The Sky at Night - Sun 9 Jan 2022

[AstroKeith]

1 minute ago, Deadlake said:

In what way, NV is mono chrome so is scotopic vision?

See below video, some thing like this would of been good on last nights program.

True scotopic is mono, but the dynamic range of the eye is so much better than a screen. Your attached video, while excellent, shows this lack of dynamic range very well.

Its a personal thing too - I dont want to spend my observing time looking at grainy, sparkly images with overblown stars and the faint wisps of nebulosity missing.

As I said above, NV has its place, but not when you are trying to see the interactions between two Arp Mag 14 galaxies, each just a few arc mins across.

 

[AstroKeith]

9 minutes ago, GavStar said:

Is it Gen 1 technology? The gen 3 technology shows a really good range and resolution, and picks up faint galaxies nicely. In particular, it really shines on nebulae with an appropriate ha filter.
 

I’ve recently posted some phone photos of an observing session I had at the weekend on the EAA discussion section.

 

Its Gen 3.

[GavStar]

1 minute ago, AstroKeith said:

Its Gen 3.

Do you know the specs? There is a wide range of quality of gen 3.

I also find having manual gain is critical to be able to remove the scintillation and get that natural glass eyepiece experience (not grainy or sparkly and absolutely loads of very faint wispy nebulae visible which are invisible using glass eyepieces)

[AstroKeith]

I'm going to stop here as I'm not going to get drawn into an argument.

I've said NV has its place and can be better for some people and tasks. Not for me on my current lists where x400 is usually needed just to resolve the object.

[DaveS]

Is Astrograph still selling NV? The last time I saw prices I thought "I could put together a quite nice little imaging set up for that money".

TBH I would much rather go deep with imaging or use direct eyeball than any form of NV.

[Deadlake]

18 hours ago, DaveS said:

Is Astrograph still selling NV? The last time I saw prices I thought "I could put together a quite nice little imaging set up for that money".

TBH I would much rather go deep with imaging or use direct eyeball than any form of NV.

OVNI decided to sell direct only. I hear where you are coming from on imaging versus NV cost however I don't have time to do the post processing and want a view that is real time. 
Also I don't have the time to go to a dark site, even although my garden is SQM 20.89 it's not dark enough for what I want to see. Most of the NV users I know in the states want to go deep  and have 24" to 30" Dob. What they do not have is a contrast boost, i.e. live under SQM 21.8 skies.  For sizes of aperture of scope available to amateurs no amount of aperture going to help with a SQM below 21, you need a different guide of optical assitance and aperture in this case is not the answer. 

Edited January 11, 2022 by Deadlake

[GavStar]

On 10/01/2022 at 17:47, AstroKeith said:

I'm going to stop here as I'm not going to get drawn into an argument.

I've said NV has its place and can be better for some people and tasks. Not for me on my current lists where x400 is usually needed just to resolve the object.

Agreed that NV has its place and better for some tasks and completely unsuitable for others. High quality units are obviously expensive as well.

However, I think it’s important to recognise that there is a very wide range of quality with night vision monoculars and the views given will differ greatly as a result, so your experience with night vision is likely quite different to mine. I note from a comment you made on another forum that the nv eyepiece you used did not have manual gain control - that would explain why you got grainy, sparkly views and were disappointed with what you observed.
 

Hopefully it’s clear from the phone pics I have posted over the past few years on sgl that high quality night vision units can give very natural looking views.

Edited January 12, 2022 by GavStar

[Stu]

37 minutes ago, Deadlake said:

OVNI decided to sell direct only. I hear where you are coming from on imaging versus NV cost however I don't have time to do the post processing and want a view that is real time. 
Also I don't have the time to go to a dark site, even although my garden is SQM 20.89 it's not dark enough for what I want to see. Most of the NV users I know in the states want to go deep but without having to roll out a 24" or 30" DOB and then they find they can see more DSO's with NV they make their choice. Well to be honest some of them use NV in a 30" DOB to see even more...

Which NV do you have Martin?

[Deadlake]

12 minutes ago, Stu said:

Which NV do you have Martin?

I have an ONVI B, last one sold by Astrograph. Harder tube specs below. 



Still waiting some of the filters to turn up, all early days... Also a 20 mm XWA and 10 mm UFF, not felt the need to post.

Gavins new tube is of course twice as good. 😀
 

Edited January 10, 2022 by Deadlake

[PeterW]

More better….  that tube is likely a dozen times better than mine and infinitely better than it using NV (on many nebulae).

Do post, it’s always nice to hear how’s offering people get on with different kit.

Peter

[Deadlake]

16 hours ago, PeterW said:

More better….  that tube is likely a dozen times better than mine and infinitely better than it using NV (on many nebulae).

Do post, it’s always nice to hear how’s offering people get on with different kit.

Peter

Will do. Have some filters arriving as well. Of interest a Baader 6.5 nm f2 H-Alpha which is getting good feed back int he US. I'll see how the NVD contrast booster works in conjunction with these filters.