PeterW

Hiding, not on the radar, not yet aware that they have joined the party.... Peter

Obviously it won’t be powered up (unless we can find a suitably dark room!) (bit like expecting a solar telescope demo when it’s cloudy). Peter PS think the %is a bit high....

On @GavStar suggestion that the weather (and moon) are looking to get worse I cracked open the old NV kit to see what was about. Now which doodah do I need to fit into which other one?? Observing NV location lying on ground by the backdoor so the streetlights don’t interfere. I am also using my black flocked tube to further shield out extraneous photonic muck. Sky a bit grey, not as good as I’ve seen it. At 1x with a Long pass filter to see if all those stars were still there… yep countless. Move over to the old “pirate scope”, with 7nm hydrogen alpha filter, bit more sparkly view, but the Orion Nebula was bright and billowy (though rather small). Move up and hey there’s the flame and even ic434, don’t want to claim that the averted imagination could make out the horsehead notch though. Swing over and up, monkey head nice as defined as was the Rosette, adjusting my vision between the central cluster and Nebula. Moving further, the California was good and long with a slight dim region down the middle, now to go for some harder stuff. Flaming star (the main core regions ic401/410), old friends. Couldn’t see the fox fur or lowers neb, nor barnards loop or meissa Nebula. Just realised I forgot to catch up with the pacman! To avoid the lovely new LED streetlights I walked down the far end of the garden to have a go around Cassiopeia, specifically the heart and soul… ohhh both there. The heart with the darker centre and two clear brighter knots, the soup looking like a footprint. Hands getting a bit chilly, but good to remind myself my garden isn’t quite as hopeless as I sometimes think. Maybe I should look to see how it handles even narrower filters that exist and maybe look to speed up my optics too. Should get the 8” out too. Peter

Phew, was worrying you’d have to recement, realign.... Peter

Yep, be there sat with a few others. The old friends keep getting older! Peter

Depending on the scope focal ratio and the prism size you could be losing a lot of light in the system. I looked at binoviewers and the limited prism size restricted me to (something like) 24mm diameter field stop eyepieces. Peter

Or make your own one of these.. https://www.amazon.com/Forum-Novelties-52943-Double-Binocular/dp/B0021X2WQY 🙂 Peter

There are measurements/predictions of total moisture content, aerosol content, wonder which would be more use for us? Peter

Which areas round Norwich are the best.. seems like I might need to take a holiday round there... but closer than Scotland! Peter

One of those “special nights” which give up their secrets! Having a 20” about always helps too! Sky “background texture”... I fear one for those super special nights from super good sites... which bits of texture would you suggest and with what field of view? PEter

I got my observing good from Russia! I use a large forward facing bumbag for holding stuff, but a coat with insulated deep pockets would be better. I have a box of long life glow in the dark plastic “fish pond rocks”, they are good for marking stuff. I also made some custom clip on dim rid cr2032 powered leds that I pop in sealable plastic bags and use to mark stuff too. PEter

I got a purpose made good which works well, but suffers from gravity when I look at the zenith through binoculars... good flocking and stray light shields can also help stop stray photons going where they shouldn’t.... unlikely unneccessary in the caingorms! Peter

Sharp almost to the edge and nicely wide. The individual focus take a bit to get use to, but once focussed to infinity you don’t need to fiddle with them. I don’t have any standard 10x50 to compare them too, but away from the edges of my parents old 10x50 everything goes fuzzy, so these are a step up. They are very nice in the day, though the close focus is a bit further than my other birding bins. They’re r clones to be close or equal to the Fujinon fmt which are established as the best 10x50’out there. The APM also come with the most robust tripod mount I think it is possible to make! I’m happy with them. Peter

Latest addition have been some APM 10x50Ead, very sharp and crisp, need to give them better slies some time. Mounted on a monopod and using a recliner helps steady the view. I al about or give an old pair of 7x35 to a relations son as he lives under dark skies and is interested in what’s up there. So one in, one out 😉 Peter

The maximum field stop the 1.25” binoviewers is not very generous. I was looking at larger binocular options and went with a conventional type over a split system. Even with all that loss it’s interesting to hear you still had a good view. Binocular viewing has a noticable benefit over mono. https://www.bbastrodesigns.com/30/30 inch binoscope.html It’s just hard to obtain, though interesting to see that this might be about to change (if you have a 3D printer). https://analogsky.co peter

for a really rich view you want to use f3 and 7mm exit pupil and dark skies, mel bartels has seen a lot more besides, all sorts of galactic integrated flux nebulae, which don’t seem to get mentioned much. F5 would seem a little slow for this. Peter

With my skies??!! I have seen the merope nebula through a friends refractor in an especially breezy dark location. Most of my dark sky trips have been NV, though I still like the widefield tiny stars of a raw glass view. Peter

Interesting view with such a mini-dob, what are the best eyepieces for this sort of 130mm (heritage or PDS) scope? PEter

NV gives you an instant “eyepiece view”, but prefers fast f-ratio for nebulous objects (the 55mm plossl afocal method is popular to achieve this). AlanJGreen uses one on his huge dob. Video/stacked short CCD needs tracking and some other hardware and then waiting for the result. All options give a different result, depends what you want to observe. PEterW

Gav and AlanJGreen have a number of posts on the sorts of things needed. Not cheap, but the best for hydrogen nebulae, depends what you want to observe. Peter

I would buy another eyeballing this a beer... way too faint! http://www.aerith.net/comet/catalog/0289P/2019.html Peter

...which now makes sense. Not some random claim, but not clearly explained. Peter

Oberwerk seem to be cheaper than APM for the angles bins. Peter

It seems that crowdfunding campaigns need to mega hype themselves to get the visibility and hence the numbers to make it worth it. News sites print all the hype they’re provided with without much critical review. Given that these are typically used to make first products, so the people running them aren’t seasoned manufacturing experts, you’re bound to have some issues. The fact that these EV scopes have succeeded in delivering something that works as promised is great. If I hadn’t already gone down my own EV route many years back and if the price was the lower value mentioned, I might be interested. Peter

I am sure light pollution will affect it like normal observing, how many urban observers have them to see more? I prefer to wait for actual reviews before buying things. Peter