Ships and Stars

I'll take a note of what readings I get. I have a baseline of sorts from previous readings but not much in the way of notes, etc. Here's the fork mount - this is the cheap one! They seem like a lot of money for what they are, but everything works so much better than what I was using. My DIY forkmount was never completed, didn't have the time but I prefer the TS Optics as it mounts on a Vixen dovetail. https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p6384_TS-Optics-Binomount-DX---stable-fork-mount-for-binoculars--telescopes-and-spotting-scopes.html More pics to come of that in action! PS my Quantum 5.1s are 7.2kg and the mount holds them just off zenith no problems. I've just tried it indoors, chasing children in circles at the moment!

No problems all! Thank you @scarp15 @PeterW and everyone else who has commented as well. That's why I'm here, lots to learn. I am especially interested (bordering on obsessed!) in light pollution and SQM-L readings I'll have to dust off my calculator, though that still doesn't mean I'll know what to punch in Family things and work have been flat out past two days - I've just popped on here for a minute but will try back later this evening if I get a break. PS tripod fork mount arrived today from TS Optics for the big obsy bins - it's a work of art!

I've used both the Baader 31 and 36mm without a coma corrector in a f4 scope. The edges would make a sailor seasick if you were looking at star clusters! But for large nebulae, they will do the trick, assuming exit pupil is optimal for a particular person's observing eye. At f5 they are passable. but far from perfect. Relatively cheap secondhand however, and light. I still have the 31mm which I use on occasion, but I'd choose the 30mm APM as I can't afford TV or Pentax now. However, I have the 20mm APM 100deg so the fov is the same as the 30mm APM. The only caveat is exit pupil depending on which scope I'm using. For really faint objects I lean towards a 6mm plus exit pupil while my eyes are still capable. Weight and balance is secondary to me, there's always a way to stick a few hundred grams to offset balance with a big eyepiece, though my solutions have not always been elegant. I once left my counterweights at home with the 20"dob and strapped a tool bag to the base instead. That was the best alignment I've had! Field expedient method

Thanks Peter! it feels like the Hb filter can be a bit too restrictive for the 15x70s aperture but it is always worth testing on different nights. It does of course work better in the 12" dob as long as I have a decent sized exit pupil with an EP in the 25-32mm range. In the f4 20" dob, the Hb really works and can hoover up the dark stuff nicely. The Nebustar lets though the Hb and OIII wavelengths fully from what I understand (I'm no real expert on filters!) and it really seems to shine on the 15x70s with a quality UHC on the other side. I'm tempted to buy another 1.25" Nebustar someday, but I also need a 2" Hb and a 2" Nebustar... Indeed, the LP map is a good rough guide, but since I've had the SQM-L meter, I've noticed a wide range of readings from the same spots on different clear nights with no moon. I was surprised it only went up to 21.03 at this spot, should have been much darker, but perhaps the aurora was bumping things up a bit? The town of Montrose in the distance does pump out a lot of light, there is some heavy industry on the edge of town that is always lit up to the max. I think the mass rollout of cheap, ultra-bright LED lights and the relentless march of 'progress' have meant that readings from even 5 years ago may be permanently brighter now unfortunately. The only place I have been able to approach the readings indicated by the LP map are deep in the Cairngorms, miles away from the nearest homes and roads (a consistent 21.85 one night!). I'm finding anything over 21.00 with good transparency can yield great results for visual. Anything over 21.50 with excellent transparency is a sight to behold. The 15x70s with filters have really impressed me lately for their size and aperture, can't believe the views with those. As a result, I finally brought my 20/40x100mm Quantum 5.1s (the older ones) up to speed by making filter threads for both the 20x and 40x eyepiece sets as no other 1.25" EPs will come to focus without machining off the bases a considerable amount. Yesterday, I also ordered a nice fork mount from TS Optics to mount it properly and have a way to lock it steadily when viewing objects at higher altitudes. I can't wait until the next new moon in December as I have yet to use these under dark skies since I bought them in March! Hoping to report back some successes next new moon, weather willing. 👍

