Mike_S

I’ve been using this website to find DSO’s for the first time. Very helpful. I too sometimes struggle to make out Hercules though. It looked a lot better in my 12” dob compared to my 10”. 

https://themcdonalds.net/richard/wp/finding-m13/

I found Albireo last night and was amazed!  Tried for the Veil but couldn’t bring it out even with UHC and OIII filters but they are only cheap ones. Bortle 6. 

Also found M29 but open clusters aren’t getting me as excited as some of the other objects.

30 minutes ago, Raph-in-the-sky said:

Yes with the OIII

I’m going to try bringing it out tonight for the first time. Have cheap UHC and O-III filters light pollution so not expecting much.  

1 minute ago, Raph-in-the-sky said:

Neptune is on my list. Albireo is gorgeous and easy to find. I think that my sky has to much light pollution for the Veil (I tried to no avail)

Did you try with a UHC or O-III filter?

You’re in the same boat as me finding new stuff. I’m going to try for Neptune tonight and double stars I think. Haven’t even seen Albriero yet. What about Veil nebula? 

On 20/07/2019 at 19:04, Stu said:

Alot depends on the skies you can get to. Under a really dark sky it is worth having the widest field you can get so you can start to see the outer arms and get M32 and 110 in the view. If you are not under good skies then all you will get is a washed out view and would be better off at slightly higher powers.

What sort of budget would you have?

The APM 20mm 100 degree would give you 2 degrees of sky with a 4mm exit pupil, quite nice. An ES 30mm 82 degree would be nearly 2.5 degrees with a 6mm exit pupil, nice under very dark skies but perhaps washed out if you have LP.

Spot on. I viewed it for the first time last night. Found it in my ES 82 degrees then down to APM20mm that improved it. Then went to 9mm that was a bit too dark. 

It wasn’t my photo lol. The colour was better through the eyepiece. I lost it out of view then just went to find an image online. That matched what I saw through the eyepiece. Just wanted to check that it was right as it was so small.

For that budget you could get an ES 82 degrees 30mm (I love mine) and a Televue Delos 6mm (haven’t tried but but heard only great stuff and plan on one myself to bridge a gap). Sorted. 

Yes it was a disc and slight colour to it. Thanks .

I would say it looked like this 

Hi,

I viewed Uranus for the first time tonight. It was very small like a pale dim star even at X 320. Viewed it further out too.

Is this normal or is it much further away than it can be at the moment? 

I think I found Andromeda!

When could I try for Andromeda? I’ve added all of your suggestions to my list. I’m marking them off with the date when I viewed them so i get an idea when to look for what. 

Great replies thank you, especially to Rob. That will keep me going over the bank holiday weekend  

Hi,

So still on this steep learning curve. In July I found M13 great globular cluster in Hercules, M57 dumbbell nebula and M27 Crab Nebula. It’s clear skies tonight so what do you recommend I try to find? 12 inch manual dob. Bortle 6 skies. 

Okay so it looks like I need a focul reducer of around 0.5. What does the seeing part mean? Is that for sky conditions? I am near a town centre bortle 6.

Hi,

I have been thinking of moving on from taking snaps with my smartphone. I am not rushing into a purchase. I know next to nothing about imaging but from the bits of advice I have tried to piece together it seems it would be easiest to start with a colour camera? I would like as easy to use as possible for a beginner. My scope is a 12” F5.3 dob. 1600mm focul length. I know it’s not ideal for imaging but I just would like to improve on my smartphone images of planets and some of the brighter DSO’s such as Orions Nebula.

Looking at the prices as well it seems to be between the ASI 120MC-S, 224MC, 290MC, 178MC or the 385MC. 
What is the difference between them? I have had a look at the field of view images but I’m struggling to tell the difference. It seems I would need a Barlow as well.

The cameras I mentioned are all here

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-summer-sale.html

let me know if there are any essential accessories too please. 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks. 

