Meade Infinity 102

[Mak the Night]

I think Cydonia borders the Acidalia Planitia which would be to the bottom of the above picture (north east).

Cydonia looks interesting ...

 

[Ray of LIght]

Oh boy! Anyway, I received an email from one of the administrators and he said no problem. Not sure how long that takes but I assume they have their ways to do it. 

[Mak the Night]

So, what's your new user name going to be? I was tempted by Mackie Messier once, but I don't know if anyone would get the pun.

[Ray of LIght]

Well no one is going to understand this pun but that's ok. It is Ray of LIght (the caps on LI for Long Island). I used it on another forum that I just don't have time for so I will concentrate on this one. Repurposed the user name! I kind of like it, and the hidden pun. I kind of like Mackie Messier, I would have got it at least!

[Ray of LIght]

Looks like they changed it already. Looks ok I think. They were very nice about it. 

[Mak the Night]

Yeah, it looks cool.

[Dave In Vermont]

Well, well...

Dave

[Ray of LIght]

Well well well

[Mak the Night]

Mars seen from Earth (Celestia 1.6.1):

Earth seen from Mars:

[Mak the Night]

The Baader focuser threaded directly into the business end of the Bazooka! I viewed Jupiter, Mars & Saturn with the TS Optics (GSO) shorty Barlow and the Luminos as they are the most compact quality 2.5x Barlow and 82° 10mm eyepiece I have.

The Luminos performed well, although some light scatter could be perceived as was some of the infamous EOFB, but they weren't an issue for me and with the assistance of the helical focuser had some great views of Jupiter & Mars. Although I do believe that the Baader Neodymium filter was a great help.

[Dave In Vermont]

Hey Ray-O -

I'm noting MTN has been posting some grabs from Celestia - which is another great hunk of software/freeware* - and so I've posted the link below. It's on SourceForge, same as Stellarium is. So it's a safe download site. My main material is also for you, Ray. You recall that 16mm and 11mm eyepieces I showed you from University Optics for cheap - the 80° one's? Well I just took my 16mm one out to put it to some testing with my ST80 F/5. As I recalled it worked perfectly in the very fast scope/optics, and I was correct: It passes my test with bells on! No loss of sharpness or vignetting whatsoever.  As I, too, am in need of a good 10-ish mm eyepiece, I'm going to pull the trigger and get the 11mm model to accompany my 16mm.

I know you've got the giant hand-grenade coming at you, but that's some info to know for when you wind up being asked about useful 10mm-ish EP's.

I've also been playing with my orthoscopics in this F/5, and I'm back in love with these again! The ortho's work well in just about anything.

Nice and clear up here -

Dave

*

https://sourceforge.net/projects/celestia/

 

[Ray of LIght]

56 minutes ago, Dave In Vermont said:

Hey Ray-O -

I'm noting MTN has been posting some grabs from Celestia - which is another great hunk of software/freeware* - and so I've posted the link below. It's on SourceForge, same as Stellarium is. So it's a safe download site. My main material is also for you, Ray. You recall that 16mm and 11mm eyepieces I showed you from University Optics for cheap - the 80° one's? Well I just took my 16mm one out to put it to some testing with my ST80 F/5. As I recalled it worked perfectly in the very fast scope/optics, and I was correct: It passes my test with bells on! No loss of sharpness or vignetting whatsoever.  As I, too, am in need of a good 10-ish mm eyepiece, I'm going to pull the trigger and get the 11mm model to accompany my 16mm.

I know you've got the giant hand-grenade coming at you, but that's some info to know for when you wind up being asked about useful 10mm-ish EP's.

I've also been playing with my orthoscopics in this F/5, and I'm back in love with these again! The ortho's work well in just about anything.

Nice and clear up here -

Dave

*

https://sourceforge.net/projects/celestia/

 

Not clear here Dave. Actually, now that I have the Luminos coming this week there would be no harm done if I invested in one of the UO 80 degree eyepieces. Since the Luminos is 10mm I am not sure that it may make sense to get the 16mm just to try it out. With the TV 3x it would give me 112x or so. Thinking about it.

[Mak the Night]

That's what I said; buy both. It saves agonising decision making. lol

[Ray of LIght]

Quote

 

 

28 minutes ago, Mak the Night said:

That's what I said; buy both. It saves agonising decision making. lol

I guess the 16mm it is. High power, lower power, perfect! Have to check my wallet, lol! Any other ideas are welcome!

[Mak the Night]

1 hour ago, Ray of LIght said:

 

I guess the 16mm it is. High power, lower power, perfect! Have to check my wallet, lol! Any other ideas are welcome!

The 16mm could be more useful for you than you think, I have a 16mm Nagler, but it gives me 147x on the Big Cat and 81x on my 102mm Mak. Both are useful magnifications to Barlow up higher. However, it will only give 60x on the Bazooka, which isn't really enough for planetary, and only gives a 2.3mm exit pupil, so isn't useful for a UHC filter either. I could use it with the TV 3x to get 180, but that would be its limit. I like to push the Bazooka to nearer 200x or preferably over if the conditions are good. I normally only drop down to 180x as a last resort.

The 16mm will give you a 2.7mm exit pupil on your scope (without a Barlow). 2.7mm might be enough to utilise a nebula filter of some description. The Baader UHC-S is good for 4" scopes as it has a broader bandwidth filter curve. I've had some success with it on M42. I needed to get a 3mm exit pupil at least though.

 

[Ray of LIght]

It's hard to get any magnification with my 102 so I need the TV 3x pretty bad IMO. The 16mm UO should be another good addition for me, so I agree with both of you guys. Back in a bit.

[Mak the Night]

Although I normally recommend the TV 3x, this OU 'shorty' 3x may be better in a diagonal if you're worried about the size of the TV 3x.

The 20mm Wide Scan 70 Degree Ocular may be more useful than the 16mm. Without being Barlowed it would give you a wide 30x for a 3.4mm exit pupil. This would enable the use of a UHC filter relatively easily. M42 looks pretty good with a Baader UHC-S through my 102mm Mak at around 30x.

Is it my imagination, but do the Wide Scan UO EP's resemble some older Meade eyepieces? Plus, by the looks of it, no draw tube undercuts!

Speaking of the dreaded undercut/taper defect:

I swapped an old pair of 10mm Sky-Watcher MA draw tubes for the original WO tapered tube on these WO SWAN's. I had to invert the tube for them to fit.

I won't be able to thread filters into them, I only use them as finders now anyway, but they seem to work.

Most smoothies seem to have a slight angle on the lip of the tube, probably to aid insertion, but I don't have any trouble inserting or extracting these from anything with a compression ring.

[Ray of LIght]

So, hold on here, are you recommending another 3x Barlow? Besides the price, the UO Barlow does look interesting. And you are right about the UO 70 degree eyepieces looking like the Meade. My 20mm Meade 4000 looks just like the UO 20mm. As far as the UO Barlow, do you think the quality is there? I think the shorter 3x might be a better match for my set up. I definitely need the magnification. My HPS 2.5 is a nice Barlow which I will utilize a lot but I really can use a 3x. I am glad I found out about the UO 3x before I bought the TV. It must be new because I have been on that website many times and have never seen it. So Mak and Dave, what's the verdict? Back in a bit.

[Mak the Night]

I don't know what the quality of the UO 3x is like to be honest Ray. I thought it might be better in a diagonal if you were worried about the 13cm length of the TV 3x. Al Nagler doesn't like short Barlows as he believes the light path is compromised in them, hence no TV shorty Barlow.

The fact is, you won't get a better 3x Barlow than the TeleVue.

[Ray of LIght]

Thought you would say that. Had my hopes up for a minute there. Will have to think about it. There are many short Barlows out there so I guess back to square one.

[Mak the Night]

27 minutes ago, Ray of LIght said:

Thought you would say that. Had my hopes up for a minute there. Will have to think about it. There are many short Barlows out there so I guess back to square one.

I've bought too many pigs in pokes not to be suspect these days lol. I know one thing, when it comes to eyepieces or Barlows, if it says TeleVue on it, it will not fail to deliver. I honestly don't mind shelling out the spondoolies these days if I know I'm getting quality.

[Ray of LIght]

O know you see my point though. I may have to deal with the height and weight to get the quality. Just thought I could get around it!

[Mak the Night]

It's always going to be hard work getting the magnification on your scope. TV do a 5x Powermate although that might be too powerful.

[Ray of LIght]

Dave, you know anything about the UO 3x short Barlow? I know it's not a TV but is it any good that you know? I'm just afraid of this smokestack I will have sticking up out of my diagonal, lol. 

[Mak the Night]

I'm pretty sure the 'smokestack' will be fine. The set screw and build quality of the TV 3x is superb. The Luminos is only 340g and it's fairly squat. If I'm right, the securing points are: The Baader adaptor into the telescope back, the diagonal nosepiece into the Baader adaptor, the TV 3x into the diagonal and finally the Luminos into the TV x3. On an alt-az mount the eyepiece 'stack' willl at the extreme only be 90° to the vertical (telescope objective lens pointing at the zenith). For most targets within the plane of the ecliptic it will usually only be around 40° ~ 50° or thereabouts. I've regularly used my 16mm Nagler on top of the TV Powermate in my 102mm Mak. I've even had binoviewers with two 19mm TV Panoptics and it handled that with my Antares diagonal.