You may struggle a bit with a 127mak. Also go for the 10" dob if you can, that's a huge step up in aperture. Find some dark skies if you can get away - you've plenty in Australia, though perhaps more so at the other end in WA Once you see certain objects under good, dark conditions and gain experience, it becomes easier to see them in poorer or brighter conditions though they'll never look as great as they do out in the sticks somewhere. Some objects like galaxies and nebulae though just need dark(er) skies full stop to see them at all. Oh and many nebulae will want at least a UHC if not OIII filter to make the most of them or even detect them. The really tough ones like reflection nebulae might call for an Hb filter, but that's another topic really. Then there is exit pupil and dark adaptation, I generally go for an eyepiece that gives between 4mm to 6.5-ish mm and I stay away from my phone and any and all light sources for some time (up to half an hour) to get fully dark adapted. PS Going to dark skies will make any telescope behave like a much larger one!

Pretty good conditions here in NE Scotland. Seeing ok by me but transparency good to excellent. I was only using binoculars (15x70s and 20/40x100s) so not typical telescope high magnifications, but enough to say it's decent enough here anyway.

I really like the laser - it's a doddle and going by the Cheshire, it works very well! Have fun!

Do you have someone to help you? If so, look through the Cheshire while someone gently turns one primary screw at a time until the crosshairs are centred on the circle. If it starts to go the wrong way, have them immediately stop of course and pull it back the right direction. You can do this yourself by making a small adjustment, then checking the Cheshire and so on, but it takes a lot longer than having someone do the fine tuning to the primary. If I'm talking cobblers here anyone, please let me know! Once you've set it, it becomes a lot faster to do in the future should you need to.

It doesn't look too bad in my humble opinion, a wee bit off in the centre, but I don't get too fussy if the stars will focus down to decent points of light. They can look like fuzzy, almost boiling blobs if the seeing conditions (not transparency) are poor. For example, nights when the stars really twinkle - that's actually a sign the jetstream is overhead or the atmosphere is unsteady. Also the mirror might not be cooled down or there are heat thermals rising off a roof or area you are viewing over, etc. Just thinking of other things that might affect this. I can see one of the primary holders in the bottom of the pic but not the other two, most guides call for all three showing equally, but I recall reading somewhere about secondary mirror offset and that some reflector telescopes may never have all three clamps showing in the Cheshire. But I am not 100% sure on that! I'm a 'lazy collimator' and just use a cheap, non-barlowed laser to make sure the secondary is properly aligned so that the laser hits the centre of the primary mirror's white circle, then collimate the primary with the three screws on the bottom to get the laser into the bullseye on the collimator tool. I then sometimes check it with a Cheshire, but don't think it was ever out enough to bother me. I'm a nebula and galaxy observer, no photography, so not too fixated on tight star points, but I do want things reasonably sharp. I tell a bit of a lie, I did stack some photos from an f4 dob which requires good collimation, and the stars were nice and tight on those, so can't be too far off to notice visually! I'm sure others will weigh in here on this, it's a common topic that has a lot of different answers and opinions!

Simple non-motorized dobsonians are absolutely brilliant and a doddle to use. Collimation or fine adjusting the mirrors for the sharpest image is a little bit of a learning curve at first, but there's really not a great deal to it. An 8" (200mm) dobsonian is a winner all-around for a family scope in my opinion. You can still take photos of bright objects like the moon, I found simply holding my mobile phone to the eyepiece gives better lunar photos than my full frame Nikon in my smaller dobsonian.

A beauty of a scope, I bet the views are razor sharp with the binoviewers and TV eyepieces. Panoptics? I've learned to live with a bit of coma and miscollimation from time to time in my dobs, but looking through binoculars makes me wonder about the sharp views through a nice refractor. Someday perhaps!

I had the exact same blue Skywatcher scope in 8" with the same older EQ5. It has the older single speed focuser which is a bit meh, but otherwise a decent scope with good optics. I don't get on with EQ mounts as I do visual only, so I sold it and went with a dob and haven't looked back, but if you plan on taking photos, learning how to set up and use an EQ mount is essential. You can get motor conversion kits for those so it tracks stars, but I never used mine, just the slow tracking hand adjusters. I think I sold mine with EQ5 and tripod for £275?? Or £250? It was 8" though. PS I'm guessing near 20 years old for this one.

