Rob Sellent

Plans are drawn. Only need a thumbs up from the rest of the household and we're pretty much ready to go 😀

My mid 1990s FL102 / 920s. Examples of this scope on certified optical benches have shown a Strehl Ratio of 0.988. From personal use its objective is practically flawless for visual observation. Aesthetically gorgeous visual presentation with outstanding colour correction and contrast.

I changed the original 6x30 viewfinder for a more practical RACI and changed the original focuser to a more solid and stable Moonlite:

I don't know what to say. I'm just really sorry to read such tragic news. Condolences to you, Chris and all of Marc's friends and family. 

Grouping of Cases:

All very similar. The only 'nag' and which can be seen in this pic is that the SW case's handle doesn't seem quite as firm or as solidly built as the others.

SW Case:

TS Optic Case:

Although it feels much more solid than SW's the case doesn't include room for any accessories.

I don't think you can go wrong with either.

I use the SW case for my Vixen 102s f9 and use the slightly smaller version of the TS-optic case you've referenced for my TeleVue 76. Both are sturdy and solid but I feel the TS-Optic case has a slightly more robust, heavy-duty feel to it.

Both cases offer ample room, decent foam cushion all the way around, on the bottom and on the top. Both have their corners reinforced and decent clasps set in the middle of the lid. Both feel secure when lifting with the scope inside but at this junction the TS-Optic case feels slightly more secure than the SW one.

On the other hand, there is no built in room given for accessories in the TS case whereas the SW one has space made for a finder, large 2" diagonal and a few eyepieces. However, in my own SW case unless I wish to do a little push and squeezing or a little cutting of foam, these eyepiece holes do not fit Baader's Mark IV zoom.

If it helps, I can take some pics and post them up a little later?

For right or wrong, I understand DeLites as a smaller and lighter version of Delos or again, optically improved eyepieces that have filled the vacuum left by Radians.

With my 250 f5 Dob, I tend to use eyepieces with focal lengths of 20mm, 14mm and 10mm respectively offering 4mm, 3mm and 2mm exit pupil. With 3 eyepieces and a decent x2 Barlow, I feel I really don't need anything more for a decent night's general observing. Around 20mm, I enjoy using TeleVue's 19mm Panoptic or their 20mm T5 Nagler. At 14mm and 10mm TeleVue's Delos.

Interesting review of Morpheus & Delos.

My own tuppence, purchased my first Delos (14mm) just under a decade ago and since then have never felt the slightest inclination of moving them on or moving on from them. The only other eyepiece I've owned that manages to keep up optically are Baader's Genuine Orthos.

2 hours ago, Raph-in-the-sky said:

The idea was buying 2 of them second hand (only £20/p) to use with a cheap BV

Your reasoning is sound. I bought a second Mark IV zoom here on SGL for the same reasons you're contemplating the zoom pair.

As you are aware, binoviewing eyepieces do not have to be premium. Edge correction also becomes more tolerable when using a barlow or barlow lens element. My only concern with these particular zooms would be whether on-axis performance was good. If that were not the case, there's little room for improvement.

What will make these good binoviewing eyepieces is how you answer some of these questions:

• is there easy eye placement?
• can they be merged easily to fit both your eyes? (Does your nose fit between them?)
• are they light in weight?
• do they have safety grooves or undercuts? (making them harder to use in BVs)
• do they produce sharp images across the field of view?
• do they have reasonable - 50º or  so - apparent field of view?

Another interesting option (but no cheaper) is to use two longer fixed focal length eyepieces - 20-24mm, for example - and 'zoom' through them with the use of short Barlows, glass path correctors (GPS) or extension tubes. A x1.6, x2, & x2.6 GPS would give a 20mm eyepiece focal lengths of 12.5mm, 10mm and 7.5mm, suffice for most observations I would think.

This is just a guess, Raph. No doubt I'm going to be wrong but bear with me. 

• unbranded 7-21mm
• probably has four elements
• 7-21mm zooms tend to be (not always) inferior in reviews
• my guess its apparent field of view will range from around 43º degrees at high power to 30º degrees at low power
• edge perfomance won't be perfect
• might introduce chromatic aberration
• won't be as sharp or as contrasty as a fixed focal length eyepiece
• probably retails new at less than €50
• mechanically it should be okay, useful in your BVs, at star parties or when bound by laziness

1 hour ago, Carbon Brush said:

Announcing 'that [mirror] needs cleaning!'

Maybe it was something he could see himself doing 😬

2 hours ago, Greymouser said:

I was under the impression that Hyperions, to give their best, need a telescope of F7/ F8/ F9/ F10, or slower

3 hours ago, Rob Sellent said:

Personally, I would not have bought them for use in a fast scope

I'm confused. Aren't these two statements saying much the same thing

They are good eyepieces. Personally, I would not have bought them for use in a fast scope (>f6) but they will be fine and will only reveal astigmatism at the edges. Enjoy the views which I reckon will be a nice step up from the supplied eyepieces. Of course your millage may differ but most nights you probably won't be observing much over x200 and only on really steady nights of seeing will you be going +x250 etc.

