badhex

It arrived! Holy smokes it is huuuuuuge! Now I just need to wait for the new mount to arrive so I can *actually* use it My current mount would almost certainly collapse under the weight!

haha yeah, perhaps it just *felt* like I took forever to make a decision

Wow! Fantastic first image! Welcome to SGL! I think everyone knows what you mean about being hooked... I had a couple of years break for one reason or another but now I'm back and raring to go... this hobby always brings you back around in the end!

Soooooo... sorry for the old thread bump but in the end (and after some encouragement from my partner) I just plumped for the Panoptic(!) I'm upgrading my mount to an EQ6-R Pro (my first actually new mount, plus first goto) because my old tiny one doesn't cope with the 80ED well and want to future proof myself, so I thought if I'm buying a mount for life I should get the EP for life as well! It's currently constant clouds here anyway so I'm just taking advantage of the situation

Thanks! My general feeling was that it should be possible. I'm still sadly waiting for cloud cover to break so I think I'm doubting myself just because I'm a little rusty and I can't go and check!

Yeah, this is kinda my thinking. I'm determined now, so I will report back once I've nailed it! It's clouds from here on in for a while, but I'm using the cloud cover as an excuse to probably upgrade my somewhat unidentified EQ-??? mount which struggles with the ED80, to something much sturdier with tracking/goto. This will also mean that if star hopping is failing me, I can fall back on the goto.

Very jealous! Maybe I'll just go crazy and buy a C11

Thanks all. As you have all said the main problem might just be magnification vs. light loss. I must admit that I was also finding it very challenging last night once I changed EPs, even to confirm I was moving in the right direction when star hopping, so there's probably a reasonable dash of user error and super bright moon thrown in. Perhaps I was just very lucky when I got it before on the skymax. I think it was in my 9mm HD60 which would have given me nearly 150x, which is a struggle in the 80ED.

Hello all Having recently got back to astronomy after a long break, I'm mostly spending time looking for DSOs, clusters etc. with my SW Evostar 80ed. In the past I have managed to resolve the ring (but not the central star) through a Skymax 102 under admittedly darker skies (class 5 IIRC, from a country park with no pesky street lamps), but I'm not having any luck with the 80ed from my current class 8 location. I've been using a 30mm to hunt down the patch of sky, and at higher mags I've tried averted vision and a (cheap IIRC - Kood) sky-glow filter amongst other things, but still no dice. I can pick up M13 as a grey smudge, so I feel like I should be able to at least resolve M57 as a fuzzy ball - am I asking a bit too much? Thanks all!

Coming back to this - I know I get technically more coverage in the EP overall due to the extremely long FL but would I get that lovely "my god, it's full of stars" effect like you do with the very wide angle EPs? Whilst the GSO 30mm is not the world's best EP it does have a reasonably large FOV and I'm hoping to get even more of an eyeful!

Perhaps our Russian friend Ernest might be able to tell from the guts of the EP if the design is the same or merely very similar? I wonder if anyone here speak Russian and could find out, or if it will just be one do those mysteries? Sounds like he was a remarkable man, I read the link that Louis D sent. What a shame. One could argue perhaps that imitation is the highest form of flattery and his legend lives on in those designs, even if they were copied without permission. I read that the designs still technically belong to the family and were licensed by a particular vendor for a while but it doesn't seem like thats the case any more.

I guess maybe that it's probably a question of value for money. The full report states they "can be recommended to an observer who is not burdened with perfectionism for instruments with a 1: 8 relative aperture and less" but of course they aren't going to be at the top of their class. In general, it seems like many folks are quite happy with the Aero 40mm which is what led me to them, but having never looked through one it's always hard to say, and I'm far from an EP expert so I'm relying on all you smart folks for your experiences! From my last couple of days reading up the consensus seems to be that they are the same as the paragons but again, I'm just repeating what I've seen so it could be an eyepiece myth! What I find most interesting overall is that it seems like there's little to nothing else in the same price and quality range that is mostly praised. It seems like the next step up is most likely the Vixen, but at nearly 3x the cost. Others at the same price point seem to have varying degrees of praise.

This puts the cat among the pigeons! I've done a bit more research in this EP and this fits pretty much all of my criteria except the price. Hmmm... can I pony up the extra 100eur...? No worries! TBH I have been looking at them on so many sites that I've lost track of which branding is on which site I contacted FLO and they said it's discontinued with no known re-release or alternative sadly. So right now I've narrowed it down to a couple of choices. Do I spend the ~120eur for the 35mm Aero ED, OR plump for the ~2.5 times more expensive Vixen?! Aagh!

