Dr Strange

Welcome aboard Kevin!

Mike Great sketch! That is what I saw with the NVD. John Thank you for mentioning the EEVA forum. I am aware of the EEVA forum. I use a ASI 553 as well as the NVD for EEVA but because I was primarily using unaided vision for this observation I posted it here. The Majority of the 30 minutes I spent with the comet were using my Mark 1 Mod 0 eyeball. I used the NVD for about 5 minutes. Frankly I wish I had used it sooner. It was a very startling contrast in what I could see.

Scope: TSA-120 f/7.5 900mm focal length Eyepiece 1: Tele Vue Nagler 16mm 56.25x magnification Eyepiece 2: Tele Vue Delite 11mm 81.81x magnification connected to a Tele Vue Night Vision Device Mount: DiscMounts DM6 on a Avalon Tpod 130 no DSC was used Seeing: Good Transparency: Above Average Skies: Bortle 8/9 I decided that tonight was the night to bag Neowise. I am in the foothills of our local mountain range and it was about 12 degrees above one of the peaks in the Northwest part of the sky. It was an easy hop from Mirfak down and over to the comet. I found it in my 60mm RACI finderscope without trouble. It was about the span of my extended thumb to my extended pinky (like you are doing the Hawaiian "hang loose" sign) away from Mirfak. In other words about 25 degrees away at about a 25ish degree angle from Mirfak. Using the 16mm I had 56.25x magnification. I was in my front yard with plenty of neighborhood light pollution including my neighbor who has a floodlight on a motion sensor so any time a car went by it would light up the street bright enough I could read a book in my living room. With no light amplification the head of the comet was a nice round ball of pretty high brightness. I perceived it to be about 1/2 a millimeter in diameter*. The tail was visible stretching about 1-3 minutes in length behind the comet. It was a very faint grey/silver shadowish object. I recently purchased the Tele Vue Night Vision System (NVD). It is a white phosphorus tube instead of the Army green one. I explained to SWMBO that a) this is my only hobby and is much less expensive than other hobbies like sailing and b) astronomy keeps me out of the pubs. This was the first real test of the NVD. I had a brief first light with it just panning around looking at nothing in particular. I was floored at the difference! I hadn't upped the magnification that much going from 56.25x to 81.81x but the definition, brightness, and detail were literally like night and day! No pun intended. The head was easily over a millimeter in diameter*, very bright, and well defined. What really came out was the tail. It was very well defined, very visible, stretched about 7-8 minutes behind the comet, and looked like a contrail from an aircraft or like an object with a trail entering the atmosphere but instead of orange and red fire it was silver and grey. As we will not be seeing this comet for another 7,000 years after this pass it was nice to bag it for the log book! * Size is perceived by the observer and not actual size.

Welcome aboard!

Welcome Richard

I think you will really like the TEMPest fans! I did on mine. I really cut down the cool down time. With my 203mm it was ready to view with in about 20 minutes. By that I mean the flaring wooly stars were greatly tamed. The Everbrite will open up the view more. More importantly it will open up the scope to use of 2" eyepieces. That will help you get to that 1.25 degree field of view which really opens things up for you.

Cheers mate. I thought you meant it was a really good choice just for an SCT. And I am sure some use it to get that 1.25 degree FOV which is nice for sure. However when it is opened up to multiple scopes especially the wide field ones and it is a great option. But in the OP's case I would say the 80mm APO would be a better option for the money since it really opens things up for him in terms of wide field. A 30mm ES EP would work too and be much less.

I have the 31 Nagler and have used it in my EdgeHD 8 and 11. Truth in advertising I no longer have those scopes. I replaced them with a Mewlon 250. I have no other hobbies, take a sack lunch to work to save for spending in the hobby, scrimp and save other places, and justify my addiction ^H^H^H^H er ah I mean hobby spending by telling SWMBO that by allowing me my folly and the corresponding spending it keeps me out of the pubs. Yes it gives a wider field than other EP's. Not the point. The SCT with that EP gives you a 1.25 degree FOV. Pretty nice for an SCT. With the 0.7 reducer for the EdgeHD it gives a 1.79 degree FOV. Better than the 1.25 degree but not by much when you compare it to a "fast" refractor. Which leads me to my next point. The place where the 31 really shines and is where it should be used is in a "fast" (low f stop) refractor. For example my Tele Vue NP101is with that EP gives me 4.71 degrees. That is a huge difference. And justifies the $900 a 31 Nagler costs in my mind. I can and have gotten the entire Veil complex in the TV with the 31 Nagler and a OIII filter. That cannot be done with the SCT. To put it in perspective the 80mm ES APO and that Nagler gives a whopping 5.3 degree FOV. And the 18mm ES 82 degree in the 80mm APO gives a 3.08 degree FOV. That is far better the 1.25/1.79 degree FOV the Nagler gives in the SCT. So if he wants the super wide field sweeping views he would be better served with the 80mm APO and the 18mm EP than spending $900 on a 31 Nagler for his SCT.

The 31 Nagler will be completely wasted on the SCT. The SCT has far too narrow a field of view to justify the 31 Nagler. The 31 will do well on the 80mm though.

