Steely Stan

I hear that!! 👍

Thanks

Thanks for that.

Yep, a massive Lee axial polariser - it was about £200 over a decade ago but for that lens I had no choice because the Cokin system which I used with all sorts of slides, gels and glass wouldn’t mount on the lens, and would’ve vignetted about 25% of it too. On top of that the lens was such a wide angle that it was necessary to get a filter with a very slim threaded mount to avoid restricting the angle. There was a great secondary market for filters fitting the Cokin system even though the basic frame cost pence. I loved everything about it except putting it all away, which is why I started using screw on filters and leaving them on.

Filters - I know they are not eyepieces, but this seemed the closest category. As I read more about optimising telescopes, I see suggestions that various filters might help with viewing planets or nebulae etc. As a photographer of years and years I'm used to using them, especially when I used film (sniff, sniff, sob). But I never fell for the ludicrous extremes of pricing, or at least never found the performance of boutique or so called "marque" filters worth the money, (well once....😬). So, I'm perplexed to see its possible to spend twice the cost of a good eyepiece on a single filter. I just ordered my first fixed focal eyepiece, a Baader 17mm Hyperian and I regard 95 sovs as fair (FLO), but I ain't spending that again on a filter, or perish the though £250-odd......am I? Do you? Is a £250 filter really 10 times better than a £25 one? With my camera lenses I generally have a filter for each and leave them on, usually a rotating polariser on my DSLRs, as much for protection of the optics actually. I'm not sure if that makes sense on eyepieces as I anticipate changing filters from time to time for different purposes, but I can imagine having more than one of each type. If it were not for this ghastly virus I could join a local club and try a few out courtesy of the members but that's off the menu right now, on top of which 'er indoors is already referring to my spending reflex as the "Stargazers lunge"!

Update: Well, in the end I got a Svbony 21-7 out of impatience, and then shortly after bagged the Baader 24-8 Mk IV on eBay - it was always going to happen like that. The Baader only arrived yesterday so I've been mucking about with the cheap one for a bit, and getting a bit disillusioned - hard to focus, very stiff action, and about as parfocal as the bottom of a beer bottle. Then in waltzes the Baader, and its like chalk and cheese - the Baader is markedly better. I don't know all the tech terms to say what's better but I can see more detail, in better and easier focus at higher magnifications on the Baader; plus its handling is smoother. Saying that, the seeing was a bit better early last night, so I suppose that will be part of it - I should have compared them, but I got carried away with the Baader. I already know that I won't be going much above x150 mag unless its an exceptional night, although I do find the moon tolerates greater mag, but it is quite high in the sky tonight , compared with Jupiter, which I was also looking at - its getting quite low now by the time I can get outside. I still can't get used to bringing something into good focus and then finding it goes vague on me, then comes back etc etc. I'm having to consciously resist refocussing once I've got a good glimpse as it seems it will come in and out a bit on its own. It's a real jolt when you are struggling to get any crisp focus, and sort of "middle it" as best you can, then suddenly the image pings into sharp focus for two seconds and disappears again. Its like chasing a ten pound note in the wind. I also find with a zoom in the scope I'm tempted to endless fiddling, but if I put the humble Celestron 24mm Plossl in, I focus and then stand there gawping at the view instead of messing around. I'm pretty sure I will fairly quickly settle on no more than three fixed eyepieces, and maybe a Barlow.

Best post I've read on this forum - with only a month behind me owning a telescope and just three breaks in the cloud to try viewing I nearly threw my scope on the ground last time in frustration when I viewed Jupiter in all its nano-glory, but I already know from this article what I was doing wrong and what I can do to improve things. I now see it like an expert mechanic making a car go as well as it can - they don't swap the engine out - they tinker here, and tinker there making small adjustments and refinements on a number of elements and gradually the thing begins to sing. And, straining the metaphor a bit, the atmosphere is to a telescope what a cobbled road is to a car - even a formula one car will struggle given that to drive on. I think the other thing its easy to overlook is that in terms of giving objects some sort of shape, a planet looking like a disc for example, a huge amount is happening already getting us from "nothing" to "rhubarb" - these objects are mindbogglingly far away and just making them any more than a point of light is astonishing. I proved to myself that my telescope is indeed powerful by looking at some terrestrial objects in the day time, thus removing light pollution and atmospheric issues largely. A house I could only see across the valley as a tiny grey square became so close I could see the quality of the pointing between bricks, and that was only at about x100 - zooming in with a budget ZVBony zoom, its became much closer, but less distinct - so there's no wonder celestial objects are tricky, with the extra issues of light pollution and atmospherics to account for. I will adopt the attitude of an amateur golfer - one really good shot every other round makes it worth hacking round the course every weekend! Stan

