markse68

News flash!! Mars is incredible tonight- no need for filters but adc helping- wow! 

Mark

28 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

Sounds like you need an ADC 🤔🤨😂

I’m using one 🤪

What I really need is a laser beam to energise the sodium layer in the mesosphere to create an artificial star and adaptive optics in a closed loop with the image of that “star” but a Baader filter will probably work out cheaper 😉 Won’t work though 😂

1 hour ago, John said:

This review is very relevant:

One paragraph in it stood out for me:

".........So my recommendation is that before you venture into the realm of filters to
improve your planetary views, first make sure that you are getting detailed views of planets
without filters, as the filters will not perform any magic making a poor view all of a sudden good
with many details......."

I don't think any of these filters are "magic bullets"

 

Nail on head John- i’ve been a bit frustrated the past few sessions just not getting the same level of detail I have had like last Sunday- detail where a filter wasn’t really necessary! Last night Mars was literally popping in and out of focus! When sharp there were tantalising glimpses of detail but they were very fleeting. Of coarse no filter in the world is going to stabilise our atmosphere- doh 🙄 So easy to fall into the trap of looking for magic bullets

Would still like to see a bit more when it is sharp though... 😂

9 minutes ago, PeterW said:

Vega to al farawis is 14degrees?!

Vega to Al Fawaris was comfortable fit with room to spare- not very accurate and that’s inside the brightened halo so probably wider than that in reality- but definitely wouldn’t fit Deneb

Mark

42 minutes ago, johnturley said:

I don't like the yellow cast the Contrast Booster imparts on planets, and much prefer the Neodymium filter which gives planets a much more neutral looking appearance,

John 

but less contrast? I’ve got a “mars type b” filter which makes the planet really red- it does increase the contrast of dark features but dims the image a lot and the redness is pretty intense!  I’m only really thinking mars here as the giants show plenty of detail on a good night

So should I buy a contrast booster or not? 🤔 They're quite pricey. I have a neo and i guess it makes a subtle difference but i’m finding with my 8” that the features seem to be getting harder to tease out from the bright disk now it’s (mars) nearer opposition- could just be seeing which has deteriorated lately or is it getting brighter and more washed out? It’s frustrating as it should be getting better! I have had odd nights of very good hints at crisp detail but I’d like to see more! @paulastro are you still finding it useful this time round? It seems to be advertised as a “fringe killer” for achros but presumably the contrast boosting benefits should help with any image inc newts?

Mark

Tried them out under the stars last night and can confirm they are a narrower actual field than yours @PeterW- i could get Vega and Al Fawaris in the same view but not Deneb. 

On a plus note they do do what I hoped they’d do- they lift the stars from the lp background and make less visible/invisible  naked eye stars visible 👍 Focussing did work on the stars though you have to wind the eps out forever- the thread is way too fine, and opposite to normal bins you wind the eps out for distant objects and in for near- which is a pain as you then have to wind them all the way back in again to fit then easily into the storage case- the case is a quite nice semi rigid foam type though. No lens caps supplied- only the case but lens caps on bins are a pain so that’s ok.

They don’t have a tripod thread like the Orions so not so easy to mount to a head rig- they have this weird chrome beauty ring on the hinge that seems to be held on only with a dab of grease!

Eyecups like others are hard cold anodised aluminium so not good for glasses.

But I really don’t like the tunnel vision feel and the bright ring (not really distortion as such like i called it before) around the edge that creates it although once you zone in it’s useable. I wonder if it’s the quite deep rim around the objective that’s causing that bright ring. Would love to take a peak through some 2x54s to compare.

1 hour ago, PeterW said:

What’s the Field of view of these new Helios ones, seems to be the same as the Orion and homebrew ones with 24ish degrees,

Peter

 

Are you sure they’re 24 deg Peter? It says 36 on the Orion barrels in images i’ve seen. They are quite a bit bigger than these and are twice the weight so should be wider I’d  have thought?

There”s a few of the Nikon adapters on ebay but they’re quite pricey- I’ll only bother if i can find some cheap

  hmm 🤔 not sure about these. I was kind of expecting a huge walk in view but the afov is quite restricted- narrower than my 8x30w bins. Of course the actual field is much bigger but there’s a sort of ring of distortion around the narrower apparent field that makes for very tunnelled vision feeling. Is that normal for this type of bin? I guess the 2x54 must be wider actual view but what about the apparent view? And the Nikon TCs?

