First proper session, new weapon, questions ;)

[Major]

Evening folks.

Just few minutes ago I came back from my first proper session with little Heritage.

Rewinding the tape a little, I went for a "short ride" just before picking up my son from school. Destination was rather obvious - Rother Valley Optics . Came back with one bit I should have bought with the scope



Collimation eyepiece, finally! Got the scope out and started to play with it, now it is collimated bang on. After that aligned red dot finder using near church as the target, now all EPs show me exactly what I aim for, so another result . 

Practiced tracking planes a little with 4mm and left the scope outside, ready for darkness.



However, quick look at Stellarium shown me Mars just above the horizon, so I rushed outside and the hunt was on. Found it quickly as it was the only bright object visible before darkness, localised it with 25mm and then swapped to 4mm EP. What I've seen has blown me away! Expected to see the disc, but not as much colour as I did see. Such bright and vivid orange in few shades, some yellow, just wow! Good job I was looking at planes earlier as the speed of Mars was a bit of a surprise for me. Didn't look at it too long, it hid behind neighbour's fence, but that was enough to get me hooked up even more. i will be ready tomorrow!

Plan for tonight was easy - simple to find binary stars. First go with 25mm - Altair, Mizar, Alioth. Nope, all look like single stars, unless I am missing something or "my" stars are "broken". Then quick look at Cassiopeia and once again doubbles, this time with 10mm. Altair and Alioth still looked single, but Mizar didn't! Ta-dah, magic! Could clearly see two stars where I always saw just one, amazing. Using 4mm increased the gap between them, but couldn't get as sharp focus as with 10mm.  Given that magnification was 100x, could it just be seeing? Or my scope? Poor quality EP? Combination of all?

One meteoroid cut through Ursa Minor and soon after clouds appeared. Had a look at few constellations with naked eye and called it off. I finally am 100% sure where Vega, Cygnus and Aquilla are located .

Scope performed well, but I need better 10mm EP. I've seen a lot of Explore Scientific stuff, is it any good? The particular EP I have in mind would that

http://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/explore-scientific-82-eyepieces.html

If it isn't worth the buy, what could I get instead? Round about 100 quid mark (could add a bit though...) and 10mm focal lenght. Or just stick to what I have now and keep that 100 towards 8" dob?


All in all, this session was short, but very good! For the first time ever I've seen Mars through a telescope...
Cheers
Tom

[Charic]

Never tried the ES eyepieces, but for that money, I would say buy two 60° Starguiders. They will perform really well  on the  f/6 Dobsonian you intend buying for Christmas!

[ronin]

Something seems a little "not right". Even a 25mm in the scope gives 16x, I can split Mizar easily with 8x42 binoculars, and two weeks ago one person I was with could split Mizar by eye, in Cambridge so there was light pollution. It used to be an eye sight test for something like the Persian army. I can split Mizar by eye if it is dark, as in REALLY dark.

So if a 100mm f/4 scope at 16x cannot not, something seems odd.

Point your son at Mizar, ask if he sees 1 or 2.

I think you would be better with the 6.7mm ES82 or the 8.8mm ES82, the link comes up with the 4.7mm and that is not going to do well I suspect. The Heritage is f/4 so fairly (likely very) demanding on eyepieces. Equally the 6.7 or 8.8 will work nicely well on a bigger 200P. In that respect it is a bit of a case of eyepiece now and scope a month or two later or no eyepiece and the scope a bit earlier. Personally I would go for the eyepiece now.

[Yamez]

1 hour ago, Major said:

I've seen a lot of Explore Scientific stuff, is it any good?

Don't own an EP by ES but own a UHC filter and it is just fabulous, i love it. The product itself comes well packaged and they do tests on the product you buy to make sure there aren't any problems. I recommend ES.

Baader Hyperion modular EP's are extremely good, wide angle at 80 degrees. I own the 17mm and it is a delight to use, 2 focal lengths in one - the 1.25" end is unscrew-able leaving a 2" barrel for another focal legth. 17mm and 21mm. The 10mm Baader Hyperion is the same price as the ES eyepiece's. http://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/baader-hyperion-1252-modular-eyepiece.html

[laudropb]

Congratulations on your first view of Mars.

i have to agree you should have split Mizar easily. The fact that you did split the other doubles makes me think you have been looking at the wrong star. Try again and I am sure you will succeed.

As for replacement eye pieces, take your time. Use what you have for a bit and then you will be more sure of exactly what you want.

