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5 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

I'm still wondering about this.

It seems to me that there are perhaps five possible responses/causes to an improvement in quality somewhere in the light train:

(a) a noticeable improvement in the image, even to a novice

(b) no change discerned, because the improvement is still "masked" by other limiting hardware

(c) no change discerned, because the observer's eyesight has deteriorated beyond the point at which the change can be registered (OK, you could include the eyesight biomechanisms under "hardware" above)

(d) no change discerned because the observing conditions set an upper limit on the quality of the image (though obviously this could be varied with changes in location and time, so can be excluded)

(e) no change discerned, because the experience/"brain training" of the observer is insufficient to detect the (possibly subtle) change

and obviously if some change is detected, it might still be the case that its degree varies with observer experience and acuity.

Since most of my learning about observing has happened since the onset of COVID, and hence has happened either virtually (from these hallowed pages) or by solo experience, then I've not had the chance to, for example, swap in my observing neighbour's Delos into my budget scope and see if I can notice any difference.

So at the moment I'm unsure of the point at which improvements to equipment become undetectable to me, because of my less-than-perfect eyesight. I might already have reached it, or it might be some way off. When I took part in the that last light pollution survey ("how many stars can you see in Orion?") I got to about a dozen, while the six-year-old girl down the road claimed 30!

That's a much more mature opinion than mine. Specifically I was talking about things like distortion, field of view, eye relief, astigmatism, all of those things are easily discernible if you show someone what they are in person. How would you know what kind of lens bothers you out of the box unless you have something to compare it to?

I hate talking about my personal choices on someone elses EP thread because I am just that new but I probably would have spent more money than I did on my 17mm Nagler Type 4 and got an Ethos if I had purchased the EP online instead of in the store. Understanding what I cared about saved me some $$ to spend elsewhere.

1 minute ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

To give you an idea of how bad it is here, I worked at large inner city hospital 4.5 miles west from me.  Looking up on a clear night, the sky is black with maybe 5 bright stars, the moon and planets visible. Likely as bad as NYC. Crazy as another mile further and you're in the Mersey estuary and another couple of miles, the Irish Sea.

At 5 miles east from the city centre, the sky is as described in my previous post. Drive another 10 miles out and you will either hit a town at bortle 6/7 or a pocket of semi rural land at bortle 5. I have to travel approx. 60 miles for bortle 4 rural skies. Around 100 miles for bortle 3. Any other provincial city like Manchester or Birmingham is about the same.

Not much different than your experience except imaginably that awful dead black sky extends a little further over an area like NYC.

We're all blighted wherever we live. There are members here from afar. Places like Delhi and Singapore have it bad despite large rural expanse in their countries.

I just read your last post. That is bad! ☹️ Like the very centre of my city.  I'm 18.84 bortle 7-8. You might want to give those double stars etc a try rather than DSOs. 😬

No, really, I think I'm just a ungrateful American. NYC is bad, but if you look at a LP map of the NE US you'll see it's only "western Europe-like" from the corridor from DC through Boston. If you zoom in there are plenty of places to duck out to that are similar to your Scottish-English border, I can find Bortle 3 in a 2 hour drive and Bortle 2 in a 6.

I see the end of the world, because it's the worst possible situation in my country but while that's true, and equal to your experience, you have less options to escape.

I'm certain Manhattan as a whole is way more intense than London over a larger area but outside of turning night into day your "suburban" skies are just absolutely endless.

Better data for my specific site. Even though the blended data shows me 8, this is what the 2015 data says at my address:

Womp womp. We've had a massive LED street light "upgrade" in 2016-2017 that has blanketed formerly more dim streets.. At least I get the satisfaction of knowing I wasn't crazy about my early personal observations of my night sky?

As stated, I never planned to make my back yard my DSO hut so, it's not a complete disappointment but I thought I'd be able to get some good stuff still even if it wasn't "good" by any real measure.

It'll be fun to find these things anyways even if they're really dim light pink (not in a good way) blurs. It's pretty amazing what a single bortle rating drop actually means.

18.19 SQM!

1 hour ago, vlaiv said:

Moon plays a part but also sky conditions. LP levels fluctuate during the night as people turn lights on/off and traffic changes (car headlights).

Local haze / fog even very small will amplify glow from surrounding lights as light is scattered by water molecules.

Visibility of targets will also be impacted by high altitude transparency. Dust, fire, pollution - all contribute to decline of transparency.

If you want fairly accurate assessment of current LP levels - get SQM - sky quality meter:

http://www.unihedron.com/projects/darksky/

If you have iPhone - look up app that should do the same

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dark-sky-meter/id602989060

As for high level transparency forecast, I use Copernicus service:

https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/charts/cams/aerosol-forecasts?facets=undefined&time=2021102100,3,2021102103&projection=classical_global&layer_name=composition_aod550

Zoom in on area of interest, set wanted time and look what level of transparency is expected.

