We need more things like this out there...

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

Just found

video on youtube, and I think it's amazing.

It's very hard to describe how something will look through a scope, sure, there are websites to help simulate certain scope/eyepiece options etc, but those are dependent on screen size and resolution etc.

I've heard such things as "it'l be about the same size as looking at a tennis ball from 10ft away" etc, which give a pretty good real world idea. Even seeing videos that people have made with proper imaging setups doesn't really give you a clue since you don't know if the image has been cropped/zoomed... You don't have the eyepiece, you don't have any sense of how much of the eyepiece the object will fill.

Sketches are about the closest thing i've seen to being a good gauge, but it'd be great to see a series of videos in this format - like orion through a refractor, through a 6" dob, an 8" dob etc etc, each time showing the camera moving up to the eyepiece gives a real sense of what you'l see.

[John]

I take your point about the need for a way to give a better impression of what can be seen visually.

The thing I can't understand about this particular movie of M42 is that it was taken with a sensitive camera through an 18" scope but, to be honest, my 4" refractor shows the nebula more nicely than that on a dark night

If anything it's less than you can see visually - which makes a change I guess.

It's an interesting idea though