Oh dear, I maybe in trouble. I ordered a better finderscope and accidentally dropped a Baader zoom eyepiece in the basket with it.
I probably need to lie low for a while.
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That Altair looks very nice indeed - I may have to look into that (pun intended).
I never got into zooms, but Iâd love to hear what you think of the Baader (my only zoom, long gone, was not the best quality).
You should be in for a real treat with Saturn and Jupiter right now!
The zoom eyepiece splits opinion but certainly works for me. I have the Baader Hyperion IV zoom and Barlow combination and being able to use the right magnification without having to guess is something I appreciate. I do have a fixed low power wide angle EP as well.
There are good reports of the much cheaper Svbony zoom.
@steviebee I was looking for a 90 deg finder with a rubber eyepiece, (the hard plastic finish of the original finder eyepiece has already led to me getting small scratches on my expensive glasses lenses) and this one seemed to fit the bill, at nearly half the cost of the main scope it was a bit of a "should I be doing this? " moment, but it is slowly dawning on me that I am spending a lot of time looking through the finder, so it might as well be a reasonable one. I found the set-up of the Altair to be more fiddly than the clever sprung mechanism of the stock skywatcher finder, but once set up I am hoping that it will stay in alignment for a while. I find the facility to focus the Altair a bit fiddly too as although the cross-hair and main focus rings are separate, they are âin seriesâ so refocusing the main moves the cross-hair around. The illumination of the cross-hair is useful when viewing dark sky, not that this is common where I live. Overall, and with my very limited experience I think it is a nice bit of kit, easy to use, presenting bright clear images, with a handy illuminated cross-hair and which is seemingly manufactured to a higher standard of quality than the main scope.
As regards to the planets, donât laugh, but as a complete beginner, I wasnât expecting much from viewing the gas giants as I am very much a glass half empty kind of bloke, my goodness I was wrong. Jupiter is fascinating, the fact that I could see the moons move during my viewing sessions and between days and see what appears to me to be the shadow of a moon hove into view on the surface of the planet really surprised me. Saturn was an even greater surprise, at 746 Million miles away, (Wiki quote!) I can clearly see the rings and the line between the outer and inner sections of the rings, I ran in to grab Mrs Roog to see!
@spile the purchase of the zoom eyepiece was a bit of âin for a penny in for a poundâ kind of purchase, based on a mention/recommendation earlier in this thread. I am not a big fan of zoom lenses on SLRs but I am smitten by the convenience. I guess I thought the same about Telescope eyepieces, the possible/likely degradation in clarity, (which as yet I have not noticed) is a compromise that I can probably live with given the ease with which I can now go from wide to narrow views. Ironically with my limited use so far I have noticed that I tend to swing from one extreme to the other missing out the indent settings in between. I have since noticed some more expensive Leica zoom eyepieces, I think I should stop looking at Astro sales sites for a while.
Itâs early days for me and I am still careering around the sky like an excited kid in a toy shop, so much to see. I did have a go at some popular deep space objects the other day and found them a little difficult to find, I did manage to track them down, but it is perhaps âtellingâ that I chose not to run inside to draw attention of these to Mrs Roog.
As you both appreciate, it has been a real treat.
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No point with a phone camera. Down in the Canary Islands for a couple of weeks. My wife and I are taken a back by just how large Venus is at the moment. Just huge, like a mini moon. Fantastic.
Glad to hear you had such a nice view of Saturn - a beautiful sight. I struggle to see the Cassini Division with only a 6" and London skies, but I keep looking.
And donât forget (sure you havenât!) our wonderful Moon - one could spend hours there!
Enjoy the deeps⌠Iâll bet you get a great view of M13 and the Ring Nebula.
I will definitely have a look at the Altair - it sounds promising!
psâŚif you fancy a challenge, try for Neptune. Iâve seen Uranus (steadyâŚ) - a sweet greeny blue dot - but havenât managed Neptune yet. Or was it the other way round? I forget - itâs been awhile!
It does feel a bit silly of me to get so excited about things in the sky that others have been tracking for years! The Cassini division, I believe that is the sharp line I can see in the rings? Given our distance from Saturn, I was surprised that it seemed to be clearer to me than Jupiter.
Yes the Moon is amazing and so bright, I can see why people observe it, the textures and visible height of the crater edges is what amazes everyone I have dragged in to see them!
I have not been very organised so far, following the Celestron appsâ, âwhats good in the sky tonightâ guides, but thank you for your recommendations, I shall check out M13 and the Ring Nebula once the clouds have moved on! I did spot M31 last week and given its size, I was a little disappointed at how fuzzy it was, perhaps clearer skysâ would help.
I will keep an eye on where the planets are, I have always marvelled at the different colours.
