Ags

Welcome back!

Looks like a psychedelic Westie to me 😀

Thanks, it's nice to get feedback.

My Zenithstar 66 lives fully assembled on its tripod ready to go. My favorite eyepiece lives in the focuser.

Well, I managed to pick up two NLVs second-hand - 9mm and 12mm, so my case is filling up!

I see your point. But unrealistic expectations have been set since forever. Hubble is the worst offender, and the packaging on any "beginner" telescope. I think amateurs doing any outreach with whatever equipment typically take care to explain what they are showing, at least if the group is a manageable size. But I've been at outreach events where the public just queued up for a quick look at Saturn, very little chance for interaction. Maybe those people went away from my telescope thinking the sky is full of planets permanently at opposition?

I had the 6 and 9mm in the TS HR Planetary incarnation. Lovely eyepieces - comfortable, easy to use and relaxing. I was using them in a Maksutov, which is easy on eyepieces. I wonder how they would hold up in a more demanding scope?

Night vision does sound amazing. When I see the anti NV sentiments, it makes me think of the old goto debates... goto was cheating etc etc. Maybe all new technologies face similar resistance. My only objection to NV is the cost. Show me a good NV setup costing a couple of hundred euros and you can count me in 😀

I am just practicing for the night when there's a power cut and the night will turn from murky orange to sparkling black... one day it will happen. 😀 It happened once when I lived in Wales, and I had an astrophoto-quality binocular view of M31.

I had a look around Aries tonight, a constellation I have never explored. I could make out Hamal and Sheratan, so I looked at some nearby doubles with the help of my book, Discovering Double Stars. I may be biased but I find it very helpful! Lambda Ari is an ok double 2 degrees west of Hamal. It's a bit wide for my liking. I didn't see the yellow of the primary, but the secondary is quite blue. 1 Ari is just short of 2 degrees north west of Sheratan. At less than 3" of separation, it was just split at 78x. Gamma Ari was last and best. A pair of perfectly equal brilliant white stars with just the right separation. A double I will come back to. Swapped eyepieces in the ZS66 to my ES 20mm 68° for some widefield views. Did an obligatory sweep for M33. Nothing. Up to M31 - lovely view in context with many stars. Over to the Pleiades. For the first time ever, it actually looks beautiful in the eyepiece. Most star cluster sparkle and twinkle, but the Pleiades have just previously looked like a bunch of bright dots. I had hoped combining this eyepiece and telescope would produce a beautiful view, and it did!

Thanks for the reminder! I will check purchase date if I find any on the used market. But I suspect I will have to buy new, SLVs don't often come up for sale.

I've never heard a bad thing said about the SLVs. If you can live with the retro field, they are ideal.

Well, I have decided on a "final" collection of eyepieces, and I have placed the necessary advert in the Wanted section. First a series of 6 widefield eyepieces: - ES 68° 20mm - Speers WALER 80° 13.4mm - Speers WALER 82° 10mm - ES 82° 6.7mm - Speers WALER 82° 4.9mm - Nirvana 82° 4mm Of these I only need to acquire the Nirvana 4mm. I was considering an APM UFF 24mm as well, but with local light pollution I would only be able to use that eyepiece on rare trips to darker skies. To that I am adding a set of nostalgic Plossl-likes, all Vixen: - NPL 30mm - NPL 20mm - SLV 12mm - SLV 9mm - SLV 6mm - SLV 2.5mm When I started this thread I had hardened my heart against the three I already have (NPL 30 & 20, SLV 6) on the grounds of their restrictive field of view, but one magical chance session later and I have turned on a pin and now I am on an SLV buying spree! My logical Spock half tells me that the widefields offer the best framing and darkest sky backgrounds, but the Plossls take my human half back 40 years in an instant.

@John you must have a good viewing spot - your targets are all over the sky. I have a patch to the east, the zenith and another patch to the south east. Targets seem to fly by!

@Peter Drew on the bright side, the water cycle is literally the best thing about this rock we live on 😀

I just look out the window.

Definitely do a star test. The mak should give views comparable to the Newt, although I expect the Newt would edge it.

Still thinking about this. The larger sensor of the ASI485MC would certainly be useful for EEA, although I am not sure how good a color camera is for EEA in general. I suppose the real answer is I will buy the mirrorless camera and the 485MC eventually. I wish there was information about the amp glow on the 485MC - there is no information on the from ZWO.

Just had a charming session with my SLV 6mm. The narrow field reminded me of being a kid with a toy scope, although this time I can find targets, there isn't any CA, the mount is less wobbly, and the eyepiece isn't an SR4. Maybe I will remove the SLV 6 from the Sell List and buy a few more... Also the eye relief is pretty good with the SLVs and keeping my glasses on does sharpen things up a bit.

I do like to share what I see, but often feel my little sessions are not worthy of an Observing Report. I thought it would be nice if there was a running thread for people to share brief notes about what they have seen, so I am attempting to start one. Please share what you have (or have not) seen! Tonight I had a short session to get to the bottom of my Speers WALER 4.9mm eyepiece. I don't trust it... Why isn't it sharp? Pointing my Zenithstar 66 at Almach revealed the problem - instead of points of light, the stars were smeared into little spectrums. Changing to Capella confirmed it - I guess one of the retaining rings is loose (which happens all the time to Speers WALERs) and a lens is misaligned. Hopefully I can fix it. I changed to a Vixen SLV for some actual looking at the sky. I forget how charming and nostalgic a 50 degree eyepiece can be. Instead of feeling like I am looking at the universe through an 82 degree picture window, it feels like I am looking through a Victorian telescope! Dodging the clouds, I took in a few doubles - Achird, Polaris and Almach again, the stars looking like points in the little SLV. The double cluster was also delightful, there was something charming in the way it overflowed the narrow view. Just ahead of an advancing phalanx of clouds, I got a quick peek at M31, which again looked wonderful in the narrow AFOV! EDIT: A nice thing about Speers WALERs is they disassemble like a cheap Plossl. Unscrewing the top reveals a positve lens that floats on a spacing ring. I recentered this and the views with the eyepiece are much sharper, and stars do not look like little spectrums. It's not perfect but a lot better. But I expect the lens will decenter again however careful I am.

I can confirm my Hyperions did not work well when switched my F13 Mak for an F5 Newt. The ES 82 eyepieces are better all around. I didn't find the Nirvana 16mm could remotely compete with the ES 82s, but I hear the 16mm is the weak one in the line. I had the ES 24mm 68 degrees, and it's weight does lead to balancing issues with smaller scopes, but optically it is great!

I do have some nonutilitarian ideas for filling the case. I could try and get a full set of Speers WALERs - I am missing the 7.2mm and 17mm, and it would be a nice project to try and get them all in the classic orange lettering incarnation. I also like the ES eyepieces, and maybe I can add the 4.7mm and 11mm. But this duplicates focal lengths and it's hard to justify to my Vulcan half.

ZWO also have a new camera you might consider: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi-485mc-usb-30-colour-camera.html The sensor is twice as large as the 178MC. I have my eye on this camera but I am waiting for more reviews.

The finder chart shows the FOV of a 5° finderscope centered in the target. The sketching circle on the facing page would usually be tge FOV of the main telescope. Thanks for the question, I clearly need to add an explanatory note!

The third proof copy of this book came yesterday. Finally got the right combination of ink, line widths and paper!