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First purchase after 6inch SCT - Televue ethos. Investment or stupid?


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Morning all,

I have recently purchased a celestron nexstar 6SE and have been getting out as much as I can with it. I have a budget of around £500 I have put away for accessories.

I have come up with the following list:

Dew shield

Eyepiece(s)

OIII filter

As far as eps go I have been toying with 9mm nagler and a 16mm Nagler, however the more I read I think I would like a 13mm Ethos. WOuld this be a sensible purchase or shoulkd I go for a range of eyepices? If so, are the 9mm and 16mm a sensible choice?

If I get the ethos it means I also cannot get the filter until next month!

mant thanks

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I think you should use the cheaper eyepeices first to fully appreciate the ethos, I would also recommend you try these eyepieces before you buy, I myself am not a fan of ultra wide fov eyepeices like naglers and others are the same. A sct is not demanding on an eyepeice at F10.

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Slow scopes like SCT's don't need really expensive eyepieces to perform well. Hyperions are a great choice and you can get 4 of those for the price of an Ethos !.

If you really want ultra-wide (I do happen to be a fan of that genre) then you should consider the William Optics UWAN's / Skywatcher Nirvana's which will work very well indeed.

I think you will find an O-III filter less effective in your scope than a UHC - O-III's tend to benefit from more aperture I feel.

But your top priority should be anti-dewing gear (ie: dew shield, heated tape or both). SCT's attract dew like a magnet and you will soon find your sessions cut frustatingly short !.

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Hi

Please get a dew shield !

I now use a 13mm Hyperion in my SCT and am now looking to add to my collection. So thumbs up for that range of eyepieces.

I'll most likely go lower power possibly get the 24mm ? or 17mm ?

(wouldn't it be great if they did buy one get one free :eek:)

At some point I'll return to looking for an orthoscopic around 8mm for really high power planetary work, but LP kind of limits my desire to do this.

Good luck with your choices

Neil

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I'd be tempted not to buy any EPs for now and just use what came with the 'scope. With eyepiece time under your belt you'll know what needs replacing, or if there's a gap that needs filling.

John's right though, you don't need TV quality to get good results from EPs at f/10. So, if anything, go for a reasonable quality 25mm or 32mm Plössl for some nice, wide low power views.

A lunar filter is the only real "must have". Maybe an LPR too, or a UHC if your local light pollution is bad.

Commercial dew shields are usually too short. Do a DIY one from some camping mat and Velcro, make it at least twice the aperture in length for best results.

HTH :eek:

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WEll I sort of listened to the advice, here's what I have gone for:

Skywatcher Nirvana UWA 82 degree 16mm

Baader Hyperion 68 degree 8mm

Baader UHC-S filter

Baader Neodymium filter

Astrozap flexi-heat dew shield and control

Ordered from FLO, hoping they will arrive tomorrow. REALLY need these coulds to go!

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That looks a very nice selection of accessories ;)

It comes as a bit of a shock that you can easily spend as much as the scope costs on these additions, doesn't it :eek:

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After having bought my NexStar 6SE I considered the following accessories to be most necessary and I finally managed to buy them all:

- carry bag for the scope and mount

- a good 17Ah power supply

- Celestron dew shield

- Kendrick dew heater tape and controller

- Celestron solar filter for NexStar 6SE

- 2" quartz dielectic diagonal for SCT

All these accessories amounted to £295 which I say is reasonable. I still need some high power eyepieces but I'll leave them for later.

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WEll I sort of listened to the advice, here's what I have gone for:

Skywatcher Nirvana UWA 82 degree 16mm

Baader Hyperion 68 degree 8mm

Baader UHC-S filter

Baader Neodymium filter

Astrozap flexi-heat dew shield and control

Ordered from FLO, hoping they will arrive tomorrow. REALLY need these coulds to go!

I have to admit I like how well you absorbed the advice. A good choice of accessories and I'm sure they will serve you well. :eek:

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Recieved the order this morning (excellent service from FLO I have to say).

Just incase anyone as novice as me reads this thread, can I say '##*$'! I had absolutely no idea that the eyepices would be as big and heavy as this. They are serious bits of kit.

The Baader in particular is like a hand granade. On first inspection the actual viewing glass on the eyepeice is MASSIVE. The diameter of it must be comparable to the diameter of the whole stock eyepieces I recieved with the scope.

One thing I have noticed, the Nivana appears to have very, very littler eye relief. Is this the case or does the rubber somehow fold out?

The weather report indicates partially cloudy, so hopefully I will get to test drive them tonight.

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That looks a very nice selection of accessories ;)

It comes as a bit of a shock that you can easily spend as much as the scope costs on these additions, doesn't it :eek:

It really does, infact I managed to control myself and not buy a 2" star diagonal and a 28mm skywatcher Nirvana. Maybe next month.

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Nice list of goodies. I've found the UHC-S is really good with my 6SE. :eek:

Something else you might consider is the GPS accessory (CN16). It plugs in an fills in the date/time/lat/long automatically. Mine cost just under £300 so cheap it's not but I thought I'd mention it ;)

Mark

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One thing I have noticed, the Nivana appears to have very, very littler eye relief. Is this the case or does the rubber somehow fold out?....

The rubber eye cup of the Nirvana can be screwed up or down to find the correct eye placement.

It is generally true that ultra-wide angle eyepieces have less eye relief than their wide angle equivalents (eg: Hyperions). The 16mm Tele Vue Nagler has a little less eye relief than the Nirvana.

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It really does, infact I managed to control myself and not buy a 2" star diagonal and a 28mm skywatcher Nirvana. Maybe next month.

Do your reseach carefully on the 28mm Nirvana - it's a great eyepice but huge and heavy - the Hyperions are dainty lightweights compared to it.

A 2" diagonal and a 28mm Nirvana add around 3lbs of weight to the back of your scope which will put strain on the motors / gears and may not actually fit between the scope and the mount.

Also the hole in the rear of your 6" SCT is much smaller than the field stop on the Nirvana 28mm so you may not be able to take advantage of all of that ultrawide field of view.

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Do your reseach carefully on the 28mm Nirvana - it's a great eyepice but huge and heavy - the Hyperions are dainty lightweights compared to it.

A 2" diagonal and a 28mm Nirvana add around 3lbs of weight to the back of your scope which will put strain on the motors / gears and may not actually fit between the scope and the mount.

Also the hole in the rear of your 6" SCT is much smaller than the field stop on the Nirvana 28mm so you may not be able to take advantage of all of that ultrawide field of view.

Point noted, many thanks for this.

Regarding the GPS, is there really any benefit of this if I already know my long and lat?

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