badhex

Hi @Virtus I wouldn't say I have extensive experience but I have used my 17.5mm a few times with a GSO 2.5x barlow and it worked pretty well, views were still pretty crisp. I would guess though, that this would depend on the quality of the barlow itself - the GSO is pretty good but not incredible, so I can imagine the experience would be even better with a TeleVue barlow, for example.

Hello @Soligor Rob I can't give you first hand experience as I've not used an X-Cel, but I'm sure someone else here can. I guess the answer would depend on your budget and most likely what scope(s) you are using them in. From what I've read about the X-Cel range they are pretty well thought of, but one or two have reported occasional minor QC issues (eyecup coming off when removing the dust cap, tiny specks of dust or black plastic inside the EP itself) but nothing major that spoils the optical performance. That said, as this is a Morpheus thread, I would hazard a guess that the general advice from here might be to plump for a Morpheus if your circumstances allow and it makes sense for your current scopes, as you are unlikely to be disappointed. Most people seem to rate the X-Cel as mid-range, great upgrades from stock EPs but that they may eventually replace; the Morpheus often seem to fall into mid-range plus rating, and probable keepers. I know I will likely never get rid of my 17.5mm. Obviously these are just my thoughts, others will almost certainly be able to give better actual advice based on their experiences!

Really glad it's working out, I'm inspired. Regarding the threads stripping, to be honest I wouldn't be surprised. I was trying to find the best way to pack mine into the travel bag but found that the AZ clutch knob was always in the way. I perhaps rather rashly unscrewed it completely to see if it could be easily removed and found that it is actually a very long thin bolt with only the last 10-15 mm threaded, and they are quite fine threads.

Another travel kit addition - fabric accessories "shelf" for the tripod. Will add a bit of stability and hopefully lower the centre of gravity too once it has some stuff in it.

Very interested to hear about the manual panning upgrade - is it for AZ axis? Is the intention just to use the mount completely unpowered in this scenario?

Quick update on this: I gave up trying to save myself the additional weight of 2" accessories as I now have a Think tank backpack which fits everything in nicely. I won't take the Panoptic 41mm in this kit, and currently have a 2" GSO 30mm Superview in 2" which will give me 14x and 4.8° TFOV but I suspect it will perform very poorly at the edge in this F6 scope, especially since I have the Panoptic to compare it to. I will wait and see how it plays out but if it doesn't work out I may be in the market for an Aero ED! @Louis DI am yet to try out the Seben 8-24mm zoom in the Celestron travelscope which is virtually the same FR and size as the 70ED. Last time I had it out in a clear night I completely forgot to take the zoom with me, and it's basically been cloudy since. I'll probably be able to test it in the actual 70ED by the time the clouds go away!

Holy moly! Whilst reading this thread for background reading on the superviews, you have solved an unrelated ten+ year old mystery for me! I inherited the same Charles Frank "Ultra-wide angle" along with my Charles Frank reflector, but never knew the actual focal length, nor AFOV - Only that it was highly inaccurately labelled

Quick update on the kit! Added a TS Optics AZT6 and carbon fibre tripod. The AZT6 fits in one of the spaces inside the main bag, and the tripod will go into hold luggage for flights or strapped to the bag for on foot.

I've had close to 5kg on it and it was fine, but you might want to counterbalance it. With the appropriate bar and weight, plus a decent tripod, I'm sure it would take more weight easily.

More bits for the travel setup; TS-Optics AZT6 manual alt-az and C255FMO carbon fibre tripod:

I have the same upgrade - soooo much better!

I do the same - I think maybe on your advice from some years ago John!

There are a number of different cases available from Maplin too if you're based in the UK https://www.maplin.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?q=flight case

Thanks @Ags @Sky-searcher Apologies, back to normal thread business!

That was actually what I was going to ask - I understood that the mount could be set up with a counterweight for heavier loads. Sounds like it works well @Sky-searcher, what brand/model counterweight are you using? Also what tripod?

Welcome to SGL Chris!

Great, thanks!

Looks great! How does the mount work out with all the weight on one side? Considering picking this mount up to add to my travel kit, I suspect the payload will be about ~3kg. Also, what tripod are you using? I'm also looking for something sturdy but that packs up to about 30-45cm.

The Moon Atlas arrived! I had been wanting to get involved with the Lunar 100 and this will be a great help!