Well, your advice helps a lot. I'll get the cheaper SVbony as a taster - its not much of a risk at just over £40, and gives me something to skip lightly to the door for when the postman knocks. Naturally there won't be clear night for two weeks now just to frustrate me.

Good grief! That 8-24 looks huge.

Hello Now I've got my telescope working and I'm regularly shouting at the sky with cloud-rage, I'm starting to think about eyepieces. My telescope (Celestron Nexstar 8SE) only comes with a single 25mm Plossl, so my thinking was to lay hands on a zoom, say 7-21 or 8-24, and work out what settings I use most and then buy dedicated fixed focal length eyepieces accordingly. With that strategy in mind, I've been waiting to get lucky on flea-bay for a Baader mk 3 or even mk 4 zoom but its such a waiting game not knowing if you can win an auction. - looks like about 2 a week come up. There seem to be three options... Get a brand new Baader - £185 Lurk on eBay till you get lucky - £100 to £125 Lose patience and drop a crafty £40 on a SVbony 7-21 and find it good enough to perform my experiment, or perhaps better than the price might indicate. Anyway, the point of this is to ask, do the better quality, and probably pricier zooms earn their corn becoming "keepers"; or do they inevitably get relegated when one finds one's sweet spot with two or three fixed eyepieces? Stan

Hi Heather - Plague borough made me laugh! Pitsford West Car park (near the cycle hire shop) is locked for entry from dark, but you can get out anytime as it has those folding down flappy things - or it did last year. I'll take the dogs round sometime this week and check. Its quite dark there on a good cold night. Brampton Valley way 0 there's a thought. As you say, some car parks are surrounded by trees but there is an open one just south from Great Oxenden nr Station Cottages. Houghton Crossing down the hill from Hanging Houghton is good on 3 sides but poor looking North west. Spratton Crossing is a bit 50/50 (but if you go across the road from the car park its very open) and can't remember what Merry Tom crossing is like. Draughton neqr Maidwell is rubbish on all sides. I'll have to go and have a look. Spratton and Merry Tom are a bit near Northampton, so might be a bit bright. It would be quite interesting to look upwards through one of the ventilation shafts on Draughton or Oxenden tunnels - very limited view Obvs, but as black as coal all around. I'll search around and report any good spots I hear of.

Thank you for your replies - what a nice bunch you all are. 🙂

Yep, so it seems! Heather, as you are fairly local to me (I'm Kettering) do you have any tips for slightly darker skies near to home? The light maps look terrible in the Midlands but just in case there is a tiny dot of dark you know about? ...or is that like asking a mushroom forager for their best spots? 🙂 Phil

Hello all I just ordered my first telescope, a Nexstar 8 SE (very aggressive pricing on Amazon right now), and I can already tell I walked into the stargazers meth lab! No sooner had I placed my order than I was on ebay looking for a second hand Baader zoom. After an hour on this forum I will probably decide I need a EQ wedge, start thinking about whether to by a powerpack or make one from a car battery. I'll be spending £200 on petrol driving to Scotland and back to find darker skies, and....well you know the drill. To be fair, all this is with the endorsement of my missus (that makes her a "keeper") but I now know why expensive purchases are commonly referred to as 'astronomical'. Technically its not my first scope as my son had a tiny toy refractor which, with a lot of fiddling, gave OK views of the moon but was useless for anything dim. Then during lockdown #1 I bought a pair of binoculars, mounted them on my camera tripod and pointed them at Jupiter and behold! - a yellow disc and four little moons in a row. Then scoot left a bit to Saturn which revealed a little rugby ball - couldn't see the rings as such, but knew it was egg shaped for a reason....anyway, that was it - hooked. .....and as £or astro£otography, let's not mention that to the missus. Yet. Stan . . o . .