Interesting. You may get an email from me before this offer ends. 

Wow. Looks like I picked a good one for my "finder piece" which is the ES 82 degree's 30mm. It's clearly more than just that.

On 03/07/2019 at 06:53, Stu said:

Good stuff Mike. Did you stick some power on on it? A 10" should be able to resolve stars a long way into the core, and show you the Propeller shape within it. Take some time observing and using averted vision to see what you can see.

Stu, I know I’ve already replied to this but I can’t work out how you knew my name was Mike? 😂 I need to change my username I didn’t realise how annoying my abbreviation would be. Prefer to be addressed as Mike! 

When do you use the 14mm Delos over the 13mm Ethos?

1 minute ago, John said:

I have the 17.3 and 14mm Delos. I've read a lot about the field curvature of the 14mm and 20mm Pentax XW so I decided to go for Delos for the longer focal lengths in my 1.25 inch set. I've been very happy with the 10, 7, 5 and 3.5mm XW's but from what I've read, I suspect that there is little or nothing to choose between the XW's and the Delos equivalents. The 17.3 and 14mm Delos have a focus position that is closer to the XW's though, than the shorter Delos eyepieces, a factor that has an attraction in minimising the refocusing needed when swapping eyepieces.

To get a sharper view than a Pentax XW, a Delos (or a Delite) I suspect you would need to move to one of the so called "top tier" specialis planetary eyepieces such as a Zeiss ZAO, a TMB Supermonocentric, A Pentax XO or an Astro Physics SPL. It's possible that a Leica ASPH zoom might be a touch better than the XW's as well although I can't say that I found that in any obvious sense when I owned that zoom and compared it with the XW's.

Bear in mind that we are talking about very, very suble differences in performance here. It's not a case of eyepiece A showing something that eyepiece B won't show, more  slight differences in presentation and quite often personal preference.

 

I’ve learned a bit there about the focul positions thank you. I heard about the field curvature on the larger XW’s too. I’ve done a lot of searching and reading back some great old discussions on here.

13 minutes ago, John said:

I agree although these are both superb eyepiece ranges. Thats why I have both XW (10, 7, 5 and 3.5) and Ethos eyepieces (21, 13, 8 and 6mm) - best of both worlds and complimentary focal lengths

I didn't keep the Ethos XW 4.7 and 3.7 AND the Pentax XW 5 and 3.5mm though - after 6 months of comparing them I felt that the XW's were slightly sharper and showed slightly less scatter around bright objects. So I let the Ethos SX's go to new homes.

As well as excellent collimation, excelleng seeing condtions, challenging targets and an experienced eye are needed to detect the slight differences in performance. Much of the time, at least here in the UK, the seeing conditions become the leveller 

What Delos do you have? I don’t plan on buying more Pentax. Not that I’ve got a problem with them but if I feel I wanted to try get a sharper view then I would be tempted to try Delos next just to see, first in some of the sizes I don’t have at the moment. It seems a coin toss or slight personal preference between XW’s and Delos under 14mm. 

1 minute ago, jetstream said:

you will on the planets and moon once you have your scope well collimated under VG seeing....but thats OK they (XW's) are sharper than ETHOS too,

Yes I got my Cheshire now and haven’t thought about collimation since because it’s been cloudy. I’ve deleted fancy collimation stuff from my wish list and went back to sorting my eyepieces and filters. I’m alright for filters for now too so getting there. 

Yes I use my Myriads most. I can’t see a downside to them over my 5mm Pentax XW apart from comfort but I don’t have the most trained eye yet. I see no colour problems. Contrast seems spot on. I ordered a 7mm Pentax to fill a gap with my longer focul length scope but if I fill any more gaps I think it will be Delos. Hopefully I stop getting tempted but feel good for narrowing this down now. Going to a darker sky site with my brother when he is over for a couple of weeks in August so can’t wait. Will just try get that 13mm APM Lunt before then.