As to anything wider than a 18mm... No, not really. Unless you are really into wide sweeping views of large to huge open star clusters and panning around the sky. If that is the case you should buy a small f/stop 80mm APO refractor and use it on a manual mount. Something in f/7.5 or (better) even lower). The SCT is kind of the Swiss Army Knife of scopes. It will do pretty much everything for you at a good price but it doesn't do anything super well. At f/10 the widest I would go is the 18mm. For example and from personal experience the 18mm will give you a good view of the Seven Sisters (M45 Pleiades) although you can't get all of it in the EP. You do get most of it. The same applies to other large open clusters. If you really want to compliment the SCT, and the EdgeHD is a very good SCT that gives you close to APO refractor like views, I would suggest getting an Explore Scientific 80mm FCD100 or FCD1 APO. Mount it on top of the SCT. You can save the money you would have spent on the 2" diagonal and put it towards the ES since it comes with a good 2" diagonal as well. Doing that takes the ES 80mm from £675 to £490. A decent savings and it gets you a new scope that will mount on top of the EdgeHD and can be used as a finder as well as a scope to go back and forth with. Use the 80mm for large objects and the SCT for smaller ones or to go deep in detail on a large object.

I think they are very similar. A German bloke got into a spot because he X-Ray'ed the ES 100 and the Tele Vue Ethos and they were pretty much identical in configuration. Here is a link to the article: http://www.svenwienstein.de/HTML/es_14mm_ethos_13mm_English.html The only reason I switched to Tele Vue is because up until recently Tele Vue gave free items to dealers who sold a certain amount of eyepieces and other equipment. So at shows they would sell their Tele Vue equipment at dealer cost because the value of the free stuff they got from Tele Vue for hitting certain sales targets was more than what they lost in profit from the sale at cost. They no longer do that as far as I know. So I sold my ES EP's and switched to TV. Had that option not been on the table I would still be using the ES's. Don't get me wrong, Tele Vue makes a great EP but so does ES. And the ES is about 1/2 the price of the TV!

Oh and since I use the D plate on all my scopes I bought the ADM Accessories saddle for it. That gives you the option for either a D plate or a V plate. Stock it is only Vixen plate.

Note that with the NP it is shaky when you touch the focuser but I expected that and was fine with it. I wanted the aperture and didn't want to buy a Takahashi FC-100. I now use it with my AP 92 Stowaway. Handles it beautifully. Others use it with a Takahashi FC-100DF or DC. Works quite well with both of those too. The NP was about 2 kg over the weight limit with all the accessories. I have also seen people use it with a Skywatcher Evostar 100 ED. That also works quite well. I have also seen people use it with the Explore Scientific 102mm APO. Again, works well. Personally I would recommend the Explore Scientific carbon fiber 102mm APO or 80mm APO. Both are well figured APO's so CA is minimized even on things like Sirius or the moon. I am very sensitive to CA and it drives me to distraction so I have to use a well figured APO. I owned the ES 127 CF FCD1, the ES 102 Essentials FCD1, and tried the 80mm CF FCD1. They were great scopes and my most used ever was the 127 on an AVD. I could be up and observing in under 15 minutes. And that was at a leisurely pace. I have looked through the new FCD100 versions and the slightly cool whites I saw on stars in my FCD1 scopes is no longer there. ES has come a long way in terms of lenses. They are pushing up into the Tele Vue and Takahashi space. Same with Skywatcher and their Esprits. Though I wouldn't use an Esprit on this mount. Too heavy. The 80 or 102 FCD100 would be a dream come true. To put it in perspective I saw M57 the Ring nebula with slightly averted vision for the first time from my Bortle 8/9 city skies in my 102 FCD1. So it is a very well performing scope. I probably could have done it in the 80mm too but didn't keep it since it was really too close to my 102. The 102 and 127 didn't compete as much since they served different purposes somewhat. Below is an image of how I carried it with the NP. It was in one of the bags. The EP's and diagonal were in the other. The tripod was a MePhoto and it rested on top of the scope. Now I have it in a Pelican case. The 92 is in another. On an airplane I take both out, wrap my clothes around the mount head, ep's, diagonal, and scope, put that in my carryon, and I am good to go save our TSA seems to be baffled by what all of that is and I am always having to open the carryon to show them then explain. This tends to delay me because of the puzzlement and amazement as well as the questions that follow.

I like/love: ease of setup, ease of use, how light weight and compact it is, how accurate it is for its price point (it is not an Astro Physics or Paramount but does quite well for its cost), that it opens up the option for me to carry it in the boot to use when I am stuck in a parking lot because my child is a strong athlete and plays for several club teams several nights a week and I can be observing instead of staring at videos while I sit in the car because at this age dad is extremely embarrassing so must be banned from the field, that I can use it for observing while my main mount is busy doing AP for me, and that I can put it along with a small scope in my carry on luggage and travel with it on an airplane. I used it with a Tele Vue NP101is. The NP is well over the weight limit but it handled it fine. Here is a video of it going to something. Sorry I don't remember what. However it was low in the sky...

