globular

You don't often see john being crude. A rare but very welcome contribution

Sounds like you've been rewarded for your wait. Still horrible weather here... but it's forecast for some clear skies in the coming week and a lot of it without the jetstream too... so I hope to end my observing drought with some crisp views of Mars soon too.

This thread is turning into a gold mine of excuses.... I mean reasons

I haven't got time to watch the video - I'm too busy making fake receipts while on the throne.

Do you have a filter somewhere in the light path? Screwed into the diagonal and forgotten about maybe?

Thanks Ruud - both for your recommendation and fantastic animations. I wonder why 14mm seems to be a hard focal length to get right? It seems to be a weak link in many EP ranges, especially those with long eye relief. Thanks everyone for your contributions. I think Delos has won the argument for me - the lack of reports of aberrations and the easy adjustment between glasses / non glasses winning over the slightly narrower FOV and higher price. Still very tempted by the XW14 for £190 though while they still have one in stock..... Or maybe I'll get ES92 17mm and ES92 12mm and skip 14mm altogether.....

How are you finding the Antares barlow, John?

In your SCT: If you add your WO binos into your usual visual back/diagonal/eyepiece holder then you're adding around 100mm to the light path which is about 310mm extra on your C8's focal length (there is about 3.1x factor in C8s). So if you're currently at F/10 it will become a F/11.5. I don't know what type of C8 you have nor what visual back arrangement you have; but it might have an optical path length of 145mm or more, especially if you've gone 2". This can be reduced to about 70mm if you select a diagonal with a very short light path. This saves some optical length so you'll now only add (100-145+70)*3.1 = 77.5mm to your focal length compare to your current visual set-up (if the 150mm guess/assumption is correct). So now, if you are currently F/10, you will only move out to F/10.4 with binos. (Although it's more likely you're currently already at F/10.5 (or more) and will, with this short as possible set-up + binos, move to F/11). If you can arrange your scope so you can look straight though with your binos then things move back down to something much closer to the optimal back focus and F ratio. If you have the Edge C8 then, with your WO's straight into a visual back (no diagonal), you will be pretty close to the 133.35mm optimal back focus for the scope and be operating at the scope's optimal F/10.5. Personally I think I'd use the shortest possible good quality prism diagonal I can find and live with operating at F/11 in comfort rather than F/10.5 doing contortions.

They should protect the boxes with a mask (ing tape). I'll get my coat 🙄

of the globular kind

Choices choices... clouds, drizzle or snow?

Following your journey with binos with interest. Keep us posted with all the gory details 👍

Sometimes the simple answers are better than the complicated ones 😉

Postie delivered: an empty baader filter box (for my DGM NPB which comes in a nice case but it doesn't tessellate with all my other cases) an artificial star (which seems to just be a cheap torch with some holes in the end but it works ok) some of Robert's very handy collimation buttons (I'll call him Bob when I get to know him better)

Nice one Just trying to remember what I was doing on 29th October 1988 At The Haçienda may be? 🥳

Stunning! A joy to study. Thanks for posting.

Nice item Magnus. You beat me to it when it was posted in the classified, so I got this instead... and it is surprisingly good. Nice shake free focusing by running my finger up or down the tie. Recommended (Note to self: repaint garage floor)

I've just looked at a video of the Delos eyecup adjustment. While it does indeed look like a two handed (and possibly out of the scope) adjustment, it looks like it would be quicker than adjusting the XW if a lot of travel is needed. It takes quite a while to screw an XW eyecup from one extreme to another - but small adjustments are fast and easy. The Delos slides as little or as much as you need in about the same time - but the twisting at the start and end is a little fiddley. Overall on the eyecup adjustment front (which is important to me and my wife) I think the Delos has the edge.

Agreed. I'll send you my wife's mobile number so you can explain to her why this is necessary. 🤣

@Jiggy 67 Each EP has a fixed position at which the maximum / optimal exit pupil is formed. Everyone's face and eye sockets are different... then there is with and without glasses..... and some people like to rest on something and other like to hover.... etc etc. EP eyecups are adjustible and/or spacers are used to help a wide variety of users as possible place their eye at the optimal viewing distance.

My wife and I will both be using the EP... one wears glasses and the other doesn't. So I guess it would be important to be easy to use for both of us... adding a spacer for non glasses use and removing it for glasses use would be rather annoying. Trouble is everyone is different and we won't really know until after we've bought one of them. Maybe this favours the XW a little.... where the spacing is adjustable by screwing the cups in or out. And scores against the Morpheus - unless folded up and folded down works for us How do the Delos cups adjust?

Thanks @Jiggy 67 (and @Barry-W-Fenner). All three are on my shortlist because of the good eye relief. Published figures have the Morpheus at 18.5, XW at 20 and Delos at 20. So in theory the Morpheus (in it's 14mm variant) is the tightest of the three - but I've read reports that they all work pretty well with glasses.

On FOV: Using manufacturers published field stop to calculate AFOV I get Morpheus at 77, XW at 72 and Delos at 71. And in my scope that's TFOV of 0.51o, 0.47o and 0.47o respectively. So Morpheus is 8.5% larger - but Louis says the last 15% suffers a bit - so maybe the sharp area of the XW and Delos are a little larger than the Morpheus? Albeit smaller overall. I really wish I could try before I buy 😢

Thanks @Louis D. How do I interpret your images? It looks to me that the Morpheus has more curvature than the XL. But when combined with the curvature of the scope being used I imagine things change... and may be the extra curvature in the lens cancels more of the opposite curvature in (some) scopes? But isn't the Edge HD supposed to be relatively flat compared to other scopes? So the Morpheus might look more curved in my scope than the XL / XW? .... May be I'm getting this all wrong?

So do I buy the XW while I can 'get it cheap'? Or would one of the other ones be better?