This is great - thanks! Definitely bookmarking his site, the reports are helpful. I can't find it now but I'd thought I'd read in a thread somewhere that a few people had had issues with the 40mm SWAN, glad to hear that's not the case for you! Perhaps a dodgy one slipped through the QA or something (or could be I'm confused and thinking about a different EP!) Thanks everyone for all the advice so far. It's nice to know that even after 5 years SGL is still the super helpful, friendly place I remembered! Ultimately I'm still thinking about that Aero 40mm! My only concern with buying the 35mm at this point is that it's not very different from (although better quality and somewhat wider FOV than) my GSO, and if the 40mm decides to make a comeback I'll be kicking myself I didn't wait. Might be worth me contacting FLO and a few other suppliers to see if they know anything...?

Thanks for the additional lineup! Very helpful to see those differences.

Good to know. Can I safely assume that the 35mm will be the same though? I'd love to see a direct comparison of the 40mm and 35mm. One other question springs to mind - why did they discontinue the 40mm? Is it just lack of interest in those long focal lengths or some other reason?

This is great, thanks for the comparison image! I'd love the Maxvision/Meade 5000 as I have two from the wider lineup already in 1.25 format but as you said, much heavier and hard to get hold of. I could plump for the ES 68 but it's over my budget and again we come back to the size issue. It looks to me that apart from some softening around the edges, I'd be getting a pretty good deal going with the Aero ED 35mm - and from what know the softening should be much less obvious at F7.5 as you've mentioned.

Thanks all! Thanks for the options. I've been doing a bit of research and have already seen a few of these so will definitely wait and see if anyone has first hand experience of the EPs Thanks - although I'm a bit confused - this link *is* for the Aero ED, or are your referncing the 35mm version? Or are there two version of the 40mm, like an older one as you mention? I was looking at exactly this EP but sadly, the 40mm is no longer available from FLO (or anywhere else that I can see) and the 35mm is not a huge difference from my existing 30mm in terms of power. "Lowest, widest" is exactly what I'm going for! Indeed, I'm pretty sure a few of your replies to older threads were what made me think the Aero ED would be the best for my needs! I can't seem to find any of the clones/alternative brandings available for this EP either.

Hello! After an extremely long hiatus of nearly 5 years, I'm back in the game and observing again! My first couple of return sessions were at a reasonably dark sky (supposedly Bortle 5 but I think maybe better than that) with an on-the-fly purchase of a celestron travelscope 70, but as the mount is complete and utter rubbish the experience was a pretty frustrating at times. That said, it reminded me how much better my experience would be once I got back home and dug out my SW ED80! Having now had a session or two with my ED80, I'm very happy to be reminded how amazing those widefield views are, and only found myself feeling limited with the 2" 30mm GSO I have (which is great, but the lowest power EP I own), and thought it might be time to buy myself a return-to-astronomy present I spent a few days researching, and came to the conclusion that the SkyWatcher Aero ED 40mm would be a good fit for my requirements, and generally gets great feedback... and then found I can't seem to buy the thing anywhere I guess it's been discontinued. So, I'd love to hear any recommendations for an alternative to the 40mm Aero. My general requirements are: 40mm-ish FL Wide FOV 2" fitting (obviously required at this point) Works well at F7.5 in my ED Reasonable size to fit in my EP case Budget of 200EUR-ish max TIA! And it's good to be back! Joe

Didn't bring any 'scopes with me when I moved to Berlin recently, hoping to hold out with bins until I pick up my Mak and eq mount at Christmas, but cracked and bought an ED80 Finally got first light a week or so ago after I picked up an extremely sturdy '70s/'80s camera tripod second hand as a stopgap. Built like a tank, you can even see the shutter remote cable! Saturn and the Moon looking stunning with the supplied SW LER 28mm and the BCO 6mm (although ER and exit pupil a bit tight with the latter). Very impressed with the scope so far - now just have to wait for the clouds to go away!

"Release the Fraken!" Anyone? (Okay I'll be quiet now )

I work in IT and until very recently had a 30+ year old DLT tape drive - completely useless in today's world. I guess nostalgia will do that to you

Not mine I'm sad to say, but impressive nonetheless! Visited the Archenhold Observatory last week 21m FL, 68cm aperture - F30.88. You'd only need a 16mm EP to reach maximum sensible Mags per inch - 1300x by my reckoning! Apparently they still use the original 19th C EPs. Maybe I should put the rest of my pics in the lounge forum or something.

Holy smokes, there are some amazing pieces of kit on this thread! Love it I spent a few months rebuilding this large (massive infact!) Bresser Achro last year, but have had numerous issues with lens cell collimation (the lens cell was totally borked when I bought it). I have just done another rebuild of the cell a month or two ago but I've since moved countries and it's had to go in storage, so it still hasn't had a proper first light I may be fixing that by buying a small APO/ED while I'm here This was it at the end of the first rebuild:

This is such a brilliant idea! I live in flats with a shared garden so not an option for me, but one day...!