I love my AZ-GTi. But as noted it looks like it is out of stock everywhere. Likely due to its popularity and the production interruptions in China. I would expect things to pick back up in the next 6 weeks or so. However a Dobsonian with encoders and a DSC (digital setting circle) is another great option. For encoders and a DSC I cannot recommend the Astro Devices Nexus DSC or Nexus II (if you want to use your smart phone as the computer) and their encoder kits. Serge, the owner, provides top flight customer service! For example I had very straight forward issues installing my encoders on my DM6 (I was a rugby player for my Uni team and then played club so I am not very bright but am very good at brute force and ignorance). Instead of just replying by email Serge called me from Australia and walked me through how to fix what I broke! He has also called me about some questions I had on my Nexus DSC. He has kits for most popular Dob's including the Skywatcher and Explore Scientific lines. Speaking of which, while more expensive, I also recommend the Explore Scientific Dobsonians. Much more compact, easy to store, and easy to transport than their solid tube cousins! And affordable all things considered. Plus a 254mm Dobsonian with a DSC cannot be beat in terms of looking at things!

The 40 isn't really that much use. If you like the Delos line then a 17.5 and 14 would be good options. They have a very nice field of view with that scope and are very good eyepieces. If that is outside your budget or you want to economize to pick up the other items I am going to recommend to use with that scope I cannot say enough good things about the Explore Scientific 82 degree line of eyepieces. I had all of them except for the 30mm and they all performed flawlessly and well! With the 8HD scope I can my most used were the 18mm, 14mm, 11mm and 8.8mm. Which leads me to my suggestions to really improve the performance of the EdgeHD 8". The biggest improvement would be the TEMPest fans from Deep Space Products in the US. It cuts cooling time in half. That is a huge difference and really makes observing much more enjoyable. Especially since you run them while observing since it will mean the scope, once cooled, will stay at the ambient temperature. More than anything else this is a game changer for the scope. Second would be a 2"/104mm diagonal. It will mean you can take advantage of the wide field in the eyepieces as well as use the 2" barrel eyepieces. A combination of the Tele Vue shorty adapter SCT threaded to compression is the way to attach it to the back of the scope. A good diagonal is the Tele Vue Everbrite. The 18mm ES 82 degree EP is a good option for this scope for a wider view of things but it needs a 2" diagonal. Along with it I would recommend either the 14mm or 11mm and the 6.7mm for those rare nights with really good seeing.

I would say the Pocket Sky Atlas for use at the scope and Interstellarum for really mapping things out in detail. Though I think there is still a field edition of Interstellarum which works well at the scope too. I use both at the scope. I also have the Cambridge Double Star Atlas. Those three plus a moon map are what I use. It covers pretty much everything for me.

Welcome to SGL!

Welcome to SGL! Good plan on the modifications to that scope. And keep an eye out for sucker holes. Through one you may have a chance at Saturn. A lovely planet and my most favorite.

Unfortunately patience is a huge part of this hobby. I would suggest waiting and saving the €72 which is huge. Frankly if I were you I would put that towards a 203 version of that scope. That extra 50mm will make a big difference in how bright the objects you are looking at will be and will give you more detail on them too. 150 is good but 203 is better. And in the Dobsonian space 203 is the beginning of the "my gosh it is way too big and heavy" range of Dobsonians. It is still manageable compared to a 250mm or above. The best scope for you is the scope you use. If you are looking for reasons NOT to use your scope vs. reasons TO use it then it is too big for you. Three things I would add to either scope: A right angle corrected image (RACI) finderscope A Telrad Sky and Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas The RACI will make it easier on your neck when you are star hopping. The Telrad will really help with star hopping too. And the Pocket Sky Atlas is an inexpensive map of the night sky broken out by season of the year that provides you a map of how to get to an object. It also has directions to make tools to work with a finderscope and a Telrad to figure out how to make the hops you need to and what you will see in each as you hop. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/skywatcher-9x50-right-angled-erecting-finderscope.html https://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/telrad-finder-astronomy.html https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/the-pocket-sky-atlas/

I am beginning to sound like a broken record on this but... I am a huge fan of the Skywatcher AZ-GTi mount and the 130mm Newtonian telescope. It is a comprehensive package with everything you need to observe. It is very affordable and works really well! With it I would suggest a comfortable chair and the Pocket Sky Atlas from Sky & Telescope. The chair isn't for your rear. It is for your eyes. You see more when comfortably seated. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-az-gti-wifi/sky-watcher-explorer-130ps-az-gti.html https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/the-pocket-sky-atlas/ Comfortable chairs are really up to you. I use the Starbound chair but it is expensive all things considered. A Drummer's Throne would work well also.

I would suggest the Skywatcher AZ-GTi. It is in budget and will handle the 127. Or you could just buy the 6SE telescope without the mount. The AZ-GTi will handle it as well. I have it and it is a great mount! https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-az-gti-wifi/sky-watcher-az-gti-wifi-alt-az-mount-tripod.html

Welcome Tony!

Welcome Robert!

Welcome aboard Tarry!