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Observing with Small Apertures: 130mm and Below

Discussion in 'Telescopes and Mounts' started by Ray of Light, Jul 26, 2016.

Observing with Small Apertures: 130mm and Below

Started by Ray of Light on Jul 26, 2016 at 5:34 AM

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  1. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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  2. Dave In Vermont

    Dave In Vermont Well-Known Member

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    Is that the GSO Hdqs. in Taiwan, Mak?
     
  3. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    Google Earth took me there. I just put the address given on their page into it.

    No. 225, Wuhe St, Qionglin, Hsinchu County, Taiwan

    Screenshot 2018-10-19 at 10.47.12.png

    So I'm guessing it's somewhere in these pictures lol.

    Screenshot 2018-10-19 at 10.48.11.png
     
  4. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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  5. Dave In Vermont

    Dave In Vermont Well-Known Member

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    Looks familiar?
     
  6. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    As I said, no one stocks these anymore. I think GSO are trying to push the SuperView range. I'm pretty sure GSO are still manufacturing these reversed Kellners though. Some of them appear to have smooth drawtubes. I would have tested mine last night but I had a look at Mars and the Moon with my GSO Newtonian.
     
  7. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    Speaking of SuperViews ...

    svs.jpg

    I got this pair for my bino.

    svs2.jpg

    All I need is a decent night to try them.
     
  8. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    And I have a new 10 centimetre ED doublet.

    altair.jpg
     
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  9. Orion25

    Orion25 Well-Known Member

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    Nice set, Mak. Have missed your posts on here. Glad to see you back :)
     
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  10. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    Thanks Reggie. It's nice to be back. How are things going for you? I got to see Mercury with my 90mm Mak just before Christmas. I'd been trying earlier in the year. It was so warm Sunday I got a couple of hours with the ED72 ... and I didn't need a coat in February! There are upsides to global warming lol.
     
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  11. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    moonfeb1.jpg

    Sunday the 17th was fairly clear for a February day. Around 19:00 GMT I could see the near Full Moon high in Cancer. I believe it was in Cancer when I was born. It was such a mild evening I decided to take one of the small Mak’s out. So I started to sort out the 102mm SkyMax and gear. Then changed my mind and took the ED72 out. My reasoning was that it was light and more flexible, particularly as there is virtually no cool down, and I wasn’t sure how long I’d have before the inevitable clouds came. I set up at 20:00.

    ed72new.jpg

    I only took a few eyepieces out: a 28mm Sky-Watcher LET, 15mm and 4mm TS Optics Planetary HR’s, a 7mm Sky-Watcher UWA and a 6mm GSO Plossl. I only really expected to use the 4mm TS as it gives a nice 105x on the Moon. Which is a good magnification for the ED72 in average conditions.

    febstuff.jpg

    The first eyepiece in the 2” Baader Amici diagonal was the 4mm TS with a single polarising filter. And the very first thing I looked for was Schroter’s Valley. The terminator was still near enough for the valley itself, Aristarchus, Herodotus and the outlying regions to be nicely highlighted. There were transparency issues, which I expected, but I could see a huge amount of detail on the inner walls of Aristarchus. The Montes Harbinger could easily be discerned and the Seleucus and Schiaparelli craters had marvellous shadowed detail. Pythagorus further north was very dramatically lit by the terminator chiaroscuro. Highlights in the south include Schiller, Schickard, Gassendi and the Mare Humorum.

    moonfeb2.jpg

    I decided to push the envelope with the 6mm GSO/Barlow combination and go for 140x. I needed to swap diagonals to achieve focus and as I was standing to implement this I realised that there was other stuff in the sky to look at lol. The wispy cloud and decidedly humid conditions didn’t allow 140x to be as good as I’d hoped anyway. So I swapped the 2” diagonal back in and gave the 28mm LET a spin at 15x.

    littlebbig.jpg

    M44 (the Big Beehive) was hardly discernible but the Pleiades could be seen through a bit of haze. M42 was slightly clearer and the giant ‘S’ of Cr 70 in Orion’s Belt was gloriously visible. Switching to the 7mm UWA for 60x I got a nice view of the Trapezium. I found M41 (aka the Little Beehive) at the same magnification.

    littleb1.jpg

    The icing on the birthday cake was the Winter Albireo (145 G Canis Majoris) pair which looked like beautiful gold and blue gems hanging in space. I returned to the 4mm TS HR and had a final look at the Trapezium and the Moon for 105x. It was now 22:00 and the clouds were rolling in. I still couldn’t get over how warm it was for February. It’s normally not unusual for it to snow on my birthday.


