josefk

I hope i haven't made a big mistake here. My first 100 degree eyepiece so i'm not sure what to expect from a general comfort and eye placement POV - forecast is clear for Saturday here so will soon find out. A silly 300x in my Cassegrain but should be a good 1mm exit pupil eye piece at more middle of the road magnification in a shorter focal length 'scope on the way.

20 minutes ago, ED Splitter said:

Hope so. Deliberated for so long. I watched a video on eyepieces by astrolavista on YouTube so many times last year to get my head around it all. I recommend the video, easier than reading perhaps, prefer to spend reading time drooling over unaffordable gear on retailer websites.  Link below. 

The thing that swung it for me was that I recently purchased a used 9mm nagler for a good price. It yields a 1mm exit pupil, another sweet spot, that has greatly improved my hunt and appreciable viewing of deep sky objects. The ring nebula is an addictive target. 
The pan will supersede my 28mm LET skywatcher  that yields 3mm exit pupil. At home in bortle 5 through the LET the sky was a grey background, more a problem in poor seeing or a bright moon. 2mm of the pan compensates these issues in theory and my limited viewing yesterday with the moon up seemed to back this theory up. 
I also considered a 17.5 Morpheus but the weight and size of the two teles are similar and as I understand it are both parafocal to one another, bonus for deep sky object hunting. 

 

it's always a balancing act  - sometimes literally and comparable weights and focal points for eyepieces that will be used together is another angle again. i have the 24mm panoptic and it's super friendly (i can't think of a better way to describe it but i suppose i mean comfortable and easily comfortable). its also more or less a 2mm eyepiece for me. i'll take a look at that video later. Thanks.

beware those links though @markse68. you end up with eyepiece "analysis" spreadsheets that look like this:

😂

34 minutes ago, markse68 said:

Any links Joseph? I’m coming to some conclusions about my eyes and wide eps but any good articles would be good. I have a 19mm tv wf (pre-panopticon) and find it nicer to use than eg a 30mm with my 6” f5.

Mark

take them as you find them - the trouble is with the internet it could be any old rubbish  - i wouldn't be able to tell:

https://www.telescope-optics.net/index.htm#TABLE_OF_CONTENTS

http://www.rocketmime.com/astronomy/Telescope/telescope_eqn.html

the second one is where the pennies dropped for me but i think all the content is on the first one - i just find it harder to digest...

Cheers

7 hours ago, ED Splitter said:

Postman yesterday brought a 19mm panoptic and a new to me astronomik UHC and a baader filter. Apologies to all for the thunderstorms since. 

The pan was one of a number of eyepieces I considered to get near the 2mm exit pupil sweet spot for my 100ED. Got the chance to test it out briefly tonight in a 30min break in clouds. Diamonds on velvet gloriousness. This is going to be an enjoyable eyepiece. 
 

 

I’ve been doing some fascinating reading this week on exit pupils from the point of view of eye performance and the penny is slowly dropping for me on scale vs brightness vs contrast vs diffraction vs astigmatism. That panoptic at 2mm will be a cracker. 

I noticed the same thing earlier in the week @great_bear . We Brits on here are all poorer when the pound slides against the dollar. I don’t like to be disloyal to our forum sponsor but it goes with saying TV EP’s are around elsewhere at the older prices. I guess they won’t be for long if this is an FX related GBP price adjustment against in the TV case what I assume to be a USD denominated global price list. 😞

Regardless your challenges to capture it @tich that is a lovely PN and a lovely picture of it. Thanks for posting - very nice to see first thing this morning. 👍🏻

That looks superb and the clicklock arrangements you've added on the back look really effective (clicklock is so dark nights, cold hands and tired brain friendly). Will you side by side mount it with a refractor for "best of both worlds" on a given target or do you have particular targets and projects in mind for it?

That’s a great report Steve. M17 sounds good especially. I’ve seen it without a filter “at my dark sky site” but “only” very dark grey on an even darker grey background so I’m keen to use a filter as you have done to maximise the contrast. 
 

Per M57 I like The Ring a lot and have spent quite a lot of time with it in the eyepiece but sadly I haven’t seen any hint of colour. So far 🙂  

That's a fascinating set of observations and interesting objects to boot. This hobby sometimes presents things were 10% of the experience is at the eyepiece and 90% of the experience is in the "wonder" of that little thing seen at the eyepiece and the interest of planning beforehand to see it and the satisfaction after the fact of having seen it. 

spot on!

10 hours ago, Captain Scarlet said:

Set up early and ready for the first session, once again, in what seems like AGES.  My neighbours expressed an interest so I’ll be giving a tour of the greatest hits, with the LZOS at 21x and the 12” at 150x-ish.

Cheers, Magnus 

 

That just looks idyllic. What a great set-up. 

@Stu well there is that as well. I have the GSO 8” cassegrain. Nearly 2.5 meters focal length. I had thought about a 55mm plossl just for the larger (maybe 4mm or so) exit pupil (I wouldn’t really gain FOV with it). That EP would then be a bit specialised though. Not totally redundant but a bit niche. Mmhh. 

