balticsensor

TEST 1 Late February. Snows have been melting for several days. Heavy humidity and poor transparency. Seeing poor. Light pollution (population 500 000). Nearly full Moon. Nevertheless, I couldn't resist trying my new kit. So I aimed at M42. First, the diagonal tests. Sky-Watcher 2" stock against Baader 2" BBHS Sitall mirror. Under these conditions, I did not perceive any gain in limiting visual magnitude. However, there was an obvious difference in star appearance. To me it was significant. I cannot say whether it's astigmatism or scattering, but I made a rough recreation in Photoshop of HIP 26199. The Baader made a cleaner split and clearly showed better color. Additionally, I think there was a distinct improvement in contrast, but it's hard to say due to the conditions and switchover time. Secondly, I tried the Morpheus eyepieces. They are very comfortable to view through, even compared to a decent eyepiece like the 2" William Optics 40mm SWAN. In my mind I just kept saying to myself "you lean in, and it's just there, you lean in, and it's just there". No effort whatsoever. Also, it did not feel like I was changing magnification in a way. With Plössl and orthoscopic eyepieces, there was a real sense of effort when switching to higher magnification, mostly due to the shrinking eye lens and eye relief. With the Morpheus eyepieces the switch is traceless. It's a feeling like there is no eyepiece change, but only the telescope itself is changing the image scale. It's a strange new experience to me. Also, these eyepieces are truly fully sharp right to the edge on my telescope. Well, there is a very slight image degradation near the very last 3-5% of the image circle. But it's minor. In star-hopping or in scanning the sky there was always the problem for me of stars appearing to be nebulous objects in my peripheral vision, only to appear to be nothing but normal stars when I slewed my telescope on-axis. That's frustrating. No more of that with the Morpheus, and I'm glad.

I went for it. After falling in love with my William Optics 40mm 70° eyepiece, I decided that I wanted two more complimentary widefield eyepieces. I went for the 17.5 mm and 9 mm Baader Morpheus eyepieces. And the best diagonal I could find to go with them - the Baader BBHS Sitall mirror diagonal. Now it's all cloudy in my location (of course), but I will share my impressions about this beautiful kit as soon as I get some clear skies!

Thanks! I guess I wasted a lot of breath. You know how the excitement goes...

Amazing post! Thank You very much for the effort! I was planning to buy the Skymax 180 as my 2nd scope and compliment to my Evostar 120 achromat - lots of accessories that I could carry over from the refractor to the Maksutov - but now I just don't know. The primary thing that bothers me is the diameter of the secondary spot, 37mm. I was planning to use my 2" William Optics 40mm 72° eyepiece for the widest field, however, it's field stop is 46mm; I'm afraid it's going to vignette severely. That leaves me with my 32mm Televue Plossl; but I'm afraid that just won't cut it - 36' TFOV is nowhere near 64'. I was hoping to get those widefield sharp to the edge star images in my 40mm, but now that's compromised. But the aperture (and image quality) fever remains. What now?.. I want to keep my 120mm achromat for the wide fields. But also, I want to crack those small DSOs and planets with bigger high-quality aperture. I can almost see myself getting a C8, but having tried the views of it, I was really underwhelmed with the edge performance (and the contrast, somewhat). Speaking of which, would the C8 also vignette my 40mm 72° eyepiece?.. A large Dobsonian, for me, means two things: (1) rare usage due to bulk, 5th floor dwelling and local atmosphere; (2) granted, it's bigger, and yet it's another optically compromised design much like the achromat. For my second scope, I want the best image possible for the given aperture.. Doesn't have to be massive, like I said, due to climate conditions and lifestyle. Like observing on the 1st night with the achromat, and on the 2nd night to cherry-pick the most attractive targets with my bigger scope with the best possible image quality and contrast. Anyway, sorry for polluting this specialized topic with beginner-grade questions. The bottom line for me is this: would the Skymax 180 vignette my William Optics 40mm SWAN? If so, what would you recommend I buy to satisfy the "crack those small DSOs and planets with bigger high-quality aperture" and "rare usage due to bulk, 5th floor dwelling and local atmosphere" criterions? The C8 on EQ-5?..