Littleguy80

It’s not going to win any prizes but here’s a photo of it. If you zoom in you can see the configuration of it reasonably well

Thanks for the heads up, Geoff. Just caught it through a gap in the clouds. Looks to be the best spot for awhile

The SkySafari website has an email newsletter you can sign up for. They normally send out a mail when it’s on offer. I’ve had the Plus and Pro versions. Plus will give you everything you need for normal observing. Some nice features in Pro but nothing that I use at the scope.

Hi Paul. I have both filters and used both on Mars last opposition. The Contrast Booster adds a yellow tint, where as the Neodymium is more neutral and doesn’t seem to add any false colour. With Mars, the yellow tint gives Mars a deeper red colour which is quite nice actually. The yellow tint with the Contrast Booster always bothered me with the Moon and Jupiter. Opinion seems split on which is better on Mars so I’d suggest it’s more down to personal preference or perhaps what suits your eyesight. If the Contrast Booster is working well for you then save your pennies. There’s no shortage of other nice things you could buy

That’s where I got mine from. Service was excellent. Lots of useful info and no issue with returning it

I agree, Lewis. Very good value. I suspect use of a CC implies more interest in stars rather than faint objects. It certainly wasn't a big difference but enough to be noticeable. I was using the Revelation branded version which I think is the same as the GSO. The next step up would be the Explore Scientific CC but even that's about 4 times the price of the Revelation. All comes down to what your preference is and how big your wallet is

Thanks Gerry. Sounds like it’s fast focal ratio with moderate aperture for best results. I’ll certainly have an experiment and report back

Thanks for confirming, Iain. It seems like aperture would be needed.

Excellent thread, Gerry. For those of us lucky enough to have a choice of scopes, what would suggest as criteria for choosing which scope to use? My inclination would be to use my 10" dob but wondered if the wider FOV of my 80mm frac would be better for targets such as these?

Hi Ralph. I recently bought the Revelation/GSO CC to use with my SW 10” dob. I mainly used it with 2” eyepieces. Whilst it did improve the edge correction, I found that the transmission let it down a little. I did a lot testing on Comet C/2017 T2 and found using the same eyepiece, it was harder to pick out the comet with the CC compared to not using it. It’s not a big loss of transmission by any means and if you’re not looking at faint objects then it will make no difference to you. One other lesson learned for me was to collimate with the CC in place. I initially had some issues with a loss of sharpness on axis. Collimating with three CC resolved that. Ultimately, I decided to return the CC because of the transmission loss but that’s more down to my preference than a serious defect with the CC. Hope that helps!

Thank you, Mark. I completely agree. You can’t underestimate the importance of transparency. I used to come back from dark site trips wondering why I’d struggled to see things. Poor transparency was the answer, I just didn’t appreciate that at the time. We may only get a handful each their but they’re always nights to remember

Kelling Heath, on the Norfolk coast, regularly hosts star parties. Any camping spots along the coast here will do well. Drop me a PM if you do head out this way and I’ll give you some suggestions of places to visit

Thanks John. That is a perfect description of the HH. Even in the 20” it was subtle. On the subject of the Aero 40mm, I got it to see if it was going to be a useful focal length but without spending a fortune. I thought I could upgrade to one of the pricier options if I liked it. Now I’m not so sure that the extra money would gain me very much. It punches well above it’s price tag.

Sorry to hear that Paul. Fingers crossed that the weather comes good soon for you! It’ll be a special night when you do get out.

Thanks Paul. I’m glad you enjoyed it. Hope you’ve managed to enjoy some observing.