@scarp15 sorry to hear that about visiting your parents! That's a long time indeed. I haven't kept up with restrictions in England, so hope I haven't wound anyone up with observing reports if people are stuck at home. I've had a lot of bad weather here lately, so trying to make up for it while I can! I was wondering why there weren't many new observing reports...assumed it was weather related, certainly has been here. I didn't realise Hb filter was the way to go on Barnard's Loop? Thank you! Saved me some frustration there! I had no clue on filters for that to be honest. Hopefully we will all have some luck here soon.

As @vlaiv remarked above, dark skies are crucially important and cannot be overestimated. You can try and slug it out under light pollution with sheer aperture and a big scope, depending on your situation, but that's an expensive way to get mediocre views. I have a 20" dob, a 12" dob and 15x70 binoculars. I can see some of the fainter stuff, M51, Flame Nebula, etc from home under town LP (20.3 SQM is about as dark as it gets) with the 20" on a good night when the local lights are down. Andromeda and M42 are both fairly easy under moderate town LP with pretty much any sort of telescope or binoculars, but it's often only a mere shadow of what it looks like under rural skies. You'll want to shield yourself from any direct light from neighbours. Under brighter urban/city lights, I can't say, but that must be difficult going on impossible. Under fairly dark rural skies here in NE Scotland, I can use the 15x70s to see my best widefield views some of the larger faint objects - the entire E&W Veil and the Rosette last night for example (using UHC or Nebustar filters). The list goes on and on. Pretty astonishing for a pair of relatively small binoculars - using both eyes equates to a 1.4x to 1.8x larger aperture scope with a single eyepiece by most accounts, depending on who you ask. If you have a car to get you to darker skies, a 10" dobsonian or larger offers the most light-gathering aperture for DSOs and the 10" model is a very popular size. Any size decent scope under darker conditions will be a sheer pleasure to use. Try the light pollution map to find a darker place near you. If you have the desire, the money, the storage space and the back to lift one, get the largest dobsonian you can within reason, but the size, weight and cost all go up exponentially in a hurry. My 20" fits easily in a small van, but even disassembled, I'd have to take the passenger seats out of my car to fit it in there. And add to that a small ladder on top! It takes a lot of motivation to take one out to dark sites and be prepared for the weather to be uncooperative at times after all the effort. My 300p flextube (a 12" dob) is much more forgiving to use but still gives great views. If you don't have a car, perhaps a pair of binoculars like 15x70s, 20x80s, 22x85s or 20 or 25x100s that accepts filters will let you use public transport to get to those elusive darker skies. Filters help tremendously for nebulae, no filters are the way to go for galaxies. I use my 15x70s handheld, or lay on a camping mat for things near the zenith. I rarely use a tripod with them, but they get rather heavy in a hurry. A monopod is another highly portable option. The downside to binoculars is the fixed magnification if you want a closer look at something like M57 for example, it's quite small in most binoculars. A good 80-120mm refractor might be nice as well. I've never used one so can't comment, but they seem popular for many. I wouldn't mind owning one someday Good luck there!

Thanks Iain @scarp15 I was very happy (and relieved) to have seen the Cocoon again with the binoculars, thought I was being overly optimistic on my trip to Glenshee last new moon when I spotted it the first time. I'm still pretty amazed with the bins on that and the Rosette! Maybe I can pick up a hint of Barnard's Loop with them under ideal conditions? Worth a shot I suppose. I'll ponder a 2" Nebustar or a 2" Hb, can't afford both at the moment, tempted to go for the Nebustar and then an Hb when one comes up secondhand (rare though!). It's a hard call, the Nebustar works so well. Just happy to get some observing in, hoping the NE doesn't go to full lockdown soon, I can't keep up with the restrictions anymore it's changed so much! Hope you get a break soon, I won't have the big dob out again until mid December most likely.

