badhex

Spent last week in the Brandenburg forest and spent my time hunting out mostly clusters and the odd PN. Still haven't had chance to do a full write up but in the meantime, a list of targets observed over the course of the week - not a bad haul! M5 M10 M13 M14 M15 M27 M29 M39 M52 M56 M57 M71 M92 M103 NGC 659 NGC 663 NGC 869 / 884 Double cluster NGC 6910 NGC 6934 NGC 7160 NGC 7142 IC 4665 Caldwell 19 Alpha vulpecula Coathanger

Hi Ags, I actually could have sent you one for the postage costs as we're both on the mainland. I got one with my C5 but I'm not really a fan.

Thanks Steve. This makes total sense from a socioeconomic point of view. As I only had best guesses to work from, I didn't want to make a statement I couldn't back up and was struggling to find a succinct way to put it, but this is in a roundabout way what I meant by 'less well respected'. To be clear, this is not an opinion I hold, but reading elsewhere on the internet it seems that there is not so much love for Chinese manufactured optics and glass, which I think is a bit unfair given what we've seen with previous SW products for example.

Steve, there's a good run down of the features etc. in the SW webcast when it was released. It is a video by SW themselves and therefore obviously biased, so of course take it with a pinch of salt, but very informative nonetheless.

Obviously @bomberbaz needs to buy both scopes and do a side-by-side comparison to answer this burning question. See? I *am* a bad influence 😂

I also have an Evostar 80 (FPL53) and I would say the ZS73 (also FPL53) is a markedly better scope for a few reasons, including the quality of the views through the scope. One thing worth remembering - which I know we all know - is that FPL53 in and of itself doesn't necessarily mean the optics won't have other issues that make the views less than stellar. There have been absolutely tonnes of posts both here and CN debating why SW no longer talk about glass types, and their main point is that the designs are essentially their IP and give them the competitive edge which allows them to achieve high quality at reasonable costs to the consumer - a point which I think is fair. My best guess would be that they are using an equivalent - if not better - glass from a different, less well respected glass manufacturer and matching optical designs so they aren't paying Ohara FPL53 prices. They state that the EvoLux series sits above the Evostar in terms of performance, and although I don't need a new scope right now, I'm prepared to take them at their word unless reviews and feedback proves otherwise. I think, at the end of the day, whilst I too am a sucker for glass type keywords like FPL53 and Lanthanum, fluorite etc, the main thing is how does it perform? Can we say that side by side we'd be able to tell the difference between FPL53 and SW's new glass types/optical designs? When will FPL53's iron grip on our wallets end? 😂

I was shocked John tbh. Like, your brain is saying "this is silly, the views will obviously be terrible" but you try it anyway and it's not?

BTW, back on topic - I also have the ZS73 so I can personally vouch for the optical and build quality of WO's small scopes, assuming that the same thing applies to the ZS61 from what I have read. That said, despite the unknown glass factor and untested track record, so far very little bad is being said about the SW by those who have taken the plunge. Every new product line starts without any track record, and a few brave souls have to be the first to venture into the unknown. Even TeleVue EPs and Taks were once new and unknown! Feel free to ignore me anyway, I'm a bad influence as @johninderby might tell you 😂

I have only done it once, but I had the same 102mm as yours up to 397x on the moon, just for giggles really. Turned out to be actually incredibly sharp - and I mean actually sharp not just okay ish - with maybe just a tiny hint of FC. I suspect it was a serendipitous confluence of things but I even managed to take a handheld phone photo, although it's nowhere near as good as the actual view.

I can highly recommend the Scopetech. It's certainly not the cheapest option and took me a bit of getting used to, getting the balance and clutch tensions right, but now I don't even think about it. It has certainly had another big part to play in making sessions more enjoyable for me.

Very nice. I'm quite surprised at the difference between the Gitzo and my other small CF tripod, which is fine for travelling when I need a compact setup but not as a main tripod. The Gitzo only weighs in at about 2.5kg and I can't see me using any other tripod any time soon!

