Louis D

I can fully understand how some folks can spend hours or even days editing astro images. I specifically tried to avoid getting sucked down that hole; thus the unpolished look. I'm not trying to get my image on APOD after all.

It's been a few years, and I've acquired a few more eyepieces, so I updated the SAEP/CAEP image with those new eyepiece views. The order is a bit scrambled now to fit in the new ones without messing with the existing ordering too much. Images were taken with the LG G5 for consistency sake despite having the much better LG G6 now. That, and the two cameras respond slightly differently to CAEP/SAEP despite both being 2mm f/2.4 lenses. Enjoy!

I took a series of photos roughly every 5 minutes starting from the beginning of the umbral stage to the peak of totality and then went to bed. I just took images with my cellphone camera held up to a zoom eyepiece in my AT 72ED telescope on an alt-az mount. It had trouble locking onto both focus and exposure sometimes, so I had to go with what I got. The images aren't super great, but I was going for the shadow changes rather than sharp details. I roughly cropped and rotated them (thus the occasional white edges) in Photoshop Elements and then composited them into an animated gif using GIFMaker. I hope y'all like it.

A lot (but not all) dovetails also have threaded holes at the end to screw in safety capture (?) screws to prevent the dovetail from slipping out completely if the clamp is loosened accidentally. The problem is, this then requires you to tip your dovetail into the clamp, which many clamps won't open far enough to allow you to do this. I suppose you could just put one at the upper end and slide it in from the lower end. This assumes your scope never nosedives while the clamp is loose.

You'll have to report back on how they compare to your existing orthos. I've read on CN that the Bushnell orthos are quite good.

I get the same dim brownish view in my 9mm LV, and I've always wondered why. Do you think it's due to the Lanthanum glass element?

I'd assume it's 400mm for a start, and that makes your eyepieces 20mm, 13.3mm, 10mm, and 8mm going from 20x to 50x. Judging by the sizes of the eye lenses relative to known ortho eyepieces, I'd say those numbers aren't too far off.

The 14mm and 20mm version seem to get universal praise. However, one person on CN had stray light control issues with his 9mm Orion version and had to resort to blackening and flocking the interior. Perhaps @FLO could check their version for scatter while viewing the full moon to see if its endemic only to Orion's version rather than all brandings.

Perhaps a variation on the Bushnell Spacemaster II spotting scope eyepieces?

As long as the screws that held it to the mount are 1/4-20 (or possibly M6) sized, you should have no issues. I recommend a long plate in case you use a 2" diagonal and 2" eyepieces or a 1.25" diagonal and a binoviewer. That way, you can move the clamp point further back toward the focuser to attain forward-back balance. If you only use a lightweight 1.25" diagonal with lightweight 1.25" eyepieces, you may not need an overly long dovetail plate. You'll want socket head cap screws. The length depends on the distance from the plate to threaded hole of the rings. Surprisingly, this is not standardized.

Try soaking them with cleanser from a damp cloth to dissolve them. You may need to try several different solvents. You can even put a bit of saliva on the tip of your finger and work it into the spot in case it's organic, like tree sap. You can even try your fingernail if all else fails to try and pop it off. Your nail is way too soft to damage either the glass or coatings; however, the adhesion of the spot could take some of the coating with it, so no guarantees. Dissolving is generally your best bet.

Yeah, GSO machines their eyepiece holders to a close tolerance. You also have to watch out for the compression ring trying to ride up and jamming on an eyepiece safety undercut. It hasn't happened to me yet, but I've never tried forcing an eyepiece up and out to precipitate it happening, either. If it snags, I loosen the set screw further and jiggle the eyepiece a bit to reseat the compression ring before pulling again. After it's out, I inspect the ring by running my finger around it to make sure it's fully seated before putting another eyepiece in.

Looks like a low budget sci-fi alien invader's ship descending from the sky. 😜 Magnified, they appear to be overlapping semicircular arcs. Perhaps there's a dominant reflection from one side only going on somewhere?