[rockystar]

are we talking separating Mizar and Alcor (which should be easy) or actually splitting Mizar, which is a little more tricky (but very achievable)? It could be that you did split Mizar/Alcor but they are so far apart in the eye piece that you didn't twig.

anyway, nice little session, it sounds like you're getting hooked ?

I have the 24mm in the ES range, great eye piece, but it is heavy. Haven't tried the higher power ones though.

[swamp thing]

I would keep the eyepieces you have and carry on enjoying the scope until you can afford the bigger one  

 

[Major]

Thanks everyone for input and sorry for late reply, just needed to educate myself a little .

@rockystar, both. This is exactly where I've got last night. Picture is not mine, just found it on the net.



If the test was to split Mizar and Alcor, i maybe would have passed it, but no way I would see any more than that without any optical help.

@ronin, link was supposed to come up with 8.8mm, I guess it didn't due to drop down list ion RVO site.

Also thanks for input on eyepieces you all, much appreciated.

 

[Davesellars]

I have this little scope (bought recently from Astroboot)  - I got it for my daughter as something she can grow in to that I'm not bothered about dings or grubby hands...   I've only used it a couple of times certainly its f/4 focal ratio makes it difficult for eyepieces and focus at high power! I used a 25mm Celestron Plossl that came with a scope and a 15mm Celestron Omni (pretty good quality) and a 6mm Celestron Omni (difficult with the eye-relief but quality is kind of OK...).  Now, imho this scope cannot take high power the 6mm was very difficult to attempt to focus and the image was somewhat mushy.   The 15mm and 25mm performed well both with obvious coma but from around 80% with the 25mm and really nasty coma from 90% onwards...  to be expected I guess.  However, the 25mm is for me over the limit for the exit pupil (6.25mm) though it showed the Double Cluster quite nicely I think 20mm is more of a sensible maximum focal length for this scope.

I have yet to try my ES82 eyepieces in this scope I'd be interested to see how it performs with the 8.8mm and the 11mm.  If you are thinking of a larger scope in the future I'd recommend very much going for the 11mm ES82 though - this is a very nice and lightweight eyepiece that will suit pretty much any scope. Obviously the f/4 Heritage will push it way beyond what it was designed for and so expect coma and possibly other optical aberrations.  But for a f/5 scope and above these eyepieces are really nice and and a very good price point.

BTW the 10mm eyepiece that is shipped with the Skywatcher scopes (seemingly ALL of them...) is horrendous!   The 25mm is fine though...

[Davesellars]

I just finished a session from home with the Heritage and used my ES82 eyepieces with M81 and M82 galaxies the targets and studying the star quality in all. I also used a TV 19mm Panoptic and a 24mm ES68 eyepiece.  NELM was approx magnitude 4.3 - 4.5.   Hopefully this may be of some use to you.  BTW these eyepieces are all very good quality and work very well with a less demanding focal ratio scope so if you're planning in the future to go to an 8" (f/6?) scope then all of these will be suitable.

First the 24mm ES68.  This is a nice eyepiece and the star quality is pretty good to 80% of the FOV and astigmatism certainly coming into play after this as well as coma.  I feel though for this scope the exit pupil (for me) is too large.  It is a pretty good "finder" eyepiece but would be better under darker skies.

19mm Panoptic.  Nice stars to about 90% with no noticeable optical aberrations apart from obvious coma (particularly in brighter stars).  Both galaxies showed well and brightly with this eyepiece.  This for me was a perfect focal length for finding objects and considerably better than the 24mm under these conditions.

OK...  so now down to the focal lengths that are going to (hopefully) show some detail that you're interested in:

11mm ES82 - Both galaxies still easily in the same FOV both were nice and bright.  M81 showing a decent extended core.  M82 showing a slight bulge in the centre and decent length of the "cigar" shape.  What surprised me was how well the eyepiece held up to the f/4 focal ratio.  The stars were well corrected only really showing any aberrations on brighter stars with coma.

8.8mm ES82 - Noticeably larger than in the 11mm but bother galaxies still easily observed with a touch more detail coming through in M82 in that central bulge shape with averted vision.  I switched between this and the 11mm a few times and generally I preferred the stars in the 11mm - I felt that this with still a very wide view in this scope would be still great at open clusters and nebulae at a suitably darker location!  I think for getting that touch more detail in a faint object the 8.8mm just pips the 11mm but it's not by much.

6.7mm ES82 - I didn't like at all.  It's not the eyepiece so much as this one is one of my favourite EPs with my refractors it just doesn't suit the Heritage f/4 scope.  The view was generally on the soft side difficult to focus.

 

[Major]

Dave,

thank you very much for your time, effort and report. That indeed will help me with choice of eyepieces.