A question: what's the specific use case for which you are designing the list? I would say that the weighting and therefore output you need would depend on that use case. If it's for humans to use, say to find stuff, it might be hard to factor in the human element - in that we recognise some asterisms more readily either because our brains a hard wired to recognise certain patterns more readily than others, or that we've been seeing/recognising certain bits of those asterism for a very long (pointed out to us as children say), or bits of are just quite bright and recognisable. As mentioned above sky brightness may also rearrange the list probably due to main asterism stars disappearing under bright skies, or conversely getting lost in a sea of other bright stars under dark skies. So for example, if the use case of the algorithm is to output a list of the most 20 recognisable for a new book project of some sort e.g. helping people find their way around or star hop, Lyra would in my mind be pretty essential because it's very readily recognisable even thought it is tiny and only has one really bright star. Ursa Major is also obviously very easily recognisable just due to the Plough part, even if the rest of the stars aren't so easily known. Often Aquila appears to me as just two stars until I squint a bit. Delphinus doesn't even get a look in! You could add maybe two more elements to the algorithm to account for this. One would be a modifier that represents the sky brightness, meaning that lots of medium brightness stars in a given constellation score less well than one or two bright ones (e.g. Delphinus vs Lyra). It sounds like you have something already like this but the threshold is fixed rather than variable. The second is much less sciencey and maybe less important - a score that you would have to manually assign to each constellation in your source data, and would represent a "human" factor. This further weights constellations that are incredibly well known, or that contain shapes we as humans recognise. Cygnus as a cross, Cassiopeia as a W (although this would only apply to western alphabet users, I guess), Orion and Hercules as (sort of) humans etc. Obviously this score is very subjective so more difficult to come up with a score for, and may require some sort of survey of humans to gather the data. If this is just for fun btw, feel free to ignore everything I have just said 😂

There's something about it right? I have an ever smaller lighter cf tripod which I sometimes use with the AZT6 and a celestron 70mm travelscope with great optics, and there's something counter intuitively pleasing about the whole thing, like "how much performance can I squeeze from this super basic lightweight setup".

This is the setup I've used for the last week: It's been really helpful with various trees obstructing parts of the sky to just pick the whole thing up with one hand and move to somewhere more favourable, no realigning the mount or levelling the tripod needed. Truly joyous. @Second Time Around IIRC you're using a similar setup with a ~70mm, possibly with a Berlebach instead of the Gitzo?

Thanks @Stu! If I said your setup hadn't influenced my choices somewhat I'd be lying 😅

Just a quick follow up to this a couple of months down the line. In short, I 100% made the correct choice - the Gitzo has been outstanding. Ridiculously sturdy, obviously super light, basically ticking all the boxes (except the insane cost 😂) I've ended up pairing it mostly with the Scopetech mount zero and either the TS102 or ZS73, and the portability and ease of use of that overall setup has meant so many more observing opportunities. Last week I was out 6 nights! Admittedly there are some other factors making that possible but nonetheless - the Gitzo has been a huge contributor. Very happy!

Finally got a chance to test out the 18mm in my ZS73 under darkish skies. Actually a great eyepiece! Very sharp, eye relief not too bad, and the coatings stood up pretty well for their age (light scatter etc.). Obviously when compared with say the Morpheus of the same focal length, the Morph wins on almost every front, but it's a good 0.965" EP and should complement my CF scope nicely.

My concern is also the bulk vs. range of mags. If it were, say, more like 8-24 that would be a lot more inviting. Having max FOV in 1.25 and being able to zoom down to 8mm, then only needing maybe one high power EP would make this great for a compact setup. Still, the constant FOV is a great achievement and I'm very interested in how it performs in the real world.

We're all waiting with bated breath for your first light report 🙂

Thanks David, I will do. I have dealt with the TS a lot as I'm in Germany so I have fewer supplier options available to me than the UK. I've also had (I think) two occasions where things were not right for one reason or another and both have been corrected satisfactorily. On one of those times I actually had my rather expensive purchase damaged slightly (only a bent thumbscrew) in transit, which was immediately replaced, and then received the original one back by accident with some internal correspondence attached which was... interesting. However, the issue was fully resolved, and I received a small gift voucher for the trouble, so I have no complaints. Hopefully this will also be resolved quickly and satisfactorily as well as with other times.

Double (multiple) stars are quite addictive! I didn't really know many apart from a handful of well known ones like Albireo, the double double etc. but started to get more into it last year, so the book came at just the right time for me! I'm still very limited in my knowledge but it turns out they are just as varied and satisfying as any other target.

The little Mak will be great for the moon and planets when they are around, as well as double stars. You also have a nice opportunity to kill two birds with one stone so to speak; double stars will be one thing that won't suffer so much in London LP with your existing dob, so it's worth spending a bit of time investigating them. I would highly recommend the book "Discovering Double Stars" by another SGL member @Ags - a really great, practice book helping you both learn and observe.

Thanks! The small Maplin ones I have are no longer available I think (although I'm not in the UK so not sure)

Late to the party here but where did you get the new small case in the end?

Nice. More temptation for me to buy a wedge! 🙂