badhex

Great report Paul, excellent list of targets. Glad you're back in the game!

Thanks Paul, great to hear someone using the same wedge and great pictures. What sort of magnification are you using for those? And what difference do you generally find with the UHC vs Oiii?

Thanks David. I had heard that the Solar Continuum filter was primarily aimed at achros more than ED / APOs so I'm not totally clear on how much benefit it would bring me over one of the other filters I already have. I had a quick session earlier today but more experimentation is needed I think.

Hello all, I'm reasonably inexperienced with solar observing, I have previously used the premade baader solar film front filter for my ZS73. I have now purchased a 2" APM Herschel wedge for use primarily with my TS102 F7 ED doublet, so looking for some tips and tricks to get the best out it. I'm fairly comfortable with general safety measures (keeping things capped, removing finders etc.) and esp. regarding the front filters like BSSF but aware that this is a different beast so I'm being extra careful. I've had a quick go with it already after familiarising myself with operation etc. and so far it's very impressive! It comes with an ND3 and adjustable polarising filter preinstalled so I do have the basics in place already. One thing that I found (and I've previously found this with Baader solar film too) is that I still find the views quite bright even with the polarising filter dialled in to the highest setting and after a while observing I get eye fatigue. I understand that additional filters may help with that as well as potentially helping bring out more detail? I can't really purchase anything else at the moment so the Baader Continuu filter is off the table for now, but I do have an ND4 which helps a bit, plus UHC, Oiii and CLS filters and have read sporadic reports of these being used. Will have a play around but any tips on that would be great. Next is magnification; I have read that one might sensibly halve expected maximum magnification, so 25x per inch or basically the same as your aperture in mm. Is this a sensible expectation? Are there any rules of thumb or tips to improve views that differ from night-time astronomy? Any other tips also gratefully received!

Finally gave in a bought a Herschel wedge. APM 2" - from what I can tell they are manufactured by Lunt. Very impressed with my first look! Took a cheeky snap with my phone through the EP.

A plethora of stuff! APM 2" Herschel wedge, Oklop padded bag for "small telescopes"(it's actually massive and a real bargain for 60eur) and an enormous tarp garden refuse sack as an ad hoc scope cover in case of rain whilst I'm at an astro event this Saturday. Believe it or not there's an EQ6 tripod, skytee and 4" doublet under there!

Er, perhaps what I said before about refurbing your AZ-GTi is irrelevant as I just realised you mentioned a possible new scope and 7kg load - unless I'm confused and mean you're already putting 7kg on your AZ-GTi? Either way, I have my TS102 F7 ED on the zero which is something like 5.5+kg. It's probably the perfect weight for the mount, but I personally wouldn't want to put too much more on it unless it's a short tube, in which case it might be better.

So, having read about a lot of your woes I totally understand why this might not be your first choice, but have you considered either getting your AZ-GTi serviced (if there is a dealer who can do it) or following some of the guides and essentially giving it a bit of a fettle (or both)? A lot of the basic tweaks to fix or improve known/ common issues are reasonably straightforward from what I've seen, and best of all will not cost you much apart from perhaps a few supplies. After all, if your AZ-GTi is indeed giving up the ghost you have little to lose except a bit of time. Might be worth a go?

Indeed. I don't have the agena astro astronomy threads page bookmarked for no reason - but one can dream!

One potential solution would be for EP manufacturers to provide a removable eyecup and adopt a thread standard like M43 for medium and large sized EPs, and a smaller one for smaller EPs. It might not fit every use case but it would certainly help.

Just realised I have a new setup to show - haven't had it under the stars yet but hopefully at the weekend.

This is in the post and on its way to me... I blame you @Stu 😂

Excellent report @bosun21! So pleased you're enjoying it 😊 It's a fantastic scope as everyone has said, I too have been enjoying my recent observing time with this scope on our friendly gas giants!

Thanks Peter, Steve. I have a few BSTs and some other 'B-team' EPs, night make sense for me to take those then!

Another baader extension ring and eyecup, this time for the APM 24mm UFF

Finally got the last eyecup/extension I needed for the APM 24mm UFF:

With a combination of the nearly full moon plus Berlin skies, I suspect there won't be any issue with seeing in the "dark" 😅 but I will be taking my red light torch plus Celestron LiFePO4 which has a red floodlight just in case.

Thanks Victor, I think that the majority of people there should be pretty well behaved. Germans generally are in this kind of situation from my experience, especially the likely demographic, and the event is at the old Tempelhof Airport so its unlikely folks will just be stumbling in off the street so to speak. One concern was that whilst I obviously love the Gitzo/Zero setup, I feel like the Skytee might be better for none-astronomers due to being much studier; if someone grabs on to the part of the mount or scope, or misjudges how much pressure to put on the EP when viewing, the Skytee won't drift off target. I'm also a bit nervous about having to explain things in my rudimentary German - I might get a little badge or sign to say English is better. Of course, I could just be overthinking all of this, as I could have misinterpreted the vague instructions from the organisation team and maybe I don't have a spot there at all!

Did yours come with the winged version attached already? Both my Morpheus' came with the standard eyecup attached to the metal collar, with the winged version just as the rubber part.

Agreed! Maybe I'll use my best Deutsch and send them an email 🙂

Quick update on the ER experiments, I managed to test both EPs under the stars, and the spacing is perfect on both the Morpheus 4.5mm and the Superzoom. Makes a huge difference to comfort when using the EPs!

Quick update - I managed another hour last night on the same targets and under somewhat better conditions than the other day. The EP optically continues to amaze, and the added M43 extension and Baader eyecup has made eye positioning now perfect, so it was overall an even better experience! I also did a bit of panning around to check for AMD but again I didn't find it disturbing.

Nice setups both, thanks. Did you tend to find people were generally well behaved? I'd imagine that a good portion of people going to this event will be interested to some extent in astronomy anyway. My partner who is not an astronomer will be going and we decided that if I need to step away, she will keep an eye on things but we'll temporarily cap the scopes just to avoid any issues. As I understand it the area will have other people with scopes there too but I probably won't know them. There are a couple of people I know involved but they are part of the official planetarium/observatory group who are running the event.

No clue on attendees nor discipline! If I did have the dual setup it's likely I wouldn't have both set up during the day, but the single mount setup would certainly be easier to transport.

Cheers Stu. Not a bad idea. I just spent some time trying to align it all a bit better and tweak the backlash, it's a lot better now. I'm certainly leaning this way. I've also got a finder which could theoretically go on the top mount and allow me to keep things centred as well, so as you say the Skytee gives lots of options. Plus it looks cool! Also don't tempt me with the Herschel, I have been thinking about one for a while!