Up to 0.3 is ok - other is going to start to impact things severely.

For overview of how these two fit together (atmospheric extinction and AOD) - see this article:

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-resources/transparency-and-atmospheric-extinction/

This is an incredibly helpful post. It appeared other than the sun I was in some of the best viewing conditions I've had all year but it's so hard to tell because I really only had like 10 minutes before light blue started to appear on the horizon and part of that was waking my wife up after I framed in the nebula. If I had woken up even like 30 minutes earlier I'd only be half as depressed about my constant clouds.

I will be using these tools, the data will be invaluable for understanding.

38 minutes ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

Poor weather along with light pollution is, I agree, incredibly frustrating however there's not much we can do about the former and the latter can be countered a little depending on one's circumstance i.e. blocking local light sources with barriers, using observing hoods or just giving in to reality knowing we must travel out of the city.

I live in New York's twin city of Liverpool, England and gave up my 8" dobs, favouring a small refractor. For the simple reason DSO viewing is pitiful from my yard. Now from home I concentrate on lunar, planetary, double stars and some open clusters. Occasionally if the night is really clear I'll try some of the bright DSOs. Mostly I look forward to camping in rural areas with binoculars, a small Mak or at dedicated star camps, the refractor. Star camps I'll always try and steal a view through a dob though. 😁

The winter astronomy season has only just begun so don't give up. Hopefully you will enjoy some decent views as the temperature cools and the skies darken a little more.

 

I feel like 95% of the UK is like right outside of NYC and when I complain here about Bortle 8 skies I'm complaining about your status quo. We still have a staggering amount of dark geography (yes it's getting worse) in the US so my frame of reference to complaining to peers is way off lol.

It is pretty disheartening though to click on this post about where I live and seeing the busiest NYC airport. I depressingly feel like I'm answering a lot of my own questions being hit with the obvious, visually.

The reason it's a truss and not a tube dob is I always intended this to be a piece I travel with. If I were going to stick to planets and lunar I'd probably have wound up with an 8" tube instead of a 12" truss. Definitely not giving up, I'm an emotional beast and fully aware of that fact. If I had this cloudy spell without a new scope I'd care about 300% less

2 minutes ago, Stu1smartcookie said:

Yep a little bit more than i am willing to pay , but ,of course quality costs ... not sure my older eyes can discern minute details that lend themselves to top of the range EP's though .

 

You can, you just don't know you can. It's almost like coffee tasting, you really need to taste them side by side to understand when you're new. If you had a cheap Plossl and a nice say TV Ethos and someone pointing out what you're seeing and why you'd definitely at least see the difference and can discern if it matters to you. I'm a super newb and any authority I speak from only comes from recent past 6-12 month personal experience.

At least for me it's a very personal opinion. I don't mind having a cheap 1.25" 40mm Plossl on my scope and have a much nicer 17mm and 26mm with quality barlow because that's where I spend my time really observing. I'll get a nicer, wider EP some day off in the future (after a 13mm, though!). Someone else might really want that Nagler 31mm on the same scope because they value a more wider view for what they're doing.

6 minutes ago, wulfrun said:

You might want to ask a mod to move this, since you've put it in eyepiece discussions area...

Just now, Cornelius Varley said:

Moved

Whoops, thanks.

7 minutes ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

The area could be brighter now... However even under light polluted skies a 12" reflector should reveal great detail in Orion and at least the core of Andromeda. I suggest the moon light and brightening morning skies are coming into play. Try again with the moon gone and both objects higher in the sky. 

Thanks, it's been uber frustrating with cloud cover. I chuckled for the first 2 weeks after I got a new scope because of course that's what happens but we're over a month now and still all I've been able to get in were those few short minutes in the morning. Everything else has been looking at Jupiter, Saturn and the moon through aggressive mostly cloudy weather. I sprang out of bed and would have broken a lens if it wasn't encased moving so fast (literally broke the plastic case, fell on concrete off the dob base) to set it up to catch a glimpse before the sun came up.

If I didn't already spend all summer observing through a much smaller scope I swear I would have cursed at the sky and gave up and said screw it already. I feel like I live on Venus.

If I were in the OP shoes I'd wind up with a dob for sure, but that's me. Given his other list of wants in AP, not serious per say but still wanting to dabble, is there any reason no one has suggest liked a used 6" SCT on a stock GoTo mount like a Celestron? I bet if he was patient he could find one around his price range. Am I completely off base?

