LukeSkywatcher

I really enjoy Jupiter using a 15mm EP. It's small but I can see lovely detail. I can 4 moons dancing around the planet. if I look long enough, details start to show. My usual planet EP is an 8mm.

Lunt 8x30 WL solar bins. Bought from Mark at Beaufort.

(Box and carry bag included).

They really are beautiful. I'm pondering on one. I'm just unsure how to mount it on my Horizon 8115 tripod.

Some seriously amazing Fracs here. Im loving the Sky-Watcher EvoGuide ED50 finder scope, but reading around the threads, nobody seems to be able to find the right diagonal,prism to bring it to focus.

I'd love to have one for my Quark. 

Love the colours. Nice price too. Any good for use with a Quark. 

11 hours ago, Alan White said:

Well, the good post person visited today and delivered a new family member, brand new and boxed.
Nice and far lighter than I expected although I had the specification and read 25585's write up about his version.
This is the second 2" eyepiece I have ever owned, had the 28mm Sky-Watcher with my ED100, thought that was big,
but no this is a little bigger and very nice build quality.
I even like the eye lens cover (cup) 25585!

Here it is with the rest of the family,
some further additions may be added as funds and availability allows.

 

I'm not drooling. 

On 5/5/2018 at 11:02, Davey-T said:

4 hours ago, avtaram said:

These came today.

I do like the look and functionality of the Freedom Find. What's the max weight of a OTA that it can happily carry?. 

18 hours ago, Alan White said:

They have one less as of yesterday.... incoming 

Maybe this Jedi mind trick stuff really does work. 

Alan, you should buy the 8mm.It will be a nice high mag Ep to go with the 13and22.

I'm not seeing any LVW on ebay. 

Love my Vixens. NPL for me. One of these yrs ill upgrade and buy a low, medium and high mag of the top range. Hope your new Vixen performs as well as it should. 

Glad you got sorted with the bino viewer. At face value they look to be in great condition, but you don't want bits of housing being held on with sticky tape. I'd love to see the image in the original advert. 

On 16/4/2018 at 21:13, lukebl said:

After what seems like months of leaden skies, I'm finally out in the obsy!

Here's my roll-away Tardis Obs and 200mm Newt ready to go.

I was never much of a Dr Who fan, but who wouldn't want a Tardis in their garden. 

I'm with stupid. I completely failed to see/ read your full original comment. All I saw was "This is what I bid for on eBay, and this is what I got". 

My apologies. I wasn't trying to be funny or smart mouthed. 

You might be annoyed that the housing for the Eps have to be held in place with sticky tape. My TV remote is like that and it drives me crazy. The back where the batteries go, the cover just falls off. 

So you can see my confusion. 

7 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

This is what I bid on and won on eBay..

 

And this is what arrived today at my work..

 

Not sure if you're happy or not. 

While you're all spending money, I'm laid up in hospital saving money. Did my spending before I came in here. Haven't even unbox Ed a few things I bought. 

Ps- nice new scopes everyone. Hope you get first light soon. Dunno why but I was expecting Ellie to climb into extended Dod and then vanish when Dob was collapsed. 

Does look like a nice mod to have. 

Brandon looks like fun. That's a lot of glass. Immersive views a plenty to come with that one. 

Just arrived today. 

On 4/2/2018 at 13:30, BinocularSky said:

That doesn't mean what most people think it does; I wrote about this in the Dec 2015 Binosky Newsletter:

The first thing to note is that this is not a prismatic binocular. It has Galilean optics, i.e. the same as an opera glass, but the similarity with common opera glasses stops there.The specified field of view and eye relief are essentially meaningless. With a Galilean optical system the exit pupil is virtual and resides between the objective and the eyepiece. In addition, the field of view increases as you bring your eyes closer to the eyepieces. This means that spectacle wearers will have a smaller field of view than those who do not wear them. I measured the true field of view to be 23° without spectacles and 17.4° with them, both larger than the specified 12.2°.

Another great read. I was a tad worried after reading some reviews saying "Try before you buy" because i may not get them to focus (being a glasses wearer). However, i never wear glasses while observing with scope or bins and i have never had any problems. I dont have any astigmatisms either.

On 3/31/2018 at 19:09, DirkSteele said:

Here you go:  http://alpha-lyrae.co.uk/2014/10/25/vixen-sg-2-1x42-binoculars-review/

 

I love them.

Great read. I hope my Omegon 2.1/42 perform as well.

I have just ordered these:

https://www.omegon.eu/instruments/omegon-2-1x42-wide-field-binoculars-for-star-field-observing/p,50354

Price is good and ive bought Omegon before.

I love binocular observing and i also love widefield observing. These bins will cover both. I have access to very dark skies 5 mins from home and the more portable the gear, the better.

1 hour ago, PeterW said:

There are other Kansai equivalents to the vixen, that even enable filters to be added (cheaper too). I made my own using some old Nikon digital camera multiplier lenses. Lying down, looking up with them there are definitely more stars about and you aren’t guessing where you’re looking.

 

Peter

True. Im thinking the Vixen will be expensive. Ive seen brands (cant remember which) selling for about 250.

On 3/26/2018 at 13:25, BinocularSky said:

Main Stable (i.e. stuff I use regularly):

From the back, L-R: Miyauchi Bj-100 (my most used astro instrument by a long way), Lunt Magnesium 16x70 (quick & easy grab-and-go on a monopod), Lunt Magnesium 10x50 (my brightest hand-held bino)

Strathspey Marine 10x50 (robust, abused, live in the car), Opticron BGA 10x42 (lovely quality, small & light enough to be a "holiday" binocular when space/weight is tight), Vixen SG 6.5x32 ED (stunning image, now my favourite hand-held bino), Vixen SG 2.1x42 (magnificent under a very dark sky).

Outreach bins (used for teaching, outreach, etc.):

From the back, L-R: Opticron Oregon 20x80 (recently acquired for outreach project; also used for teaching; OK on monopod or Skymount/Paragon parallelogram), Revelation Astro 15x70 (BA-1 variant, used for teaching, and as a "loan" instrument), Unbranded (well, would you want your name on something like this?) 12-60x70 zoom with the "latest ruby coatings"  (the result of a manufacturer stooping to the challenge: "Just how bad can a binocular be for £79?"; used for teaching/warning)

Opticron Adventurer T 8x42 WP (Used for outreach; the result of a manufacturer rising to the challenge: "Just how good can a binocular be for £79?"; I recently acquired a bunch of these for an outreach project), Vortex Raptor 6.5x32 (used for teaching & visiting grandchildren), No-name plastic-lensed Galilean type 4x20 (used for teaching, mostly to demonstrate that two of Jupiter's Galilean moons can be visible with cheap toy binoculars; ridiculously narrow FoV)

 

 

How do the little Vixen bins (on the bottom right of the 1st image) perform?. Been pondering buying a pair myself for some time. Probably as well as any Vixen product ive ever bought, im guessing.

2 minutes ago, cv01jw said:

Tomorrow will be better if the Mak arrives.

Although I have made a fundamental error because I am not collected the mount until next week, so I am going to be sat looking at my new toys for a while.

Not to worry, the weather forecast is rubbish for the next week. Also the clocks go forward this weekend, so the evenings will be brighter........less observing time.