belonged.  Even then, I realized some reorganization was in order; so a couple of eyepiece swaps happened.

13 hours ago, Stephen Waldee said:

Below: My Better Half, wearing her Astrogoggles (one of the products I introduced when I

was the Product Development Manager of an American telescope sales company.)

I remember those in the Orion catalog (maybe not with your wife wearing them, though).  So we have you to thank for them?

13 hours ago, Stephen Waldee said:

This same guy chided my wife at another star party.  Regina knows ALL ABOUT dark adaptation; she's an occasional observer.  She had brought her iPad and was showing some kids around 6 or 7 years old her star chart--the iPad screen was set to "all red".  This same guy -- well meaning chap, but misguided -- came over and in a booming loud voice said. "TOO BRIGHT! You will ruin their dark sensitivity!!" The instant he said this, a car turned the corner in the parking lot were we had the star party and pulled up RIGHT in front of all of us...his brights on!  There are SOME situations where you just CANNOT get dark adapted; so why try?  (Regina was so peeved that she said she would rather NEVER see this guy again.  Club President!  Some diplomat...)

Pretty much the reason I refuse to join the local university based astro club.  The leadership is very officious and takes all the joy out of observing.  The suburban clubs are much more laid back.

46 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

I have the world's most disparate EP collection, including two Pentaxes, two StellaLyras,  a Morpheus, a BST, a Vixen and a Svbony, plus an OVL zoom, so not short of comparisons....😆

Did someone say world's most disparate EP collection?  Let's see, there's Tele Vue, Pentax, Vixen, Meade, ES, Baader, Astro Tech, APM, Edmunds, Rini, Russell Optics, Antares, Celestron, Surplus Shed, US military surplus, Orion, Agena Astro, Bausch & Lomb, and no name generics in my EP collection.

You only have to use long eye relief eyepieces if you have strong astigmatism in your observing eye.  It is listed in your eyeglass prescription as CYL or cylinder in diopters.  0.5 diopters or less and most folks don't notice it.  Above that, you'll probably want to wear glasses at least at low powers.  So, check your prescription to find out which way to go.

That said, many folks like the relaxed viewing experience long eye relief eyepieces provide.  You don't have to cram your eye in close to the eyepiece eye lens to see the entire field of view.  You don't have to worry about getting eyelash gunk on the eye lens with each blink.  They like being able to look to the sky and then the eyepiece without having to flip their glasses on and off.

1 hour ago, Alien 13 said:

I would go for a pair of binoculars, scanning the horizon with a reflector for ships would drive me nuts as would a frac with a mirror diagonal. 😀

Alan

So make sure to bring a correct image 45° or 90° prism diagonal as well for the frac for daytime usage.  You could even bring a binoviewer to reduce eye strain.

If you're handy, you could rebuild your Dob into a suitcase Dob.

2 hours ago, cajen2 said:

Should be plenty of solar power....

But did you remember to bring long lasting photovoltaic cells?  Are wiring and plumbing bits available to create a steam generator for electricity?  I suppose you could bring a mechanical clock drive mechanism:

The AT AF70 (Omegon Redline SW) have an excellent 22mm, an okay 17mm, an iffy 13mm, and reportedly (I haven't tried these personally) mediocre 8mm and 5mm versions.  Thus, you can't extrapolate eyepiece performance across an entire line based on the performance of one of them.  That's why I pick and choose the best eyepieces from different eyepiece lines.

I'd probably go with a refractor on a desert island because sea salt mist would eventually corrode mirror coatings even with a protective oxide overcoat.  A weatherproofed SCT or Mak spotter might also be an option.  Probably a ruggedized and sealed 100mm spotting scope would be a good choice since repairs would be all but impossible.  I suppose if the desert island were large enough with a decent elevation change, you could get away with a non-sealed reflector used in the island's interior.

2 hours ago, chrispj said:

I did wonder about trying this, but there is a thread mismatch between the Televue Barlow lens cell and the BV nosepiece. Interesting to try different things and see how they work anyway...

Yep, I have the TV 2x Barlow as well, and its nosepiece threads are smaller than 1.25" filter threads, so it's a no-go to use it as an OCS/OCA/GPC.

Look for a used Meade 140 2x Barlow.  The nosepiece unscrews from the tube and can be screwed onto the nosepiece of the BV for right at 3x.  They have super sharp, 3 element Japanese made optics.

18 minutes ago, Stu said:

I suspect it does. I think if you use a fast achro with too much SA then it will mask the performance benefits of a wedge at high power, so you won’t see much difference. Use a decent long focal length achro (eg 102mm f11) or a good apo and the results would likely be different.

With a fast achro, the Baader Solar Continuum filter would help immensely since it filters out the unfocused ends of the spectrum leaving only the sharp green portion around 540nm:

Even a #56 Green filter would probably help immensely to increase image sharpness in an achro:

Passing only 50% of the green light isn't a big deal with solar viewing since you're attenuating it so much anyway.

22 hours ago, Rodd said:

yeah--that's about how I see it.  To bad I don't have a vacuum chamber.  I think vacuum would kill the fungus

I think it might just go into a state of suspended animation like a tardigrade does.

Did it come with a 45° correct image prism diagonal?  If so, you should swap it out for a standard 90° mirror or prism diagonal at some point.

Have a look down the front.  Is there an obvious circular aperture stop directly behind the objective?  I ask because I picked up a similar looking 70mm "travel" scope off ebay two years ago, and it had stops in both the main tube and the focuser tube.  They stop down the objective to about 35mm at most to improve the image quality at the expense of light gathering.

You might want to get a #12 yellow filter and #56 green filter to block unfocused violet-blue light with the yellow and blue and red with the green.  I found they help on planetary details with my ST80 scope.  Of course, the color balance is way off while you use them.  An achromat such as your scope only focuses light from teal to yellow-orange well.  The unfocused light can degrade the image at high powers, thus the filters.