M108 is a bit tricky at times even under fairly dark skies as last night confirmed - it often simply appears as a faint sliver that is slightly bloated in the centre unless conditions are right. On a transparent night in the 20" it looks impressive, but other times it's just a small grey blip. Galaxies like aperture, dark transparent skies and they definitely dislike filters! I will use an OIII to enhance the Owl, but can fit M108 and the Owl into the FOV with the 20mm APM and no filter quite nicely.

Thanks all! @John - your advice on exit pupils last year or two are proving particularly valuable as of late. My fully adapted pupil is somewhere around 6mm, maybe a tick larger I'm hoping, so I need to really approach that for the really faint stuff - doesn't matter if it's an expensive EP or not, exit pupil is critical it seems. I very nearly packed up early on when the moon was still up - glad I didn't. The wind settled down and the cloud that was expected never materialised so it worked well. I've been getting readings much lower with the SQM than the LP map suggests. I know conditions change and readings go up and down, but the readings seem a lot brighter than I was expecting. I'm thinking about another late jaunt this evening if my energy holds up - I want to test a few other things now. I think I was struggling with the 300p because of exit pupil, eyepieces and lack of 2" filters. A plossl in some cases gives too narrow a FOV to provide contrast with the surrounding sky (I run into this with the 10mm BCO vs the 9mm APM) and my wider EPs in the 1.25" range are too high mag/too small exit pupil, i.e. the Morpheus. I wish Baader made those in the 2" range. The 15x70s bins aren't brighter, but they offer contrast on low brightness extended objects by showing tons of the surrounding sky and I can locate new targets with more confidence. I'll perhaps consider taking the plunge on some 2" Hb and Nebustar filters and a wide field 24-28mm EP. Ouch! £££ On second thought - I might dust off my 2" 28mm SW LER eyepiece and the 2" 31mm Baader and carefully tape a 1.25" filter on top to test tonight 🤣 Or will that just be the same FOV as a 28mm 1.25" ep? Hoping for another interesting night tonight - the scope is already in the car, that will spur me on.