This is from Dark Site finder, without giving up my exact location, I'm about a half mile into the Bortle 8 area which is the dark grey:

And here's the wiki description of Bortle areas:

So my question is how often is the data updated? Could my area be brighter now? I only ask because the Orion Nebula is a faint smudge, no definition at all and smaller than it should be and I've yet to even get Andromeda in my skies. My scope is a 12" Lightbridge. The only time I've caught Orion (omg skies have been real bad) was when the moon was 40% but it was already cleared out of the night sky and the time was about 1.5 hours before sunrise so it's possible it wasn't exactly ideal.

I always feel like I'm lying when I say I'm Bortle 8, I'm 1.5 blocks from a somewhat major 4 lane artery, could that be the discrepancy?

For literally the past month here in NY there were 2 clear nights and I spent both of them sick. Oh and of course I got a new scope in that time.

Makes me want to move to a desert in AZ or Utah or something.

Feel your pain. Also the cloud forecast has been accurate like 30% of the time.

This is a tough one to gauge. Am I truly making a mistake chasing aperture with a reflector?

The truth is she's both a hiker and a waiting to be born amateur astronomer. She would 100% travel to the middle of PA to look at the sky through a telescope and that kind of person I think would benefit from the biggest reflector on a dob they'd be willing to "easily" travel with. But yeah she also doesn't stick to the parking lot either and would totally benefit from something more portable after a short hike.

Binoculars are a really great idea tbh because you can't go wrong. A telescope is so personal in terms of knowing what you'll go through to set it up and use it but a good set of binoculars there's almost no chance she doesn't really appreciate it and use it in all circumstances, even if she winds up having a 20" dob some day.

It took me a long time to get into astronomy but my sister has been dragging her son to "dark sites" in the deep wilderness for years to look at the sky with her naked eye. She doesn't even own a pair of binoculars! She's a high school science teacher who checks out "astronomy photo of the day" kind of things and passionately tries to get me to view them so of course as I'm seeing what you can see with a 4" reflector and now my 12" reflector and I'm like, "it's not fair that I'm getting to love and enjoy this and my sister has barely ever looked through a scope in her life." Anyways, I convinced some of the fam to go in with me on a scope for her for Christmas but I want to order now because of stocking reasons. I loaned her my 4" to make sure it was something she'd enjoy and of course she texts me asking if she can buy it from me the first night ;).

So we breed em short in my family and she's in her 40s. As far as size, I feel like 8" isn't too big to get around from an "I'm a small person" standpoint and is going to comfortably fit in whatever vehicle. I could be convinced about a 10" but, money and you can only buy someone else unannounced furniture so large no matter how well you know them and they'll appreciate it... Also when I say wilderness I mean wilderness so lugging around the 8" I think will be appreciatively easier from car to wherever. She's a solid Bortle 9 living within the borders of NYC, even worse than my Bortle 8 so car travel is key.

I was thinking of the AD8 because it just comes with everything she needs to start; collimation, fan, dual speed focuser, barlow, I feel like it covers it all.

What's a scope you'd buy for your sister in this situation? Any reason I'm going the wrong route?

I'll echo some of these other posts on magnification. Jupiter as the reference, I chill at around 180x mag in a place with consistently poor seeing. I like using this view calculator.

Some things to learn about while you're playing with the stock eyepieces is exit pupil, field of view and how fast your scope is vs. the quality of glass.

Good choice btw, I stuck with a 4" dob with stock pieces for months and months before I leapt for a better scope/EP setup. I'd have made all kinds of errors otherwise, especially surrounding EPs and especially surrounding magnification so you're on the right trail.

Grats on the scope!

3 minutes ago, johninderby said:

Never found it a problem with my old OO 14” dob. I did however have OO fit the Baader Steeltrack that I supplied instead of the stock focuser. Also chose a different tube colour..

It's good I got married young because I don't understand how a woman doesn't look at that and want to sleep with the man who owns it. Anyone can walk into a showroom and buy a Porsche, but a huge dob setup like that? That takes class.

This is the pic you lead with on Tindr, right?

I kind of approached "wanting to stay married" a bit differently. A single purchase that lasts forever is way less stressful I feel than trying to convince my wife to always let me barter and trade always spending in the process over the longer term. I'm currently sporting a 12" Lightbridge (1524mm, 305mm, F5) so my personal choices are going to be very personal and different than yours and also my seeing conditions. I wound up springing for a TeleVue 17mm Type 4 Nagler which in non-yank monies is probably way over your budget and a PowerMate 2x to go with it. I can keep everything 2" and zoom in as far as I'd ever want to with my seeing conditions and never feel wanting for better glass. (just more!)