Don't know if it helps but this might be a useful little picture guide, @markse68

I'm absolutely useless at reading collimation photos, so I'd rather not say anything. But seriously, do Shane's milk bottle washer trick then just follow his steps. Once the secondary is sorted, hopefully it'll be plain sailing.

12 minutes ago, Andrew Singleton said:

I find it crazy that people plaster fake starlight over their houses and by doing so make the actual stars hard to see

Funny you mention this. I set up a thread in the lounge wondering if folk suffered from this kind of thing. As you say, it does seem rather odd behaviour 😟

Depending on one's budget, Vixen's SLVs, Baader's Morpheus, TeleVue's Delites and Delos and Pentax's XWs all spring to mind.

Cracking image @Debo Been out today with a little H-alpha viewing and there are a couple of nice proms. One at around 4 o'clock and another about 7. They're not huge by all means but the larger of the two - your gorgeous image - is probably over 70,000km in length.

Just speaking outloud for I have absolutely no idea but are Meade popular on SGL, or in the UK/Europe? Purely from my own limited experience, I've only ever seen one Meade SCT scope (never a dob, newt or frac) and possibly no more than a handful of eyepieces. When speaking online or meeting other stargazers it appears Baader, Celestron, SkyWatcher, TeleVue, TS-Optics are clearly more popular with a kind of second rung of popularity going to Explore Scientific, Pentax, Takahashi, Vixen and William Optics. As such, in almost rhetorical fashion, on this side of the pond in the last decade or so has there been a Meade era?

Best write up I've ever seen on collimating - stress and hassle free and the milk bottle washer idea is just pure class - an outstanding bit of genius. 

As mentioned in the other post , I imagine the scope will turn out to be a cracking bit of kit "but my gut feeling tells me its accessories are going to let you down and be very frustrating to work with." You'll probably find the scope is undermounted on the EQ1, the finder will cause niggling frustrations, the 4mm will not be very useful and the Barlow's quality will be poor. The 20mm ought to be fine and within reason should give you nice, sharp views at around x45. 

With that in mind, if possible it might be an idea to give the scope a general overhaul. If you're not sure about doing this yourself, try to get along to a local astro club where I'm sure you'll find someone to give you a hand. Failing that, SGL can also help a lot. The overhaul ought to include:

• remove the rear end of the scope and centre-spot the primary mirror if and only if it doesn't have one already (there are many example on the web to doing this, so try to find one you're comfortable with).
• it may also help to loosen the rubber clips holding the mirror just a touch so as to avoid 'pinched optics'
• get yourself a Cheshire eyepiece
• and follow this outstanding PDF on collimating

If you are patient and take your time, collimating your scope shouldn't cause too much of a problem. After that with your 20mm, you should expect to see something like @Johnimage above.

9 hours ago, Alkaid said:

I think you’ve made reasonable assumptions in the statistics

Thank you for being the first to mention this (I think). It would be nice to hear what others have to say about the figures, but I feel the OP went down a bit like a a lead balloon

It's a good question to which I don't think there's any right answer.

With a Newt on an EQ tracking mount you should never lose the target - even with your children taking turns at the eyepiece - but I would argue that almost everything else is going to be more difficult. The eyepiece position will rotate as you track across the sky. Its height will also move. The mount itself will be pricey, will weigh quite a bit and may be a challenge to observe objects near the celestial pole. If tracking were the primary deciding factor, then an AZ tracking mount would probably make more sense. However, like an EQ tracking mount, you will be spending quite a bit more for this feature.

On the other hand, manually tracking a Newt on a rocker box (Dobsonian set-up) is not particularly difficult unless tracking at high magnifications or at the zenith. As with most things there will be a learning curve whilst you get used to the instrument's handling but I feel most folk will get the hang of this in very little time.

Sure, at the beginning it may be a bit of a pain with you having to constantly target the object before and after each of your children and yourself have a look but with a decent finderscope and a red dot finder there shouldn't be too much cause for concern. So long as one acknowledges that hunting down an object, star-hoping and tracking is all part of the fun and that it isn't a mistake not being able to find an object or to loose the object while tracking, folk quickly become confident and relaxed in their inherent abilities and eventually figure out how to do everything for themselves. What you and your children gain is a new set of skills, a deeper appreciation of our own movement through space, a cheaper purchase or the possibility of getting more aperture for your buck.

Finally, it will probably take up less room to store away a smaller 4-5" scope Newt or Mak and break down the different parts of an EQ or AZ mount and tripod, than it would to put in the boot of a car a rocker box and an 8" Newt. Here's a pic to give an idea of relative sizes: