I am done, I think??

[Rustysplit]

Ahem..it appears to have been nearly 4 months since my last confession, and boy have I sinned I could not help myself, honest. Try as i might to forget about them, they made me buy them, really!!

I could not let the chance to complete the set of Radians go when an opportunity turned up. Stu put up an ad for his 6mm and 4mm, and a chance conversation in my local shop revealed the appearance of a couple of 3mm Rads. Stu's pair and one of the 3's were soon mine :evil:

I am the first to admit that these are purely "want" purchases. All bar the 3mm I could get to with the barlow. The 3mm will get little, if any use in my big dob, the 6mm and 4mm have already seen sterling work on the moon and mars. I am totally happy with the Radians, and to own the whole set just seemed right. 

Let the tutting commence...........

[John]

Tut, tut Alan 

How are we to control our buying if a fine upstanding gentleman like yourself cannot ? ......    

[Rustysplit]

He He!! I felt a bit guilty for all of about 2 seconds. As I said in another thread, it is amazing what people will pay for a broken rubbish French car.  Who was I to let the economy fail and sit on the money? Get it out their I say.

On a side note John, what did you mount your Istar on in the end?

[John]

On a side note John, what did you mount your Istar on in the end?

I've now got an older non-GOTO EQ6 mounted on a Meade giant field tripod (3" steel tube legs !!!) via a custom adapter plate I had made. I gave the setup it's first run out last night and it worked pretty well. Having drives on such a long scope is a great help. It's not rock steady by any means but I've come to the conclusion that I would need to put the scope on an observatory class mount to achieve that. I was able to view Mars with it quite happily at 300x last night so thats not at all bad

I've posted some pics here:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/213471-istar-6-inch-f12-equatorially-mounted-achromatic-refractor/ 

[alan potts]

Alan,

Congratulations on having empty pockets. The Radians are really nice eyepieces, you know I have a fairly extensive spread of quality glass and Radians have a role to play. The other thing is you are never going to be out of paocket as I believe most were secondhand and will always be worth what you paid if not more down the line.

Had I have been in England I would have made a play for Stu's 6mm and his 8mm Delos but as I have had things go missing in the post this is out of the question, the good thing was it was not costly but it was something for my Sons Birthday so valuable in that way.

Is that a complete set of Radians now? 3mm through to 18mm.

John,

The Meade field tripod is a bit of monster isn't it? Good luck with the scope.

Alan

[SimonfromSussex]

Well done Alan, lovely set and not having to faff about with a barlow must be a bonus.

Now just the 24 and 40 panopotic to be totally done..............

[Rustysplit]

Yep, the whole set Alan. 18,14,12,10,8,6,5,4,3. All but 2 secondhand, and the last new one, the 3mm bought at near used price, very near!  All boxed with all caps etc, so you are right, should the need to sell arise, It should balance out.

[Rustysplit]

No, the physical limits of the ep case demand that that is that!! Now I shan't hear any more of your tempting comments

[alan potts]

Alan,

You have a few I have never seen, 18mm 12mm and 8mm, I had the chance of the 14mm and had a play with it but ended up buying the 14mm UWA Meade. The Radian at the time would have cost me about 85-90 quid as it was on sale here. I paid about 150-160 for the UWA and lost about 70 pounds when I sold it. Seems to me I am not bad at giving other people advice but don't listern to myself. It would have been a suberb planetary on the LX 12 inch and would have probably stopped me buying the 14mm Delos.

Time to start practicing what I preach.

Alan

[AlexB67]

Nice set Alan, I think if had to get by for a whole career with a whole set of these with a couple of scopes, it would not be a bad life, apart from missing something at the longer focal length. There was that 8mm sitting there on AB&S tempting me

[Rustysplit]

I have The 27mm Panoptic at the longer fl end Alex. This set should now do me for any scope I may buy in the future. Go on Alex, you know you want it :evil: :evil:

[AlexB67]

 

I have The 27mm Panoptic at the longer fl end Alex. This set should now do me for any scope I may buy in the future. Go on Alex, you know you want it :evil: :evil:

Alan, I blame you fully for applying the pressure and fully succumbed to said pressure.

The 8mm TV Radian was bought today, it been sitting there on AB&S tempting me and got a bit of reduced deal on it and it looked mint in the pics. I think I developed a bit of a soft spot for them after owning the 6mm, particularly globular clusters and  them starry things and planets/moon of course   . It was a hard choice because in many ways there was a voice telling me buy the pentax XF8.5mm, ..... but I didn't.

I even got a 8mm BST starguider which in itself is not at all a bad eyepiece, which will go, but I will hold onto it for a while just to compare them, that will interest me too. It wasn't that I really needed that 8mm, but as much a question of grab it when they turn up, which is not that often. 

Is this also a bit of that the magnetic effect of the black and green label luring me in rather than an outright rational decision ?   Time will tell

[Rustysplit]

Blame gladly accepted

The 8mm has given me some wonderful views of Jupiter this year, and as you say, globs at high power look stunning, filling the whole ep with stars. Now you have 2 rads, will you be able to stop???

The BST vs Radian will be very interesting Alex. Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

[AlexB67]

Blame gladly accepted

The 8mm has given me some wonderful views of Jupiter this year, and as you say, globs at high power look stunning, filling the whole ep with stars. Now you have 2 rads, will you be able to stop???

The BST vs Radian will be very interesting Alex. Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Alan, That comparison will be very interesting. My upgrade has been partly inspired  last night and having used the 8m BST for almost a year now, I visited some friends near Oxford yesterday, skies somewhat a lot better than mine. I spent about 70 minutes on M57 and a number of doubles and some galaxies trying to tease to details. I only had the 5 inch Dob with me in car, but it was very illuminating to inspire me to pull that handle to buy the Radian finally, In the end the BST will recoup almost half the cost, and the Radian will not have cost me much at all.

Last night at about 2 - 4 AM of good darkness time I used 5mm BGO, 6mm Radian, pentax XW7 and BST 8mm. For the deep sky stuff and doubles that BST not bad at all, I will be completely unbiased in my view on this when the 8mm Radian comes and take my time over it before moving it on ( Note that I didn't even say which of the two I will move on ), but I expect this may be a closer tricky one going by my expectation on some targets, though I do expect the Radian to edge it overall, but who knows

I know there are a few followers that love the BST enough to say a radian or pentax XF is not worth it, and actually preferring them in some cases. I would say as a planetary eyepiece though I never warmed to the 8m BST that much since after owning a pentax, radian and BGO in company.

[YKSE]

I know there are a few followers that love the BST enough to say a radian or pentax XF is not worth it, and actually preferring them in some cases. I would say as a planetary eyepiece though I never warmed to the 8m BST that much since after owning a pentax, radian and BGO in company.

That's exactly my impression too, after comparing BST 8mm and 12mm to other EPs I had at the time.

BTW, congratulations to a nice addition.

[Rustysplit]

I used to have an 8mm BST when i had my old 200p newt on the eq5. I found it to be a great little ep. When I got into imaging and bought an F4 quattro , this is where it's limitations showed up. It became very soft and mushy over a large % of the fov. Actually, this is how I ended up with my first Radian, the 18mm. I initially tried a 14mm Meade 5000 UWA, It was as sharp and well coloured as anything I have since looked through, but only the central 60%. I did not think that was good enough for the money, so took it back and bought the 18mm Rad on the recommendation Of TH. The rest you know....