90mm's of refractor on the moon

[jetstream]

The evening settled down to a nice -24c but with some good seeing.  The 90mm Raptor is ignored at times and is a very capable telescope escpc when used with Baaders prism diagonal. First the 12.5mm Tak went in the focuser, extremely sharp on the terminator- too sharp really?! Off to get the VIP. A long story short - the 90mm SV gave very crisp, high contrast view barlowed all the way to 222x! (7mmKK/VIP + 30mm's in extensions, 2.83mm fl). This 7mm KK is a VG example, better than my 5mm version and it is no slouch.

So the 12.5mm Tak,10mm BCO and the 7mm KK all did great providing some high detail along the skinny terminator edge tonight. I was very pleased with the views the scope gave in this excellent seeing.

It's too late this evening identify the features seen but it doesn't really matter anyway, I'll fall asleep with some sharp lunar images to dream about.

Edited December 12, 2016 by jetstream

[mikeDnight]

I like the comment that the image was "too sharp"! Mountain tops piercing your retina is always the sign of a great scope, and 90mm aperture is serious stuff. An acquaintance of mine, who is a truly world class lunar and planetary observer, uses a 78mm Takahashi. The combined results of his trained eye and first class objective are astounding. I've not yet seen through a SV scope but have only heard good things about them.

I remember a S&T refractor review some years back now, in which three 4" refractors were being scrutinized. Except one of the 4" refractors wasn't actually 4", it was in fact a Sky 90. The author's included the 90mm because they felt that it was deserving of being included in the 4" category. Ninety millimetres is good! ?

Mike

[jetstream]

Thanks Mike, the 90mm SV performs excellently. All scopes are limited by aperture as to how much detail can be seen as we know and now that I have short listed the eyepieces that will barlow very high, the 90mm Raptor is crowding 65x aperture, with the available detail still very sharp. Very sharp. Sometimes I wonder how far I can push this telescope...

It was equalized as was the Baader/Zeiss zoom and these 3 eyepieces work so well with the VIP. I have run across EP's that will get softer as the barlow goes up, for whatever reason.

"Piercing your retina"! I love that saying Exactly true. One look through that first ortho told me the views were gonna be good.

Clear Skies Mike

[spaceboy]

I found under my skies at least that 80-100mm refractors offer far more observational milage over any other scope while still allowing plenty of detail to keep your interest. They just don't seem to suffer from seeing like other scope do.