The focus seems a bit pointless- the dof is so huge they seem to turn for ages just moving the focussed image in and out getting bigger or smaller before you notice the focus change lol. 

There’s no filter thread as predicted.

I’m not sure if i’ll keep these as they’re a bit underwhelming tbh- will try them tonight if clear before deciding. Shame as i had high hopes. Will keep an eye on ebay for the nikon teleconverters and maybe try them

Nice one Magnus! I just the other weekend saw it for the first time too so can relate 😉 It’s funny how once seen it gets so much easier to see again- even last night with terrible transparency (no sign of hercules or most of the big dipper!) I could just make out east and west when i foolishly tried. Sky quality makes all the difference i think but familiarity helps too!

could just be it’s brightness washing the colours out? Is it’s brightness increasing as it approaches opposition? 🤷‍♂️ For me here the colours are very faint which makes picking out the details a challenge! A pale orange filter makes it look much more like the red planet and helps the darker areas stand out a bit better (though not much) It looked disappointing last night- the transparency was very poor again here despite no clouds

Mark

Yes- very disappointing here too

Nice job on the home made ones Peter👌 The orion ones look nice quality too. I didn't realise there were so many of this type binocular. Looking forward to trying them

Just ordered one so keep your eyes open for a bargain in the classifieds...or not 😆

Do you have the Orion version then @PeterW? How are they at edge of field in terms of sharpness and distortion?

51 minutes ago, Ships and Stars said:

I had the Kasai wide binos, need dark skies to make them shine. Otherwise any old binoculars will do more under urban skies by giving more contrast at higher mag.

Under a bright milky way, then game on! 

yes i suppose you’re right- it’s all about contrast which won’t change much with these. Ordinary bins though don’t have the huge field

Big difference in price! Interested to hear how you find them John- I’m imagining that they could be quite useful to me with my skies in just being able to identify basic constellations! The other night I struggled to find M13 again as the hazy sky was so bright from lp I couldn’t see Hercules at all! I found it eventually (but it was pants..) vaguely navigating from Vega- which at least i could see 

Looks like you could add arms and a nosepiece and wear them as specs 😂

Theyre less than half the weight of the Vixens 🤔

Great report of a wonderful sounding session Neil- oh for some proper dark skies! I now have more targets added to my ever growing list though i fear a few of them will be out of reach unless I venture far away from home! Thank you 😊 

6 minutes ago, Pixies said:

I put the third in as the second is pretty hard to get unless you have very good seeing.

Really - I was wanting to check that the OP's star-test wasn't just the out-of-focus image of the secondary. It appears to be, but the fact that this is oval is a good pointer that the secondary might be rotated and clipping the image of illuminated primary.

Ah ok- you had me a bit worried there 😅 

Mark

4 hours ago, Pixies said:

Also - is your star test like this:

or more like this:

or this:

Hi Pixies, out of interest what does the third image indicate?  I have had near perfect intra/extra focus symmetry before but very rarely- usually the distribution of energy in the rings is quite asymmetrical but i reckon that maybe down to mirror not quite being at ambient perfectly- it takes quite a long time i think to perfectly stabilise. Also , how much does seeing quality affect star testing? I guess if it’s poor you’re not ever going to see perfect crisp rings like the middle image?

great report and i like your sketch-  i’m going to download that app- thanks!

Mark 

29 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

Thanks Mark, yes it's quite irregular in shape now, you can see it in higher res in Peter's @astroman001 thread here...

 

 

Oh yes- so it is! Must try harder! It looks like a cloud in Peter”s image 

Nice image Craig! One question though- is the polar cap really that odd shape? Through the eyepiece it seemed well defined last night but a more rounded outline. I guess the camera can see better than me- it certainly picks out a lot more detail but that’s conspicuously different and the most well defined visual feature. Shall take another look tonight! 

Mark

I think there’s a lot of variability with no real standard and add to that tolerances! I think the Americans use an imperial thread, then there’s the metric thread, then Baader decided in all their wisdom to add a third to the mix- a sort of in between pitch that they hoped would fit both. It’s a bit of a mess really!

Mars is looking great again tonight and a comfy chair makes it so much nicer!