Thanks @Stu  it would be “just” 2.4mm exit pupil with the current set-up. 186mm/79x. I will give the UHC a try first I think. It won’t be wasted to get one for the toolkit anyway. Cheers

@pipnina this has been on my list of "things i didn't see last night" last weekend and this 😞

@Stu i understand the FOV challenge (i can't get wider than 1 degree myself). In your view do you think a UHC or O-III would make the difference to see the brighter edges rotate into the eyepiece (even a FOV restricted eyepiece) if your lying in wait for it in the west as it where. This technique is NOT working for me without a filter I should say; waiting at the eyepiece to see if i discern brightening while that patch of sky rotates over - i couldn't honestly say there is any brightening as the nebula rolls through (or should be rolling through)...

17 hours ago, bosun21 said:

I was talking about removing the clicklock from the diagonal and directly attaching the binoviewer by the T2 connection. The 102 Starfield already has a low profile twist lock. I have now decided to get a new Baader prism 32mm diagonal and a 2” Baader nosepiece and connecting with the same method. This seems to be the way to save on focus travel. Am I wrong?, as I haven’t placed my order yet.

@bosun21 i found it very helpful to make a small table of the different combos' so you can add all the lightpath requirements up. The baader website and manual downloads are very good because they quote the flightpath for every diagonal and accessory spacer/ring/clamp etc. It looks like all the 2" diagonals are over 100mm so with the bino's and the focuser i think it would be a very unusual scope i think that could accommodate all that.  As @Franklin says the T2 32mm prism and nosepiece is probably the way to go. I'm not a fan of the T2 coupling nut between bino's and prism but once its all together its  very convenient package you can leave assembled in the case. Cheers

baader_star_diagonals_t_2_and_2.pdf

23 hours ago, F15Rules said:

Maybe Morpheus 17.5's would work? I used a pair successfully 👍.

But if you do decide on orthos, the Baader Classic Ortho 18mm's are also excellent condition 😊

Dave

Thanks @F15Rules. i'm a fan of winged eyecups on day time bino's and i think the baader either come with them or are easy to retrofit fit with them so definitely on the list... Cheers

Fantastic!

i'm slightly relieved my IPD will prevent the temptation to double up on Delos so now to pick some 18mm ortho's i think...

Baader 1.7x GPC delivered today so i don't need to mess about with spacers in the dark unless i really want to use the native magnification/FOV of the binoviewer. It's definitely not 1.7x though. I can tell from another eyepiece it's more than 1.4x but can't really estimate with what's available to view in the daylight where between 1.4x and 1.7x it is - i think the received wisdom on the net at 1.5x is about right.

5 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Thanks for your findings with the MBII. How do I find the back focus for my telescope? It’s a Starfield 102 f7. I am also going to attach a Baader prism diagonal by means of the T2 connection.

...well for an important item of OTA spec it seems not to be always declared in the user manual/datasheet. For my scope i found a drawing of my scope online for the 270mm number (i think on cloudy nights) and i found the focuser spec (the 107mm number) in another drawing online. I'm afraid i don't know your scope but perhaps google it or someone helpful on here will chip in. Just be sure to be clear on whether the number "whatever it is" applies after the focuser or before it so you can do the maths above. Good luck.

Hi @bosun21 i only got binoviewers myself last week so i'm a complete newbie BUT the math is fresh in mind :-). Do you know the backfocus (in-focus) for your scope?

The MBII alone (not considering any diagonal) requires 110mm without GPC, 92mm nominally with 1.25x GPC and 77mm with 1.7x GPC.

I have 270mm back focus. My focuser takes 107mm and the T2 diagonal takes 38mm (145mm sum) plus MBII at 110mm is 255mm and that is less than 270mm so it comes to focus with about 15mm of draw tube extension.

I also have a 1.7x GPC on order. The sum will then be 107mm plus 38mm plus 77mm so not only will it come to focus it will come to focus in a similar draw tube range to a mono eyepiece in my set up (107mm focuser and 110mm diagonal in my case).

Hope that helps rather than hinders.

Cheers

21 hours ago, Macavity said:

(Randomly) The advantage of using two eyes are anecdotal. I must try! 😎
But I do wonder about the "magnitudes"... due to transmission/reflection.

i know what you mean - i was looking to gather experience of that for myself but i didn't set about it in a structured way (i.e i didn't set about working up and down lists of known objects/known magnitudes and comparing bino to mono) so my 'findings' aren't particularly informative even for myself. I was hoping for a dimming effect on Jupiter and Saturn but didn't experience it in a notable way. Big disclaimer - i can't switch between bino/mono quickly (different back focus requirements) so didn't do any kind of AB test.

3 hours ago, paulastro said:

For years, I've used a binoviewer for the Moon and planets, for me the improvement is significant.  The great thing is you don't need expensive eyepieces.  In side by side comparisons a pair of Orthos in a binoviewer has always given better views than when using single high quality expensive eyepieces, including Monos and Ethos for me - and other experienced observers viewing at the same time.

I got a hint of that i think on Friday on Saturn in particular - i only have one EP pair at the mo' but i will hopefully secure a pair of shorter focal length ortho's or Plössls for the autumn period. I'm waiting for a GPC first and that will tell me exactly what focal length to pick - somewhere around 15...18mm i think. 

i think someone else already commented on SGL that the advantages of binocular vision is something you can prove for yourself (or not) trying to read an eye chart (or some small print) with either one eye and then combined two eyes. Works for me. 

7 minutes ago, moonsafari said:

Love it, thank you. I’m sold.

Do you know if the slow motion controls are a big trade-off with the AZ75?

I'm afraid on that one i don't. I have the az100 with slo mo. If I were to get the az75 I would definitely get the handle which combined with the smoothness of the head I imagine would be fine substitute.