Further Baader VIP evolution

Piero · February 27, 2020

As I've a couple of days off this and next week, I am revising my equipment a bit, which primarily means cleaning up and check that everything is okay.

This morning, I took sometime to improve my Baader VIP barlow (now barely recognisable!).

In particular, I added the standard ring 2"-to-T2 (which comes with the barlow) at the bottom of the 2" Baader nosepiece. This allows me to use 2" filters at the bottom of the nosepiece and just above this ring (see photos). Some tape was added so that the cap stays in place. This also facilitates the removal of the end component when the filter is added.

This can be very handy for planetary nebulae with my Zeiss zoom. With the VIP, the zoom operates in the ranges of 142.20x to 532.74x and 159.13x to 596.16x, with 1x or 2x 15mm spacers respectively.