    Astronomical images from Starry Night 7 Enthusiast and Moon Atlas
     
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  12. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    4ZhPo9M.jpg

    Oh yeah, I forgot, I have a new 80mm doublet as well.

    08Wom7H.jpg
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2019
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  13. Orion25

    Orion25 Well-Known Member

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    Very nice, Mak. I bet you can do some stellar stargazing and imaging with that! ;)
     
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  14. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    Thanks Reggie. I don't know about AP, I may have to sell the scope to pay for the photography gear lol. I nearly bought an 85mm TeleVue doublet but 2 grand is a lot for an 85mm doublet if you ask me.

    The ED80 is beautifully balanced and it sits on the AZ5 mount/tripod really well. At f/7.5 it is a nice, light and portable all rounder. I'm planning on using my 19mm Luminos with it. I also have a 55mm TeleVue Plossl for it.

    55tv.jpg

    It will give 10.9x with a 7.3mm exit pupil for 4 degrees, 35 minutes & 13 seconds TFOV.

    Raving awesome or what? lol

     
  15. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    0.jpg

    I decided on another ED72 session. The evening was pleasant and I didn’t need a coat for most of the time. I was set up by 21:30 GMT with a 31mm Baader Aspheric for 13.5x. Initially I thought I’d have more time before the Moon was high enough to be a problem. Seeing seemed above average and the transparency was better than I’d hoped. Orion looked good, the Pleiades too. I even tried an Orion SkyGlow filter on M42 for a brief period. Cassiopeia seemed quite clear and I spent some time there. Finding the Perseus Double Cluster was nice.

    1.jpg

    Eventually the Moon was too tempting and I switched to the 4mm TS Planetary HR for 105x (plus a Baader Single Polarising filter). I probably could have gone higher but the viewing at this magnification was very sharp and the Sea of Crises and its wrinkly ridge were dramatically highlighted against the terminator.

    2.jpg

    Langrenus was also very distinct. I really wanted to see the terminator highlighting the famous Rille of Petavius though as there’s only a short window in every lunation to view it properly. I wasn’t disappointed and Petavius was particularly detailed. The rille was delicately and very subtly shadowed by the terminator.

    3.jpg

    I decided to give my 14mm ES 82° a bit of a workout and revisit everything I’d found earlier with the 31mm Baader.

    14mm.jpg

    The Trapezium in Orion was surprisingly sharp and the Double Cluster was a beautiful sight. Earlier I couldn’t find the Owl Cluster in Cassiopeia with the Baader Aspheric. It usually takes at least 20x magnification for me to locate. The transparency and Cassiopeia’s altitude weren’t helping me, but I finally found it. I had a last look at the Trapezium and decided to pack up at about 23:00. Then, as I seemed to have worked up an appetite, I had a steak and kidney pudding. A delicious end to a tasty session!

    Images ~ Moon Atlas & SN7 Enthusiast.
     
