Rob Sellent

Thanks for getting back Stu. It's been cloudy here the last few evenings but the next chance I get, I'm going to take up your own adventure and see how I do with Zeta Her. No doubt I will fail spectacularly because I don't have much aperture and my aging eyesight is rubbish 😀

Also nice to hear about your 8" f8. That really must be a lovely scope and rather unique. I mean, I've seen 8" f5s and even an f6 but never an f8. It's a real shame these types of OTAs are no longer in production. In terms of resolution, I imagine it'll out perform most 4"/5" ed or apos and in terms of contrast must also give the more exquisite glass types a run for their money. 

1 hour ago, Grumpy Martian said:

So I have to say that barlow's do have their place in an accessory collection. 

I agree. I find a good Barlow a handy tool to have in the eyepiece kit.  It'll increase magnification, extend eye relief, make a lower power ep into an easier to look through high power ep, makes a standard 24mm 8mm zoom run to 4mm (handy for splitting stars or adjusting high magnifications) and in my own case, takes nothing away from the view. 

Do you think the more contrasty view you saw, Grumpy might have come about by having better eye-relief with the Barlow or that to some extent it 'corrected' the field of view? 

Sounds a great evening, Stu and thanks for the write up. Would you say Zeta Herc was dependant as much on aperture as seeing, or do you think a smaller but potentially 'tidier' frac could also make this split?

There's no way of demonstrating it, but in my own case, I feel that sitting comfortably adds to the scope's aperture. Maybe no more than a few millimetres, perhaps as much as an inch on occassions, but to whatever degree my ironing chair is an essential part of my kit.

I think a simple ironing chair or drum stool would suffice to see if the seating-venture were worth it, after that one of those wooden chairs from FLO look the business. The main hassle with ironing chair designs is having to adjust the seat's height each time you have to accomodate for the telescope's angle. So just as Stu suggests, 'easily height adjustable' is the way to go in the long run.

On a side note, I saw your SD115s up for sale and to be honest I feel that unless it was becoming a chore for you to set up, I'd be inclined to give it another shot. I have yet to read one bad review of the SD range and from my understanding those Vixen optics are really quite outstanding.

On 05/07/2019 at 00:42, devdusty said:

it would seem pointless to buy a telescope for a light polluted back garden.

Chris P

I have found that LP doesn't affect planetary, lunar, double star, and solar work. So to this extent, LP needn't prohibit your enjoyment of the night sky with a telescope. On the other hand, LP not only cripples what you can see when it comes to hunting out many of the Messier objects and so on, but essentially robs you of their inherent beauty and detail.

Brilliant and thank you Matthew for taking the time to write up your star travels on that eventful evening. Look forward to reading more of your Namibia observations

Hi All,

My name is Rob and I have been into astronomy for many years. I don't really have anything interesting to say about my life, so I'll just thank you all for letting me join such a wonderful site.

Look forward to meeting you on the boards.

Rob