If I had gone out and spent hundreds on a bunch of used Meade QX 4000 series or something based on what others have to say I knew I'd be pretty unhappy with them relatively quickly and then trying to go the next step, then the next step, it's just a never ending symphony that winds up costing (me at least) a lot more money in every hobby I ever get into.

Took a lot of trying to bargain-hobby salt water aquariums, drones, etc. for me to understand investing in the right things that hold their value and that you won't want to swap is probably the way to go. For me that brought me to the cheapest 12" dob I could find while buying what I consider to be top quality glass that can cover 2 different mags on a quality barlow.

If you're at all like me, I'd consider springing for whatever piece you know you'll keep the longest. (hopefully it doesn't wind up as much as mine!!! lol)

That's the first sketch ever of M17 by Herschel. Seeing as he had a pencil and paper I think he'd look at your image and be pretty astounded, call it cutting edge and be flabbergasted by the idea that you think your gear is no good

Dude had a 48" telescope and you just did this on something that is a fraction of that size using a technique that had probably only been done a few times (keeping the shutter open) ever. Oh and you're tracking the sky mechanically. Pretty certain if Herschel came back today he'd be happy to hang with you and your scope heh.

We've come a long way. Nice work.

I'm less worried about EPs than mirrors. Every time I look at a project to get started on some time in the future every mirror place is like, "18 months minimum for your place in line"

2 minutes ago, Dave scutt said:

I had no problem with the dob being ballanced if the handles aren't to loose a good idea is too put some foam in between the tube and box . A good trolley and ramp would help moving in and out where stored 

Sorry to potentially derail but I gotta ask about your wheels. Is that a manufactured thing or did you fabricate it? If the former, got a link and how do you like it?

I just picked up a used Lightbridge 12" and I find myself repeatedly saying, "This is the smallest dob I'd ever have as a truss." I drive a Chevy Bolt (Opel Ampera in your parts) and a Hyundai Kona, both small bordering on tiny cars (for an American, anyways). I think a 10" tube would probably fit in my car just fine with the seat belt securing it good. The weight obviously matters but for me, I'm finding breaking down the structure to move 5 feet because I have 5 degrees of exposure of my target in between trees really subtracts from the usability, so much so that I'll be tinkering some kind of chassis and wheel system for it. If I had a 10" tube dob I'm confident I'd be able to avoid that without too many back issues.

All of this being said after the longest war of attrition with the clouds ever in the history of earth I finally saw the Orion Nebula this AM at around 6 right before the sun poked out of the horizon and it was still a really really faint affair in my Bortle 8 sky so I'm in the end very happy to have the bigger scope.

All of the above being considered, I'm happy with a large truss dob, personally and would probably still be happy from a size standpoint with a 14-16"

Hate to butt in here but blow dryers are ok on low heat, right? It's a thing I find myself doing as an impatient person.

2 hours ago, PeterW said:

Looks more telescope solutions than camera concepts…. Looks like a great store, we’ve lost many physical astro shops in the U.K 😞

Peter

One of 2 in a very long geographical area comprising half the amount people you have in your entire country so it's not like we're swimming in them here either. They really are gems since the store clerks and staff appear to all be either PhD holders or students from the university right there. I'm sure the store gets a lot of business from them too explaining how they still exist as it's fairly large with 30k students and an astronomy department. It's 40 miles away so not exactly like running down to the local gas (that's petrol, geez you'd think you people would speak the language) station.

Any picture of a nebula that makes me wish I could smell in space is a good one

Finally it'll maybe get launched in the earliest, December, you mean

By far the most important thing ESA has ever launched. The Arianne 5 is a fine rocket that's pulled a lot of work and it'll finally get its due in popular culture by putting up the tool that might detect life on other planets.

3 minutes ago, lainev said:

I do have a 1.5 deg latitude advantage and a 600' elevation advantage over you.

I mean, that and you probably also don't have the concrete of one of the most densely populated and largest cities emanating heat into your night sky

That was the biggest surprise to me, I knew light pollution would be crap but I thought being only a mile or so from the shore would free up my southern sky seeing but, nope! Turns out a mile of concrete is all you need for constant wavies every single dang night no matter what. A local guy said I might get one good night a year, I guess that would have to be like a 70 degree day giving up to a 70 degree night with low humidity (but NY is high humidity in fall/spring, over 80%)

I complain (a lot) but really it just make home planet/lunar viewing time and I plan to travel with my new (used) 12" dob as there's a Bortle 2 site in PA that's extremely well known that's only 6 hours away. I'm equally as shocked at how well Jupiter looks in my conditions as I am at the unexpected heat pollution.

I wish that was my "average" seeing

Nice work.