I remember looking through an etalon type solar scope once and being shocked at how difficult it is to make out the image visually. It's in a super dark and far-red color probably due to passing the H-alpha line. I couldn't make out much detail and was completely underwhelmed. Maybe my retina is just really insensitive to deep red? I'm wondering if these line filters like H-Alpha and Calcium H/K are more appropriate for photography than visual. Perhaps the Hydrogen B, Sodium D and Helium D3 lines might work visually, but seem more rarely sold.

Do you ever find it too smooth in that it tends to overshoot and/or not stay put due to a complete lack of "sticktion"? I could see if the base were not completely level it might contribute to "windmilling" of the upper assembly (seeking the lowest potential energy state).

David Knisely of the Prairie Astronomy Club has written some nice web pages about nebula and LP filters that you might find useful: Useful Filters For Viewing Deep-Sky Objects Filter Performance Comparisons For Some Common Nebulae

I think because light pollution filters apply such a light touch, that they're actually more effective at increasing contrast in areas with little light pollution. Rural skies mostly deal with street and yard lights that are more limited in the spectrum they pollute. In heavily light polluted skies, light pollution filters don't appreciably increase contrast as compared to the more heavy handed UHC filters in my experience. I think it's because there's so much light pollution across the entire spectrum in urban skies thanks to myriad light sources. Simply put, you're unlikely to ever see low surface brightness, face on galaxies in Bortle 8/9 skies with any filtration. However, they might stand out better in Bortle 3/4 skies with a light pollution filter.

Get a deeper case and switch to vertical storage. You'll be able to get so many more eyepieces into the same length by width real estate. You'll just have to memorize where things are.

It looks like the CLS-CCD block IR where the CLS does not. Since CCD can see IR and humans cannot, the CLS should be fine for visual. Also, it looks like the CLS will pass the C2 lines at 511nm and 514nm where the CLS-CCD might not pass them quite as well. This is important for comet hunting.

I would also recommend getting a decent 2x Barlow to "slow down" the f/4 light cone so your stock eyepieces will perform better and at a higher power. The 6mm Expanse is supposedly decent, but suffers from kidney beaning (SAEP) and poor stray light control from what I've read. I'd probably get the 5mm Starguider instead. They're also known as the Astro Tech Paradigm and Agena Starguider Dual ED. If you can get your power up to around 75x to 90x, you should be able to easily see the moons and major bands of Jupiter, their shadow transits, the rings of Saturn, and perhaps some of its brighter moons. Thus, a 5mm to 6mm eyepiece, or its equivalent with a Barlow would do. A Barlowed zoom might also be a good choice to allow you to seek out the highest usable power without spending a fortune on individual eyepieces.

You wouldn't be able to have a 60 degree apparent field of view with a 30mm to 32mm 1.25" eyepiece like the BST Starguiders. Around 50 to 52 degrees is about the limit in that range, depending on distortion, so you might as well go with a Plossl of some sort. At f/12, they perform quite excellently. I have a 32mm GSO Plossl which has noticeably better contrast than my vintage 32mm Orion Sirius Plossl thanks to better coatings. I don't know how much of an improvement you'd get moving up to an NPL or Baader Classic Plossl, let alone a Tele Vue Plossl. I'd probably put that money toward upgrading my visual back and diagonal to 2" so I could use wider 30mm eyepieces, even if they vignette a bit.

Too bad you're not in the US. Lots of options for large vehicles here. I transport my 15" Dob in the back of my 2003 Chevy Astro Van with the rear seat removed. We use a two person dead lift to get it into the back. I can still haul 5 people and plenty of gear in that configuration. Of course, it gets 12mpg city and 17mpg highway and would never meet ULEZ emission standards.

Lucky you. My neighbor has 5 outdoor cats that think our yard is theirs as well, and yet I still have to trap our ubiquitous Texas field/attic rats. How did you train yours to do their job?

It seems like if you're going down this route, why not start with the 60mm version? I can see a massive improvement in number of stars visible using a 60mm finder over a 50mm finder. However, the weight of these custom finders relegates them to positions on the scope where they won't throw off balance in my experience.

I've used it before for DIY projects. While it's better than nothing, it's doesn't really have any light trap effect at grazing angles.