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  16. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    The BBC Weather app reckoned it would be crystal clear from around 21:00 to 03:00 GMT. I was highly apprehensive of this claim, but the radar map seemed to substantiate that there would be no cloud even after 20:00. I had the ED80 set up on the AZ5 mount well before 9pm but there was hardly anything to see because of a thick blanket of cloud. However, there was a bit of wind coming from the south west and seemed to be breaking up the cloud layer. So I waited.

    ed80.jpg

    Nearly an hour later and the bright Moon made an appearance. I could see it fleetingly earlier but now there was more of a chance. With a modified William Optics Amici prism diagonal, a Baader Single Polarising filter, and a 7.5mm Plossl I got an 80x magnification. To my surprise the image was pretty sharp and clear. I think the seeing was near a good Antoniadi ‘I’ but the transparency was below average. The occasional breeze did slightly move the OTA but this and the transparency didn’t affect lunar viewing that much though. Eventually I was able to raise the magnifications to 100x, 120x and even 160x for a while.

    vista.jpg

    About the same time exactly a month ago (on my birthday) I went out with the ED72 to have a look at the Moon (I knew the terminator was nicely placed near Schroter’s Valley) as it was unseasonably warm. I can’t remember going outside with a telescope on my birthday before as it’s usually too cold or snowing or something. Oddly, it was cooler yesterday than in February! This time the terminator was virtually running right through Schroter’s Valley and the bottom of Aristarchus was too dark to really see anything. The Montes Harbinger were quite dramatically realised by their shadows and the ghost crater of Prinz was easily seen. Herschel and the Bay of Rainbows were very nicely illuminated. Other highlights were Gassendi and the Sea of Moisture.

    moon.jpg

    At about 23:00 the clouds had abated enough to try some rich field observing. I could see Cassiopeia and Ursa Major fairly clearly, but Virgo, Leo, Cancer and Gemini were hazy, the Moon being in Cancer didn’t exactly help. After observing Taurus and the Pleiades I moved to Cassiopeia. Carolines’s Rose, the Owl Cluster, NGC 663, M103, and other clusters were good at about 19x with a Baader 31mm Hyperion Aspheric in a 2” Sky-Watcher dielectric diagonal. Mel 20, St 2 and the Perseus Double Cluster were also very nice.

    cluster.jpg

    I decided to test my 32mm GSO Kellner for a while. These Kellners are not particularly expensive and don’t have a very good reputation in fast scopes. The eyepiece itself is quite light though and I wanted to see how it fared in an f/7.5 refractor. It produces a fair amount of off-axis astigmatism in my ED72 and is virtually unusable. The GSO (possibly a modified or reversed Kellner) has an FOV of 56º and I make the field stop to be 35mm. I’ve also swapped the drawtube, which originally featured an undercut, with a smooth tube from a GSO Barlow. The first thing I noticed viewing the Perseus Double Cluster sequentially with both eyepieces was how much brighter the Baader was. This surprised me to be honest as I believe both eyepieces only have three lenses in two groups. The larger FOV of the Baader was also apparent of course. I didn’t have enough time to really put the GSO through its paces but from what I can see at least 45º of the FOV is relatively undistorted. I’ll have to experiment more at a later date. I doubt it will replace the Aspheric any time soon!

    baaderGSO.jpg

    As the clouds were starting to reappear I switched back to the 1.25” diagonal and a 15mm Celestron Luminos for 40x and a 2mm exit pupil. Finally, spending the last quarter of an hour on the Moon with a 10mm Vixen NPL and a 2x Barlow for 120x.
     
  17. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    bMuCeIJ.jpg

    ED80 'everything I can get into just the case' Kit.

    4fbGLtn.jpg
     
  18. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    Last year due to ‘The Beast From The East’ the first time I managed to take a scope outside in 2018 was on Sunday, March the 25th. I watched a twilight Moon up until about transit with my 102mm Sky-Watcher SkyMax.

    aJ59c5b.jpg

    In 2019 things are noticeably different, and definitely warmer. Exactly one year later I got to take another 102mm scope out on the same AZ5 mount.

    st102mon25.jpg

    This time the Moon wouldn’t rise until about midnight so I took out my modified ST102 for some rich field viewing. For simplicity I only took four eyepieces out with me. These were a 31mm Baader Hyperion Aspheric, a 19mm TeleVue Panoptic, a 14mm Baader Morpheus and a 9mm Celestron X-Cel LX. The X-Cel was primarily to observe M42 at 55.5x before it became too low for me to view. I had set up by 21:30 GMT, the transparency wasn’t as good as I would have liked and the seeing was about Antoniadi II. So, more or less average for the time of year. The high humidity contributed to the transparency but it was more or less a cloudless sky.