As to the Altair finder scope, I would never do as some here might proclaim, âyou need a NDX2 with 555 PSU at the very least to do justice to your rigâ. Being realistic, I find the 90 deg finder helpful and the rubber eyecup helps to protect my glasses, but other than that it is a bit of bling, (hey, its got red on it, it must be good), but it also happens to make my scope nose-heavy, so I have had to make some magnetic weights to counterbalance it.
Yes, Cassini is that dark line, a gap, between the Rings. I can just about see it on very clear and calm nights, but not to any great degree. London skies!
M31 is smudgy mostly for me too. Its fun when you spot the nearby galaxies M32 and M110.
There are so many lovely things to see: The Beehive, the Orion Nebula (a nursery of new born stars) & the Pleiades to name but three. One of my favourites is the star X Cancri in Cancer - a tiny red dot. It fills me with pleasure every time I see it!
Watching Mercury transit the Sun a while ago was amazing ( buy a Solar Cap - watching for sunspots is great!)
If the Altair is that heavy, itâs probably not a great match for my scope, sadly. But it does look the biz!
I wouldnât say that is silly at all. Mind you, I once got excited about seeing not Pluto. We spent an evening finding a very faint Pluto, using averted vision through a 20 inch tracking Dobsonian. The following night we visited the now very familiar bit of the sky and Pluto had of course âwanderedâ off. It proved that we had really seen Pluto.
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I will weight it and compare to stock finder:
Edit,
Altair with fixing bracket = 930gms
Standard with fixing bracket = 444gms
Having said that, its not as bad as with my Nikon camera body attached.
Youâre trying astrophotography? Kudos!
I only tried it once with an Orion thingyâŚtoo much hassle. I prefer to look at my real-time grey stuff, then look at othersâ marvellous photos.
LOL! I wouldnât call it that, more like hanging a camera off the focuser. I had bought an adapter ring for a few quid months before I received my scope so that I could try it. With no eyepiece in the chain I canât figure out what control I have other than focus. Tbh, I got more predictable images by holding a mobile phone camera to the eyepiece. I feel that some experimentation is required.
Perhaps like you I bought a dobsonian deliberately to avoid the âtechno-tangleâ and astronomical cost (pun intended) that is Astrophotography.
Yes, I thought the 6" dob offered ease of use and portability ( sits on the back seat of my wifeâs car when we go up North, with a seatbelt on, like a sullen teenager).
Later I bought a small (70mm?) Frac (I think theyâre called), which is even better for travelling.
I also tried a 90mm Mak, but never got on with it.
Iâve just taken my 8â Dobsonian to the Outer Hebrides in the back of a car to experience Bortle 2 skies and 100% cloud cover.
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Unfortunately, the forecast for the next couple of weeks is pretty dreadful so it would appear you are out of luck.
Not much consolation Iâm afraid, but the skies in the Outer Hebrides are truly stunning when the weather is good.
I can well believe that, itâs poor near where I live due to light pollution. I am currently planning a large wheeled trolley so that I can take my telescope to my neighboursâ very large grounds away from the street lights. I hope that this will help a little. Iâm not sure that they know this yet!
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I really didnât expect any clear skies in Scotland so no surprises and it was no major hassle to pack the Dob in the back of the car. Last night (back in Worcestershire) was my really first clear one so great to see Jupiter, Saturn and a few pretty doubles.
Early in this thread I said I was interested in moving to a bigger âscope, the Meade LX90 10â seem g to be the best balance of size and weight while keeping the goto capability. Well, that is exactly what Iâm doing, having found one at a good price on eBay, picking it up in a couple of weeks. Hopefully this winter will have enough cloudless nights for me to get to grips with it. Imaging may take longer to master, but is one thing I do want to try (currently researching techniques). When (hopefully!) I get that far Iâll post some pics.
Just thought Iâd mention these little beauties:
Vixen SG binoculars ( the very opposite of a telescope, being âonlyâ 2.1 x)âŚfabulous for wide field viewing - no focusing required. They really bring out a starfield - especially in poor skies though Iâve not had the pleasure of using them in good skies⌠one of the loveliest purchases Iâve made, in terms of pure stargazing.
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Interesting, I have not seen anything quite like them, like all hobbies once you start to browse the online shops you start seeing all manner of specialised stuff.
Which kind of brings me on to my recent expense. In the search for a glasses-free solution to viewing, I have bought a Tele Vue eyepiece and ordered a matching âDioptrxâ astigmatism corrector to go with it, the latter is not due for a while, but the eyepiece was in stock. Its a big oâl thing when compared to my âlesserâ 1.25" eyepieces!
Now all I need is for the clouds to go away!
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