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The night of the small scopes


GavStar

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13 hours ago, mark81 said:

Great report, I'm really into threads which promote the smaller scope.  Grabbed my st80 last night at 11 and was all set up and enjoying by 11.03

Couldn't agree more!. The UK is tricky country to observe from for weather reasons. The small scope (grab and go) really does have a major place here. Sure I love to setup two larger scopes and all the kit for mega session. But really love that 5/10min setup for an hours worth of joyful sky scannng

Rob

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40 minutes ago, kerrylewis said:

@GavStar- Gavin, a quick question on the use of NV. I know that you use a Televue adapter but does this mean that you can only use TV eyepieces with the NV equipment? 

Kerry

 

The  night vision tnvc televue adapter utilises the dioptrix connection of the televue eyepiece. However in practice I’m only really using the 55mm plossl with my night vision setup to get as fast a setup in terms of f ratio as possible - if I want more image scale I use a bigger aperture scope. 

Night vision is odd in that due to the need to get low f ratio, a one eyepiece, several  scopes type of approach is the norm. 

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57 minutes ago, kerrylewis said:

@GavStar- Gavin, a quick question on the use of NV. I know that you use a Televue adapter but does this mean that you can only use TV eyepieces with the NV equipment? 

Kerry

 

Have a search on cloudynights, the Americans have found a couple of other eyepieces that have similar top surface to dioptrx. 

The problem is that we are using pvs-14 night vision and the objective connections are limited. The Americans use other types of NVD as well and some of the older models have more flexibility to attaching other adapters. They also use them direct into the focuser (without eyepieces at all).

The TNVC adapter and Televue eyepieces is guaranteed to work with the pvs-14 so if you don't want the hassle of failure and messing about then it's the best way forward.

I added more photos of the adapter in this thread

As Gavin says the real benefit of eyepieces >27mm is that it artificially increases the focal ratio which means brighter image and much more detail in nebula and many galaxy arms.

Plus if you know you can reach focus with 55mm plossl then  You know you can reach focus with NV. Especially key point for reflectors.

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You can just poke the NV into the eyepiece hole... the TNVC merely makes things all nice and solid. Normally I work at prime focus, taking the NV objective off and using a C-1.25” adapter and putting it in instead of the eyepiece. Partially as the PVS14 can’t do this and partially as it allows you to achieve dramatic focal reduction with ease the afocal has taken off. I have a cheap 55mm plossl that I need to make an “adapter” for... one that I can push the NV into, but not trust it to hold things robustly as I am not able to get things suitably threaded.

PEter

 

 

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Alan reports success going after galaxies. Planetary nebulae have strong green emission, where NV is less sensitive than in the far red. If a target is bright, then no reason you can’t add a Barlow/couple to a shorter focal length eyepiece and zoom in more. We mainly chase hydrogen nebulosity as its something that there is pl titular and that human eyes are very poor at seeing.

PEter

 

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42 minutes ago, kerrylewis said:

I think I understand this. It seems that the NV approach is mainly suited to larger targets. If I wanted to look at smaller targets such as planetary nebulae, for example, then NV wouldn’t assist much. Is that correct? 

My big dob lets me get to smaller faint nebula pretty easily but again that's with the 55mm plossl at x38 magnification. It's hard to explain to a non-NV user just how much nebulosity there is!  I switch to my Borg for alternative views of the larger stuff and low horizon stuff.

Objects like the Crescent are much better in the dob than the frac so it's not a case of larger targets only. The bubble and elephant trunk have been awesome plus too many others to mention...

Not had much success with planetaries and NV as peterw says. But with all the great nebula that come within your grasp I am sure planetaries may be less interesting overall. For planetaries you need a big dob where you can throw x400+ at them with an O3 filter. 

Once the thrill of all these NV red objects stars to wear off then at least I could mix it up with my big dob for some planetary nebula fun with traditional eyepieces but soon the galaxies will be back and I will only have eyes for them :) 

if you like Galaxies then it's amazing to see Hicksons at only x38 magnification. Almost unbelievable and they are not large targets!

Alan

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