    st102mon25eps.jpg

    M42 was up first with the 9mm X-Cel. The nebula itself wasn’t so defined as it was rapidly sinking in the west. The Trapezium was pretty good though even though the seeing wasn’t the best. I swapped the X-Cel for the 31mm Baader Aspheric and about four and a half arc degrees of field of view for around 16x magnification. All three stars of Orion’s Belt could be fitted into the FOV and the serpentine ‘S’ of Cr 70 was easily seen. The Cr 69 cluster was next followed by Cr 65. I moved on to Taurus and the Hyades, NGC 1746 and M45. The Perseus Double Cluster was easily found then M103 and Caroline’s Rose. In Cassiopeia I always look for NGC 457/ Caldwell 13 aka the Owl Cluster. It’s one of my favourite objects and was discovered by William Herschel in 1787. I turned to sweep Leo and Cancer. M44 was quite spectacular, although I’m still not sure why it’s often called the ‘Beehive’. I found the ‘Hunting Dogs’ of Boötes and Cor Caroli. As the transparency seemed to be getting a bit dodgy Berenice’s Hair proved less immediate. It’s normally a naked eye object for me but after a little bit of sweeping I found it.

    Screenshot 2019-03-26 at 13.16.32.png
    (Screenshot from SN7 Enthusiast)

    I’d spent over an hour with the 31mm Aspheric. This and the 36mm version are possibly among my most used eyepieces. I decided to give the 14mm Morpheus (The Dalek) a bit of a spin in Ursa Major and observed M51, M63 and M94. Finally, at around 23:30 I had a last look at the Perseus Double Cluster and Caldwell 13 with The Dalek, then decided to call it a night.
     
  19. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    Gremlins
     
  20. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    It had been clear all day so it was inevitable that wispy cloud would start to form just as I was setting up. By 21:30 the transparency was definitely deteriorating. The modified ST102 was all set and the first eyepiece in the diagonal was a Baader 31mm Hyperion Aspheric. This gave 16.12x with an FOV of 4º, 27’, 58” for a 6.32mm exit pupil if you want to be super precise.

    M52.jpg

    The first thing I looked at was an incredibly low M42 which I could just see as it was disappearing below a rooftop. I spent some time slowly sweeping in Orion and then north west into Taurus, Perseus and Cassiopeia. A highlight in Cassiopeia was M52 which I often overlook for some reason.

    Sunflower.jpg

    The overall seeing was good and the thin clouds were dissipating nicely. The transparency wasn’t as good as I would have liked but it was looking more promising by the minute. The Beehive and Coma Berenices were good at 16x and I made a sweep
    around Canes Venatici, Cor Caroli and then Ursa Major.

    xcel9mm.jpg

    I’d spent about an hour leisurely sweeping with the 31mm Aspheric and decided to look at the Whirlpool and Sunflower Galaxies with the 9mm Celestron X-Cel LX. I’d originally bought this eyepiece about three or four years ago principally for lunar and planetary observing. I normally used it in conjunction with an X-Cel Barlow on a Newtonian. It took me a while to get used to its weird and slightly unconventional shape (to my eyes). However I soon realised that despite its bumble bee colouring and futuristic appearance it was a very well ergonomically designed EP. I even liked its twist-up eyeguard and I’m not always a great fan of them. I did plan on acquiring more of the set but after buying and returning three 7mm X-Cel EP’s in a row that had visible debris I eventually decided on alternative 7mm eyepieces. The 60º FOV isn’t particularly wide field but is better than I thought it would be in a rich field scope like the ST102 and it gives me almost exactly an arc degree.

    Cor Caroli.jpg

    I revisited a stunning 'cor blimey' Cor Caroli with the X-Cel for 55.5x and a 1.8mm exit pupil. I also had a look at the Owl Cluster and the Double Cluster before ending the session with a last sweep of Cancer and Leo with a 19mm TeleVue Panoptic.
     

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