Vondragonnoggin

I can see color in nebulae rich in OIII and Hb using UHC or OIII filters. My scopes are too small and my eyes too old to see color in nebulae without the filter though. Filter brings the S/N up in OIII and Hb enough to faintly see some of the colors. I strongly suspect I’d have to start observing from Bortle 1 skies to see more colors without filters or see the colors stronger than I do under light pollution.

I put a 10” polymer grab handle on my iOptron mak 150. Much easier to carry and mount

I just read through the whole thread here and wanted to sign up to give my own take on NV astronomy. Been posting about NV Astronomy for a few years now over on CN. Since the days when it was still just the Video Astronomy forum all before the EAA letters came into it and it was a sub forum of Equipment discussions. Davy a few posts up was kind enough to create a whole section on VAF for me to fill up with information on NV Astronomy. I’ve invited folks over a bunch of times but it remains pretty stagnant since 2015 when I filled up a bunch of threads with info. Davy and Ken and the rest of the guys there are more than welcoming though, so I continue discussions on scopes and observing and all that. The EAA section at CN used to be real friendly to us NV Astronimers too, but lately learned some have left because they are tired of “NV” posts. Regular observing forums have gotten more friendly and admins have no issues with posts in Deep Sky, but some members still do as well as trying to suggest NV as an option in Beginners forum being still frowned upon over traditional “get a big reflector” advice or if you are going to be viewing in red/white zones you’ll see “get to dark skies or be limited to planetary, some globs and open clusters, and lunar and only the very brightest nebula”. I'm in red/white zone (Bortle 7) and particularly lazy so NV was my choice to see more without having to pack up stuff and drive to dark skies. I don’t know what the solution is overall, but can tell you that having dedicated sections on sites with less traffic won’t get much attention to posting or attracting members or more importantly, changing minds about NV being a valid observation tool. I think CN is saturated enough to get its own forum, particularly if we are making the camera EAA guys up and leave, but on the whole and particularly after a concerted effort to organize “Best of NV” threads to make them easy to find, I would hope it went back to camera and NV EAA users coexisting peacefully and joining each other’s discussions. I jump in camera EAA discussions still and used to more because I just picked up the process being used by reading the threads and getting familiar with some of the tech. We are all just trying to see more in various ways whether live with NV or near real-time with a camera. I still use my regular eyepieces frequently too. I like planetary still and NV is no good on bright objects like lunar and planetary. what I’ve seen though, and it’s natural to want to do this, is that members that just grab on to EAA camera or EAA NV, get pretty excited about seeing things they never thought possible previously without getting huge telescopes or requiring the darkest skies and they want to “shout it from the rooftops” to others or be able to suggest it as an alternative to “get a bigger scope and drive to darker skies” and traditional method astronomy practitioners see it as “bragging”. It doesn’t matter if the same behavior happens when they themselves upgrade to larger scopes or dominate the Deep Sky forums because they have giant dobs. That of course is not “bragging”. It’s a double standard that persists to this day on most forums. I don’t know how to solve it, but I rarely post in Deep Sky anymore. I stick to EAA forum or sites like VAF where it wouldn’t matter because we call everything Video Astronomy over there pretty much, even if the term doesn’t specifically fit the tech. I continue to make small mentions of NV equipment where I deem it appropriate and not dominating my suggestions. I mix it up with traditional equipment suggestions and NV suggestions and (because I chose to participate in camera EAA threads so much) some camera EAA suggestions. If someone has a tracking scope and limited budget that falls short of the more expensive NV offerings, I suggest EAA with a camera. I don’t even use tracking mounts myself but I know that that is a pretty easy switch for a lot of folks that already have a tracking mount and want to start on a budget in EAA. Used NV or older, but capable devices is viable too. I guess the point is that I’d like to see all forms start being inclusionary of each other’s observations but let’s all be aware of practicality of other posters budgets, experience, and attitudes and maybe no desire to try EAA as well. It doesn’t have to be for everyone, but if someone is interested then providing information is essential. No visibility of it because it gets relegated to subforums way down the list of visible forums when you log in a site, is not the best way to make it known that there is another method available. Anyway - I’ve technically stopped lurking this forum now which I’ve done for years on occasion and wanted to put in my thoughts on your new designation and split to include an observing section. Great job on trying to include everyone. Hard to please everyone and particularly with new methods. I’ve seen a lot drop out of EAA on CN and that includes NV users. We are still only a large handful. Some don’t want to post in a special section and I just find them in Observing forums. As long as the admins there continue to enforce inclusivity, we are good.