Hello all, Typing this up while it's still fresh in my mind, very late here. Out tonight with the 300p flextube and the trusty 15x70 Apollos on the edge of the Eastern Glens in NE Scotland. The big dob was left at home, van is in for repairs Slow to start, nearly quit before any successes, freezing cold and gusting to 30+mph at 300m elevation, quite a shock stepping out of a warm car into the elements, but things really picked up as the night progressed. Around 8-9pm the moon was still ablaze, so I messed around with the binoviewers a bit, chasing the Cocoon again (determined if nothing else!). I had a possible patchy glow to the left of M39, but it was still 20.45 sqm in what should have been up to 21.75 according the LP map. The binoviewers went back in the car for the night, and I reverted to single EP viewing. Despite very clear rural skies, the Owl and M108 were extremely faint - not a good sign. I'd even cleaned the primary and secondary mirrors on the 300p today and they were absolutely spotless, along with a careful collimation on site. Back in the car for a quick coffee and the 20mm APM - next up was Andromeda, M32 and M110 - now these were looking excellent! Conditions improving - perhaps a bit of high cloud was lurking earlier and the distant lights of Montrose were dimming slightly as the evening progressed (Montrose is a VERY bright town for its size, but then again, it's extremely dark everywhere else in the vicinity). But wait, what's that glow on the northern horizon? Distant LP? Nope - aurora! I spent some time watching it pulse and ebb faintly, then a big spike of light went up like a searchlight. Then another, with a low hanging curtain of light slowly drifting NNW. This went on for a bit until I resumed my obsession with the IC 5146, the Cocoon Nebula. I've really struggled with this one, until a trip over a month ago to really dark skies where I was sure I saw it with filtered 15x70s (Astronomik UHC on one side and Nebustar II on the other). But then that sensation of doubt began slowly creeping in the past few weeks. Did I see M39 and mistake it for the Cocoon? If I can't see it clearly in a scope, then I've no chance with binoculars, right? So I went for the 300p with 17.5mm Morpheus/Hb filter and worked over the area. I chased the dark lane to the left of M39 and think I had some mottled nebulosity towards the end, but it was nothing to shout about - very faint. Going for a larger exit pupil, I swapped to a budget Revelation 25mm plossl... and success! A nice sub-circular undulating patch of nebulosity. Experimenting with a 32mm plossl, it became even brighter, so this tells me my eyes were doing well with an exit pupil of 6.51mm! Good news there. There was only one thing left to do now - get the 15x70s back out and see if I could repeat my earlier claim of having seen it. Hmmm. Up past Deneb and the NAN with the bins, there was M39 with the two bright stars above (Azelfage mag 4.65 and n2 Cyg mag 4.4). Clear as day to the left of M39 was a dark lane which had a short spur running south. The dark lane narrowed and clearly ran through a patch of stars (9-10-ish mag apparently according to Stellarium) then the dark lane took a slight curve and became fainter until voila, a clear circular patch of nebulosity with three mag 7 stars immediately to the left. I couldn't believe it! It was clearer though the binoculars that it was in the scope! No doubt about it, I dare say the Cocoon was easy to spot with the filtered binoculars and the dark lane stood out sharply. I replaced the UHC on one side with the Hb and while it was still easy to find again, it lacked the punch. So I'm not totally convinced an Hb filter is the way to go for the Cocoon, I may try the Morpheus with the Nebustar next time, but I was satisfied at last with the Cocoon. Now I know where it's at for sure, I'll have a bash with the 20" soon. Then it was Orion and... the Horsehead. After admiring M42/43 for a little bit, I got down to business with the 17.5/Hb combo. Mmmm, not much below Alnitak and no decent sign of the Flame Nebula, so I went off to view some other areas for awhile, then swapped the 25mm plossl in. The Horsehead was visible with averted vision and in and out direct vision as a dark notch, but void of detail - still, I'll take it. Swapping again to the 32mm, it was that little bit more prominent with the larger exit pupil. Good stuff! The 300p doesn't compare to the 20" on the really faint stuff like the HH, but it holds its own and offers a lot of aperture for the money. A truly transportable dob capable of some good DSO results. The Flame Nebula was nicely visible as well this time, getting darker and darker as the moon went down - hit 21.03 sqm. The Rosette was next, 20mm APM and OIII - it didn't pop like I thought it would, but the nebulosity was there, extending past the FOV. So once more, I grabbed the UHC/Nebustar bins and wow - what a nice view - the entire nebula was clearly visible, situated nicely within in the FOV, an excellent sight and another binocular surprise. I will wind this report up, it's past 3am now. I packed everything up and ended with a quick trip through Auriga plus a few other areas, M108 and the Owl looking great at last, and one last look at the Cocoon and the Veil with the bins, excellent! A few other sights, but fatigue prevents me from rattling on any more PS a deer ran out on the way back, then as I moved forward, two more so I did a sudden near-panic stop with the dob base shifting around in the back seat. Oooof, close call. Taking off carefully again, a fourth deer jumped out at the last second. I was only doing 30-35mph instead of my normal 50+ through back roads, good thing, or I would have made contact for sure. Steady on driving back late at night! 👍 Thanks for reading. Until next time...clear skies all

Yes the Veil is early evening at the moment, then dropping quickly. You might be able to make a second set of shorter truss rods - a bit of faff, but possible! I'm heading back out tonight, the Cocoon is top of my binoviewer challenge list Thank you Peter! Looks like 20x is the way to go but will try 40x. I just made DIY filter threads for both sets of eyepieces and they look and work ok actually. I will definitely have a close look at the rest. The EMS are works of art! Maybe not that expensive, all things considered. I tend to drift towards the top end stuff, so perhaps that's why they seemed pricey. Noctutec is a new one to me - shall have a look now. Good stuff! Thanks again.

