Eyepiece cases clean up today..

[F15Rules]

Having had hardly any sessions for several months due to the appalling weather, but now with the real prospect of some clear skies this week, I decided to give my eyepieces and optical accessories a proper clean today with my trusty Baader Wonder Fluid and cloths..

(Dis)Organised chaos on the kitchen table!

First job to empty the two cases and get rid of bits of fluff, dust, foam fragments etc..

Firstly cleaned my 3 binoviewing pairs..back to front: Meade 4000 32mm, Carton Japan 10.5mm Wide angle 67 degrees, Tak Abbe Orthos 12.5mm. Plus not shown Baader Zoom barlow 2.25x and W.O. 1.6x nosepiece.

Back in their case with a couple of loose 1.25" eps and winged eyeguards.

Next, the "big guns"..all used in 2" format for cyclops viewing:

Left to right: Orion Japan 2x Big Barlow, Pentax Japan XL 8-24mm Zoom (wears a 2" to 1.25" clicklock to aid in equalising weight and scope balance), decloaked Axiom LX 23mm 84 degree UWA (think Vixen LVW 22mm on steroids), and decloaked Axiom LX 31mm 82 deg UWA (truly breathtakingly sharp super wide low power views in my FS128).

Hopefully, most or all of these will see starlight in the next hour or so!

Clear Skies, All!😊

Dave

 

Edited January 15 by F15Rules
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[Highburymark]

Excellent job Dave. Nice collection of eyepieces covering all needs. 

[F15Rules]

Thanks Mark😊.

I did get out last night for about 2 hours in total, with a hot drink break to thaw out a bit..

The best view I had was early on..the sky was transparent, and I put in the Axiom LX 23mm 82 deg (its actually been measured on Cloudy nights at about 85 degrees!!) to look at M42 and the Trap: after such a long layoff due to bad weather mainly, I hadn't yet had one single decent view of my favourite constellation..

I was genuinely shocked at the view in a real "Wow" moment..in the FS128 the 23mm gives 45x magnification, so the Trapezium looks quite small. But in such a large field of view, the overall vista was just amazing..black sky background, sparkling stars everywhere, from iota Orionis, the Nebula itself, looking so sharply defined around the Fishes Mouth, to the NGC1973 area..just beautiful!

I think that single view made it worth getting togged up for the Arctic conditions!

Dave

 

Edited January 16 by F15Rules
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