Thingo

Dear all, I had an observation session yesterday from my balcony where I got some ok views of Uranus, M31, M42 and M45 with my WO Zenithstar126mm. Conditions were not ideal, quite a bit of light polution here at class 4-5, there's a city in the direction I was viewing (west/south-west). As I was viewing from my balcony, I could not look straight up or in the other direction. Anyway, I was quite happy with what I had still seen given the circumstances when I attempted to find M33. Unfortunately, I just couldn't find it and I'm asking myself what on earth went wrong... I'm quite certain that I had found the right area by star jumping, but I couldn't see even the faintest smudge, neither in the telescope or in my finder scope or binoculars. To my understanding, M33 should be bright enough to see also in the conditions I've described but since I couldn't find it, I reach out to you to hear what you believe may be the reason that I couldn't see it 🙂

This is the kind of posts that makes me consider astrophotography. Great work!

Awesome 🤩

Holy macaroni! 😍 How big is that thing?! How far can you push the magnification on planets?

Thanks Mike! And what you write about how you generally return to 3-4 special eyepieces is what I read in the forums all the time. That, and obviously the cost, are the reasons why I'm very hesitant when it comes to increasing my collection.

I deliberately started with only two eyepieces because I wanted to create that feeling that I really need more - if it would ever come. Now going from 2 to 4 is a pretty big step already and I was considering long and hard whether I would start by buying one more, but to go to 5 eyepieces is out of question at this stage. Let's see what the future has to bring, perhaps I will see a need for an additional eyepiece in the range you mention 😉

After spending an unhealthy amount of time with the Field of View Calculator, reading countless of reviews and forum threads, and considering the input I got in this topic, I woke up this morning with the realisation. I have made my decision: I will... 1. Keep my current eyepieces, the nag31T5 and the ES100 5.5mm. 2. Buy the nagler 3-6 zoom and the nag13T6. 3. Get a pair of simple binoculars that have gotten good reviews: Opticron Adventurer 10x50 T WP. I have about 3-4 months to try these out and whether they will be sufficient for the observation I aim to do during my upcoming travels to the bortle 1 skies in the north of Sweden this fall. Regardless of the conclusion I come to, these binoculars will likely be useful also when I'm observing with my WO Z126 and if I against all odds find them completely useless, they are not a huge investment. Finally, I want to link to a forum post I found at CN that I found very useful to determine what eyepieces I "should have": https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/70718-how-to-choose-eyepieces-3-methods/ Different methods give you different recommendations, but by using several it's easier to come to a conclusion IMHO. Over the last year since I bought my telescope I have managed well with two eyepieces, now I up that till four. Perhaps I will see a need to upgrade it further in the future, but for now, this will cover the "blind spots" that I have realised that I have in my equipment.

Impressive!

Now, I'm completely focused on observing, but if I wasn't, I would be exceptionally satisfied if I had produced something like that. Well done!

Good point about making one myself! Didn't know about the light loss of spotting scopes.. Will look into some newtonians!

That I can imagine. Especially for a tall person, and not that flexible, like myself that must be really annoying. But my thinking is rather that it's still more comfortable than a pair of binoculars. Unless I go horizontal on a yoga mat 😃

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p8370_TS-Optics-Carbon-Fibre-Photo-Tripod---Ball-Head---load-capacity-8-kg.html https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php?products_id=8490#cs This combo! Thoughts? Don't understand why I didn't think about this earlier. Must have some drawbacks that I haven't considered.

Not being able to use it at all would probably feel like the ultimate failure. Going through a lot of hassle to configure and buy a new telescope and then not even use it - for whatever reason...

That's a bit above my league 😂 spending time on research is one thing, but to actually build my own telescope, unfortunately that is not something I would have time for.