Splodger

15 hours ago, dannybgoode said:

It's now by far the least accurate forecast tool I have.

Surprised to hear. It seems pretty accurate where I am in the US. Have just found a very good iOS app - Xasteria+.  It accesses a variety of different sources of use to astronomers - 7Timer, Dark Sky, Meteo Blue, Clear Outside, windy.com, Sat24 and two others which are only of relevance to those living in the US. It’s only $0.99 here and I don’t know if there’s an Android app. Definitely worth a look

Having been bought by Apple, Dark Sky and the API are going to be killed off by the end of the year. Considering that Clear Outside uses the Dark Sky API, will it also bite the dust? I sincerely hope not but I think so. If so, will FLO put their muscle behind another app? We all know Clear Outside is not perfect but I think it’s the best app we have. 

On 04/01/2022 at 13:08, Don Pensack said:

6% distortion yields 40.0° (the average 40mm Plössl)

A little disappointing I must say. But at least 40° on my scope encompasses my major point of focus

4 minutes ago, John said:

In the 1.25 inch fitting, the maximum apparent field of view you can get with a 40mm focal length eyepiece is 43 degrees. That is limited by the internal diameter of the 1.25" barrel.

 

Interesting. I had a hunt around and found that about half of the sites selling, or were selling as they are all sold out, the eyepiece have it at 52° and the other half, including meade.com, at 44°. Perhaps I bought it a telescope.com https://tinyurl.com/meade-40mm who are marketing it at 52°. Anyway Ive been bamboozled one way or another.

55 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

It may be you can fit a 2" visual back but that aperture is going to restrict the field of view. It's better to stick with 1.25" I think.

I'm with you. The Meade eyepiece I have is about as wide field as I can hope to get without spending a lot of money. At 40mm with 52° it's not at all bad.

11 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

No - a 2" eyepiece needs a 2" diagonal. Does your scope accept 2" fittings?

You may be limited to 1.25" eyepieces. In which case a 32mm 50° or 24mm 68° eyepiece might suit better.

I've had a quick look and the VB and the aperture for the diagonal are both 1.25" as far as i can tell. I think I would be getting to the point of diminishing returns if I were to go down the route of converting it. Someday soonish I may have a larger scope and I think I'd be better off spending money on that. It's very good to understand all this though. It will definitely my purchasing decisions going forward.

2 hours ago, John said:

So you will need to get a 2 inch diagonal as well, unless you are already using one.

 

I thought I could use a 2” to 1.25” adapter 

1 hour ago, Franklin said:

William Optics 2" 40mm Swan has a 70deg aFov. Will give you about 1.75deg at 45x in your mak, they come up used for about £70. Not the best corrected but should be fine at F/12. I had one and used it at F/11 and it was good across most of the field. Not much else really unless you shell out on a super expensive ultra wide?

Thank you. Seems just about perfect. 

Hi all, As the title suggests I would like to get my hands on a low power wide angle/field eyepiece for my Mac. It's a Meade LX85 150mm - 1800mm FL f/12. I knew when I bought the scope that it would have a narrow FOV, but I would like to at least get The Seven Sisters and Andromeda in the FOV. Also, I don't want to spend a great deal of money. 1.25" would be ideal, but I could keep a 1.25" to 2" adaptor attached to the eyepiece. I've never used an adaptor before and am also wondering if it would affect the FOV. Any suggestions? 

The images attached show the FOV of my scope with my 40mm 52° Meade Super Plossl and a Celestron Omni 56mm which has a FOV of 47°. I don't own the Omni, it's just the best option I could track down.

1 hour ago, Franklin said:

Exactly, you don't need to be clumsy, it's dark out there! I've got a case full of eyepieces and some of them are quite up there with the best, but the Baader zoom still gets used the most. I call it lazy stargazing, a low power/widefield eyepiece, zoom and barlow and maybe a couple of filters depending on what I'm trying to see and at the moment that's mainly cirrus, stratus and cumulus nimbus!😭

That brings to mine another question regarding Wide Field Low Power eyepieces but I think a new topic is in order - Low Power  Wide Angle  Inexpensive  Eyepiece for my Mak? Ha! I should be so lucky!

2 hours ago, Franklin said:

The Baader MkIV zoom is a fantastic piece of kit and the good thing about using it, with or without the barlow, is that you can dial in the correct magnification for the object and the seeing at that time. It's a lot easier trying to gauge the correct power for the night when you don't have to keep interupting your observation by swapping out eyepieces. Once optimum power is found, you can always swap out for an appropriate fixed focal length eyepiece if you wanted to.

I was thinking along those lines. More time at the eyepiece. Also I’m a bit clumsy. The less swapping out I have to do the better

8 hours ago, Stu said:

Which scope do you have @Splodger? The Moon is a very high contrast object and takes magnification well, so it’s often all down to the skies. If the Moon is high (as it is now), and the seeing is excellent then you can chuck quite a lot at it. Observing is not all about magnification though, so make sure the views are still sharp; don’t push it just for the sake of it.

I have a Meade LX85 150mm Mak. As mentioned above, the only time I have been able to get very high magnification was with a friends ES 5.5mm splitting doubles. Doing my maths now I can see that I wasn’t even close to 375x, but it wasn’t particularly difficult to focus and see differences of colour with that gear. The highest magnification combination that I have had with my own equipment is 200x.  That with my 18mm Meade and 2x Barlow. 
 

The new eyepiece is a Baader 8-24mm zoom. I ordered it with a 2.25x Barlow. It so happens that I’m sending the kit back to B&H today and replacing it with the eyepiece alone as I have the 2x already. My thinking was that with that eyepiece and Barlow I could get much greater magnifications. I see now my expectations were unrealistic. 
 

Even so, extrapolating from what I have read above, the 8-24 zoom and Barlow combination will allow me the greatest magnification I can realistically achieve under any viable seeing conditions. I’m pleased with that. And pleased that After reading the comments above I won’t be disappointed at the eyepiece. 

Hi, the theoretical max magnification for my scope according to astronomytools.com is 375x - 150 x 2.5. I’ve surpassed that on a few occasions but only with very good seeing. I’ve just got a new zoom eyepiece which together with a Barlow will easily allow much higher magnification. When the skies up here in Oregon eventually clear I’ll be out observing the moon. Will I be able to achieve greater magnification while observing the moon? Does it make any difference that the moon is only a hop, skip and a jump away? Thanks 

8 hours ago, Don Pensack said:

Baader is interested in selling Baader accessories.  The Baader Zoom works fine fine many different Barlows, the TeleVue among them.

Thanks Don. I think I’ll send the kit back to B&H and order the zoom by itself. 

On 29/11/2021 at 13:56, Spile said:

The big advantage of the BHZ for me is not having to second guess as to the ideal magnification for a given target. The convenience is a big plus for me and having the matching Barlow for planetary view provides the icing on the cake.

Hi there. I have just purchased both the zoom and the Barlow. Baader claim that the Barlow is matched to the zoom and will give better performance than the BHZ with another Barlow - in my case a 2x Tele Vue. Please bear in mind that I cannot test this out myself as I live in Portland, OR and the 10 day forecast is for rain. I am considering returning the barlow and just sticking with the Tele Vue if there is no performance benefit over the Tele Vue. Also i'm concerned that it's going to be a bit fiddly unscrewing the Barlow in the dark. Any thoughts?

If you on a really tight budget and just want finer control try The Poor Man’s Dual Speed Focuser - A Clothes Peg! Seriously, it works a treat. Just clip it onto the knob at 90° et voila! Fine adjustment at your fingertips. It works for me 😃

On 29/04/2020 at 10:37, Peter Drew said:

Visually no, aperture X is aperture X regardless of the focal length.  However with the same eyepiece a short focus X will give a brighter image than a long focus X as the latter will be providing a higher magnification.  At the same magnification the brightness from both X's will be the same.  I'll leave the photography issue to the imagers, can of worms and all that.    😆

Perfect! Thank you 🙂

Does Focal Ratio affect brightness or is it all about field of view. Will an f/5 scope show the Andromeda galaxy more brightly in the eyepiece than an f/12 scope, or is it just about fitting Andromeda in there and seeing more of the sky? Also does the Focal Ratio of a scope have any effect on the amount or length of exposures taken in astrophotography? Thanks.