Hi Peter, yes a big binoscope or 'binodob' sounds great but would require some precision engineering and knowledge. Arie Otte seems to have largely sussed it, though I don't know if he's still making them, and Mel Bartels is currently working on a rather insane 30" f2.8 binoscope which may or may not work according to him (if not, he'll simply turn them into two 30" dobs). I still haven't properly got stuck in with the 20/40x100s yet, I need to calculate exit pupil, but don't know how as I don't know focal length or eyepiece mm, just magnification... I'm hoping this weekend I can use them some more, need to rig a temporary altitude brake, or just use some threaded bar and wingnut to lock it and make fine adjustments to track when on target. Was that you that said they built a binoscope? I think someone on SGL has. For refractors, the EMS Matsumoto 'kits' look incredible, but not cheap. I'd thought about a couple of big cheap 150mm achros, but the EMS adapters are some serious money. A Swiss company makes the mounting platform though. Not AYO, is it? Anyway, need to give the Quantum 5.1s a good workout this weekend! I was momentarily tempted to max the credit card on some APM 120mm EDs, but reality quickly came to the rescue...

Thanks Iain, I would have stayed and gone over to Orion as it was up shining brilliantly when I returned home, but from this particular spot the hillside behind me blocks it. I've had a good run with the Veil this autumn/winter, despite the frequently horrendous weather. Although the ES 25mm 100deg gets pretty bad reviews, I'd still like to have one just for the Veil and other big extended targets (nothing else that big springs to mind except Barnard's Loop!) if one falls in my lap for the right price. Sat & Sun night looking good here, but my van is in for repairs so no carting the big dob around. 300p it is then this weekend! I want to keep it simple though, it takes a lot of time to sort the checklist, load, unload, set-up, use, swap eyepieces/filters etc, take-down, load car, drive home, unload car...🤣 Really need to contact a big estate owner here and find a good, dark home for the 500p. I'd be willing to pay an annual storage/access fee, like a mooring fee for a (small) boat!

Great report - two nights on the go is what we like to hear! Lots of sights as well. I get too caught up in faffing around comparing equipment etc and end up with a short list some nights. Ending a viewing session with binoculars is my preferred way to wind things down - good call! Hope you get more back to back nights soon. Sat/Sun here is looking possible. It works well for me with the moon setting later as the kids will finally be asleep before I can escape for a wee bit 😂

I think it's just the grandeur at seeing it again! We had really transparent skies last night and it looked almost 3-D with the naked eye, but the massive pine trees to one side blocked it from my observing spot. It is somewhat low, especially at my latitude here.

