Double first light - APM Superzoom and Baader BBHS Clicklock diagonal

[badhex]

Hello all

Finally managed to get an hour or so with clear skies to try out the new APM 15.4mm - 7.7mm Superzoom. It was also first light for my Baader BBHS Clicklock diagonal.

I was pretty worn out but didn't want to miss the opportunity, so I set up on the balcony for a quick session knowing that at least some of Perseus and hopefully Jupiter would be around in the bits of sky available to me. Transparency was excellent, but unfortunately seeing was pretty rubbish - it had been 38°C during the day and was still 30° even at 0045 😱 so I assume there was a lot of atmospheric disturbance from the heat.

Thankfully, the Double Cluster was well within reach so I selected that as my first target. Spent a while zooming in and out and playing with focus etc. Zoom EPs are somewhat of a novelty for me so this is all learning. I started by zooming right up to 7.7mm (93x) and focusing there, then dropping back down to the other end of the scale, per best practices I have read on SGL. I found it to be very sharp when focused but it did take some playing around to find something that worked well across a few focal lengths. I would say it is close to but not quite parfocal, as advertised. Seeing was not really helping either, so a nicer night is needed, plus some more practice.
With fixed FL EPs I often spend some time swapping around and finding the right balance between contrast, framing, background lightness etc. Obviously zooms are great for this particular exercise, however this is really the first time I have truly experienced it first hand with a decent eyepiece. It made a nice change from all the  swapping, even though the range is quite small. I eventually settled on 12mm (60x) which gave lovely views of the double cluster, great framing and a reasonably dark background sky (for Berlin).

At this point, Jupiter was out from behind the tree so I zoomed out to 15.4mm (48x) and shot from the hip so to speak, roughly pointing in the right direction, and located it after a few seconds of panning.
At power both the NEB and SEB were easily visible, although it was not really possible to pick out much more detail in the cloud bands. Partly I think this was the sheer brightness of the planet s well as the seeing. I tried a few different FLs just to get a feel for it. 7.7mm (93x) was also excellent and well defined. 

I had also brought with me my 2" GSO 2x barlow so I decided now was the time.

Starting at 15.4mm gives 95x, so just around where you leave off without the barlow. Although the seeing was very poor as mentioned, 7.7mm (185x) was still surprisingly good, although the image, although fine focus was an issue. Backing out a bit to 9mm (159x) turned out to be ideal, allowing much sharper focus. Banding was again very obvious, but no detail to be discerned in the cloud tops.

Feeling the draining effects of a relentlessly warm day, I decided it was time to call it a day, with a quick swing back to the double cluster at high power before heading off.

I've collated here at the end my thoughts which punctuated my original observing notes. Essentially, my very first impressions are that this is a great high quality EP and certainly on par with the optical quality and build of the other APM EP I own, the 24mm UFF. I did not have any obtrusive issues with AMD/barrel distortion which have been reported, although it was certainly fairly obvious when panning. This was a session concentrating on only a couple of targets, though, so perhaps other sessions with more panning may fare differently.
Changing FLs was very smooth, but it has been extremely warm weather here so we will see what colder weather brings. I noticed between the last two clickstops at one end of the range (not sure which) there is slightly more resistance, so I will again monitor to see if it persists or is just in need of breaking in.

My biggest problem, noted several times throughout, was the very long (for me) eye relief causing continual issues with eye placement and distracting from the view. That said, I personally think that longer eye relief is better overall to allow more comfortable use especially for glasses wearers who may not be otherwise not able to use a given EP. APM and KUO have given us multiple configuration options by adding the M43 thread which allows Dioptrx use, or for those that don't need the extra long ER such as myself, Baader M43 extension rings and eyecups can be used to fine tune the experience. I have already replaced the eyecup on mine with such an arrangement and it should hopefully be much more comfortable.

One final thought on the Baader clicklock. Obviously, it is a pretty much flawless piece of optical equipment - which one should hope given the ridiculous cost. I really like the clicklock system and it is easier to use than some other self centring twist-lock type mechanisms (the one on the Starfield can be quite stuff and unwieldy). That said, the clicklock itself requires very little rotation to safely lock EPs into place, and it behoves the user to be careful as to just how tightly you lock the mechanism. On multiple occasions I pushed the scope completely off target when trying to unlock the diagonal and switch the barlow in and out etc. Either way - it is a great and solidly built piece of kit - just hideously expensive which is understandably not for everyone.

[JeremyS]

Great report Joe. Sounds a winner.

And no undercuts. Who’d have thought it? 🤣

[badhex]

9 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Great report Joe. Sounds a winner.

And no undercuts. Who’d have thought it? 🤣

Thanks Jeremy, and yes - a delightful fact which I neglected to mention! 

[badhex]

@ED Splitter @bosun21 there's a very quick paragraph about the BBHS at the bottom of this first light report as promised 🙂

[Zeta Reticulan]

Sounds good, looks great. 

[badhex]

Quick update - I managed another hour last night on the same targets and under somewhat better conditions than the other day. The EP optically continues to amaze, and the added M43 extension and Baader eyecup has made eye positioning now perfect, so it was overall an even better experience! 

I also did a bit of panning around to check for AMD but again I didn't find it disturbing.