Thanks! Yes, I lived in London for 10 years before here, and I had hoped Berlin might be less challenging, but alas. Still, we do what we can!

Haha thanks, hadn't noticed! Fixed

Hello all, I think this is the first observing report I've done, so apologies that it's not as detailed and advanced as many! When a rare cloudless evening presented itself, and although I'm normally not a fan of observing the full moon, I decided I'd like to perhaps spend some time on the so-called supermoon for a change. I also used opportunity to test a recently acquired 26mm 0.965 Swift Kellner, and as it is still cold in the evenings, my new "Heat Holder" fingerless gloves. I had a window of around an hour and a quarter between 2145 and 2300, and had already set up my Celestron Travelscope 70 + AZ-GTi to cool on the balcony earlier in the evening in anticipation. When the time came, it was a quick lift to move the scope and mount in one hand, EP case in the other, up to the shared terrace on top of my building. Only a few mins to set up and pack away shaved off either end of the session, the main reason for choosing this scope given the time allotted. The skies where I live in Berlin are a frustrating Bortle 8 which makes faint targets a challenge even with goto, but for the most part the roof is free of any major local light sources, so I make the best of it. Both seeing and transparency were good to very good for the duration. After a quick north-level alignment of the scope I planned to pick out a couple of targets from the 'Tonight's best' feature in the Synscan Pro app and spend ~45 mins on those, and the last 10-15 minutes on the eye-busting moon. Mars Mars was the last of my alignment targets, and although it is plummeting away from us, I can usually resolve the disc fairly well even at low mags in this scope. I spent a short time with the 10mm BCO at 40x but it was not overly impressive. I suspect some of the chimneys nearby may have been disturbing the air column. M13 - Great cluster in Hercules Always a favourite! Through this modest scope under these skies, M13 is little more than a tiny grey splodge at first glance but deserves time at the eyepiece to pick out more detail. Whilst The 17.5mm Morpheus only gives 23x which is quite small for M13, the LP meant I started to lose too much brightness, so I mostly stayed with this EP. The crisp view from the Morpheus certainly helps, and after a few minutes I could start to pick out some detail in the cluster. I always feel that with clusters like M13 the longer you look, the more you see. M44 Beehive cluster Open clusters like this and M45 are where this scope and the Morpheus really excel. I spent a good time picking out detail, panning a little around and looking for previously unresolved features and stars. I then switched to the cheap and cheerful - but IMO surprisingly good - 25mm Celestron Plössl that came with another scope, and got used to the view at 16x as a baseline for my next test. Switching to the 26mm 0.965 Swift Kellner I had forgotten just how narrow the actual eyepiece was! After a few minutes of trying not to poke my eye out, I settled into a workable position and was rewarded with a surprisingly crisp view at 15x across the whole FOV. The experience is a little odd; with none of the protection from peripheral vision which modern EPs offer, the image was basically floating in front of me - but despite the narrow FOV the image did fill the barrel and was by no means unpleasant. The Beehive looked as good, image wise, as it did in the Plössl, but unfortunately it was not as comfortable an experience. NGC6811 Hole in a cluster New target for me. As I don't know it, I suspect I did not know what to look for or was using the wrong magnification (the Morpheus again at 23x). I did not spend long with this target, so more research needed before another visit. Moon Finally the moon. As expected the experience was nearly blinding and I was immediately reminded why I don't like viewing the full moon. After a few minutes getting used to the sheer amount of photons hitting my eye, the whole moon fits easily into the Baader's FOV and was completely crisp across the whole field. I am constantly surprised how good this scope is for the money, and saw very little fringing - a barely perceptible fluorescent green line, with no violet on the other side. I switched up to the 10mm to study a little of the moons edges. I'm very much a moon novice so do not know the names of the features I was studying (moon atlas on the way!) but I could see many central uplifts in the craters along the moons edge. Overall though, I will wait for less illuminated phases to start my journey on the Lunar 100. At this point it was time to finish up for the night, but the last thing to mention was the gloves. I must admit that I found them to be a total delight - almost full dexterity, and aside from the obvious cold fingers my hands were the perfect temperature for the entire session. Thanks for reading! Joe

Seems reasonable to me!

Wonderful! When I was first getting into astronomy proper, the first cluster I saw was M13 through a 300p - at about 300x - I will never forget that sight!

Exactly my reason for buying it - ahead of the great conjunction last year. I have a Skymax 102 in storage in the UK and was missing planetary observing.