Hi all, Finally managed to slip away last night for a quick observing session near home. Family duties have been keeping me flat out at nights and besides, the weather - as many of you know - has not been great past few months. I've struggled to get a decent night out with no moon when it's not literally blowing 30-45mph. Something I've really wanted to do for awhile is play around with the binoviewers and the shorter 'binoviewer setting' on the 300p flextube on several DSOs, namely the Veil. I also took my 20/40x100mm Helios obsy bins on the giant DIY Kraken scaffolding tripod and my 15x70s, so the car was literally stuffed full. I've been on a two-eyed observing kick more and more lately - the joys of binocular summation! As some of you may know, the SW flextube dob binoviewer preset allows binoviewer use without glass path correctors or barlows, thus giving a much wider FOV at lower mag. Normally I use a Baader clicklock 2" to 1.25" adapter over a normal 1.25" adapter to move the BVs as close as possible to the secondary to reach focus. Well, the binoviewer preset on the 300p works so well, I had to revert back to the normal 1.25" adapter to move the binoviewers away from the secondary and increase the light path. This was without a barlow or GPC! This tells me perhaps I can take some accurate measurements and drill a third set of indents in-between, to keep the total obstruction of the secondary as low as possible, as presumably moving it closer to the primary creates a larger central obstruction and reduces brightness/contrast. I also set up the Helios 20/40x100mm obsy bins to compare against the 300p in binoviewer mode, but didn't get to push this too far last night as it moves too freely for my liking. I'll need to install a better altitude bearing/braking system to stabilise the bins and add a red dot finder as pointing them accurately is a lot trickier than I imagined. -------------------------------------------- The Observing Anyway...my hands were full. And it was our first cold snap of the season. I arrived onsite very early at 6pm, set up and surprise, surprise, some last-minute cloud appeared. With a good forecast still predicted (FLO CO/Met Office/Ventusky all showing clear) I waited for it to clear in 0C or 1C temps. And waited. And waited. And some more... Finally, after two hours or so of watching Deneb vanish in the dense high level haze and suddenly reappear, everything was suddenly super-transparent! And not a hint of wind. At last!! Time was limited by this point, so first port of call was the Veil with 32mm Revelation plossls in the WO binoviewers - remember the exit pupil is reduced with binoviewers so these behaved probably more like single 20-25mm EPs. I thought I had screwed in the 1.25" Astronomik OIII on the BV nose, so I was a bit disappointed when the E & W Veil were rather faint and lacking contrast, but there nonetheless. Maybe this wasn't going to work so well... Then I saw the tell-tale green/red stars and instantly knew I had used the UHC instead of the OIII. I call this the 'Christmas effect' and it's just the nature of this particular type of UHC filter. So I swapped over to the OIII and the stereoscopic two-eyed views of the Veil were excellent, including Pickering's Wisp. Plenty of details, structure, brightness and contrast, no eye strain compared to using one eye, and best of all, the 32mm plossls gave tons of eye relief, so I could easily wear my glasses and not lose any views (or my glasses) in the process. In fact, I had to hold my head back slightly. Not touching the EPs meant the scope was perfectly still. Sitting in a chair, this made for excellent observing! I could fit about 50-70% of each side of the Veil into the FOV, so with a little nudge, I could easily sweep across each side. I also swung over to M57 for a nice stereo look as well. A viewing hood when binoviewing DSOs is essential headwear to block out all stray light from the sides - a hood improves the experience dramatically and gives that stereoscopic spacewalk feeling, even with narrow FOV plossls by isolating the views. I then fully extended the truss rods to the normal settting and dropped a single 17.5mm Morpheus with OIII into the focuser to compare views. This was also excellent, naturally it was a fair bit brighter and crisper, but overall not as relaxed, not stereoscopic and not as immersive as using binoviewers. Still, single eyed viewing will squeeze the max brightness out of your particular scope, just that binoviewers vs single EP both have their pros and cons. While the single 17.5mm was in, I went over to the Crescent Nebula and was rewarded with good structure and a view with nearly filled the EP. I had forgotten how large it was! But what I really wanted to do was try for the Cocoon with binoviewers... The Cocoon IC 5146 is what I call my 'observational nemesis' and is probably the most challenging Caldwell object by some margin. It took me ages last night to find the dark lane as I was getting pretty tired and had a lot of difficulty. At last, I got the dark cigar lane in the binoviewers with no filter, and dashed to grab my Hb filter for the win. In doing so, I bumped the scope and it moved way off target naturally! Spent ages trying to get the dark lane back - never did with certainty, but passed M39 about half a dozen times and my hands were going numb by this time and I was getting wobbly, so will have to leave attempts at binoviewing that for next session. I wanted to compare it to the surprising views I got with the 15x70s a month or so ago under very dark skies and make sure it wasn't M39 I was seeing! I do think I bagged the Cocoon with the filtered bins though. More to come on the binoviewers and the obsy bin comparison once I've sorted a few bits. --------------------------------------------- Binoscope Fever Sets In... What's worse than aperture fever? Large-aperture binoscope fever of course! 🤣 While I had great views through the binoviewers of the Veil, the brighter view with a single Morpheus really makes me want to build a binoscope. I'm tempted to keep my eyes out for another 300p flextube and have a bash someday... I've been reading up a bit on binoscopes, and despite their incredibly stringent collimation and complex build/set-up requirements to achieve a nicely merged image, binoscopes, in my humble opinion, must be the ultimate DSO observing machine. You get a wide field of view, but a gain in aperture similar to a much larger scope (1.4x - ish), all with the benefit of binocular vision. Add night vision tubes someday and... Someday indeed... -------------------------------------------- PS pics below of the holes in the 300p truss rods for the binoviewer setting - dead simple way to reduce the light path by 115mm! Cheers all 👍

Great report, I love to read when someone gets their first views through a decent sized reflector, can't go wrong with a 10" dob!