Great session with 14 inches of aperture

[John]

I've just come back from a great evening spent with some astro society friends.

We spent it at one of our members house. He has a 14 inch Meade SCT in a roll off shed and pretty dark skies for this area. I took my box of Ethos eyepieces and we had simply superb views of late summer / early autumn targets including M57, M27, Mars, Neptune, Triton M31, M32, the Veil Nebula (in pieces - it's a 3.5 metre focal length scope !) The Blue Snowball, Mirach's Ghost, M33, NGC604, M13 and others.

The image scale that the scope presented seemed huge to me - even the 21mm Ethos was giving 166x. The targets looked really spectacular though, especially M13, the great gobular cluster in Hercules. Stars resolved to the core and the "propeller" dark rifts were clearly visible. I've never seen M32 looking so large and bright - there seemed to be a lot of space between it and that huge extended core of M31.

The Western Veil really did look like a flowing river as it twisted past 52 Cygni and the Ring nebula seemed to show hints of colour to several of us.

Those 14 inch SCT's are beasts though, when you are stood right next to one

I've only used Ethos eyepieces in dobs up to now but these 100 degree monsters seem to open up the sky in SCT's as well - The view of M13 with the Ethos 21 actually elicited gasps from several observers.

Really good fun and sociable as well

 

[Paz]

That's a great night out - I've seen those big SCTs at shows, I wouldn't fancy lifting one!

[bluegoatwoods]

Three and a half meters???!!!

I wouldn't have thought it was possible. Yes, that does sound like a beast of a telescope.

[John]

8 minutes ago, bluegoatwoods said:

Three and a half meters???!!!

I wouldn't have thought it was possible. Yes, that does sound like a beast of a telescope.

Yep - the SCT had a 355mm clear aperture and a 3550mm focal length.

It's a big scope:

[Sunshine]

Amazing! i would love to have a peek too.

[Aldebaran5]

I too had a good viewing session last evening, The first for a long time. after carefully cleaning the mirror a few days ago it was well worth it.  I managed to successfully align the scope to so I could go to any object. with a 17mm eyepiece,

the sky was a joy to see. Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies, with Mars and double stars the targets, it was really a good viewing session. roll on some more.

 

[DirkSteele]

My Ethos 21mm in my C11 is a great match!  They do work well with these monster focal length scopes

[Stu]

Excellent session by the sounds of it John. Those big SCTs are certainly beasts. One of our members has a 12” RC on a big fork mount, and as you say the image scale is fantastic; I recall seeing M82 filling the eyepiece with great detail.

When I had my 8” Mak, with 4000mm focal length, I used the big 2” ultra wides to try to keep the mag down and fov up. The results on globs with that scope were fabulous.

[Geoff Lister]

The sky over the Bristol area was certainly clear last night, and no moon, so fine for DSOs. M57 looked spectacular through my 10" Dob.

Geoff

[estwing]

Excellent stuff John, sounds like a great night was had.

Can't beat getting the target right up in your face and studying the detail.

[bish]

Great report. Can’t say I’m not jealous. I remember seeing M51 for the first time with a 16” under dark skies. Seeing the spiral structure was fantastic.  I always like to read other people’s accounts when they have had a good session.

[Chris]

Those 100 degree eyepieces work wonders with any SCT 8" and above. I think they vignette with the smaller SCT's though? I very much enjoyed the ES100's with the 8" Edge, especially the 20mm given 2mm exit pupil, great on DSO's. 

I can only imagine the 14" views, nice report John!