48 replies to this topic

[Takuan]

It is not from last night, but from a few years ago. For possible interest I include the report.

Location: mountain pass at 1700 m (5600 ft)
Sqm-L at zenith: 21.3- 21.5.
Instrument: Newtonian 6" (Skywatcher 150P) on a Omegon Twinmaster mount.
Binoviewer: Linear (Omegon)
Eyepieces: APM UFF 18 (42x; 1.3⁰) and Super Plossl Omegon 15 mm (50x; 1⁰).
Time: mid-February.

I observe the Auriga and Gemini clusters. The big ones look fantastic. Of the small ones, NGC 2158 is extensive but it does not resolve any stars (in bino). NGC 1907 looks smaller, but I do see a handful of faint stars.

M 31 and M 33 are a little low, but I can see, in addition to the two satellites, the first dust line in M31 and NGC 604 and the arm that leads to it (I'm not sure I can see the other arm) in M33.

M42 is spectacular. I remove the binoviewer and I see the same extension of nebula, although a little brighter. The flame is practically the same in bino and mono mode. I don't see the horse head in any way.

I take a look at Eskimo (without filter) and it looks small and lack of details, of course, but with greater extension than from the city.

Something happened with M1 that caught my attention. In bino mode I noticed a bit of mottling, which in mono mode disappeared. This reinforced my choice and I was happy to see in situ the effect of observing with two eyes.

I observed a lot of galaxies. Although with such a small aperture and low magnification, I could detect only the cores, some halos (in the brightest ones) and shape notes, binocular vision seems to me to enrich this type of observation.
M 81, 82, NGC 3077, 2976, 2683, 2841, 2903, 3227, 4565, 6207, sombrero...

That night I saw stars of m. 12.3 with the binoviewer and 13.3 in mono mode.

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Edited by Takuan, 11 November 2023 - 06:02 PM.

[noisejammer]

My transparency wasn't all that great last night, so I decided to do some experimenting with a few eyepieces.

 

My setup was my TOA150 / Tak 1.6x extender / diagonal (more on this later) / 1.25x GPC / Mark V / eyepieces. I didn't use any filters. The system was working at about f/15

 

My first experiment was with my elderly 35mm Masuyamas (~64x / 2.3 mm) . These are optically similar to the Zeiss Astroplanokular. I noted edge of field brightness and a strange effect that produced a bright centre region which became black as my eye passed through the exit pupil. Slight pincushion distortion was visible but vignetting was not visible.

 

Viewing Saturn, I observed some narrow angle scatter which caused the field around the planet to glow, I can't say whether this was produced by the atmosphere, the optics, eyepieces or my eye. It was even more pronounced on Jupiter.

 

I was thinking about purchasing a 20 mm pair of the new Masuyama Orthoscopic Plössls - I think my 35's + extender are quite adequate.

 

Next I tried my Tak 30LE's (~75x / 2.0 mm). I was quite surprised by the amount of pincushion present.. I noted that Jupiter stretched about 30-35% at the edge of the field. Again, scatter was noticeable but I did not notice the odd darkening at the centre of the field, perhaps because I could not get my eye inside the exit pupil.

 

Next up were my 22 LVW (~100x / 1.5 mm) and 14 Delos (~160x / 0.95 mm). The sky wasn't good enough to really get a good handle on their performance but I did notice I was forced to adjust the IPD as I changed eyepieces.

 

I have a large IPD (76 mm) and I haven't noticed this before. Perhaps it was related to me needing to converge my eyes to form an image. It's something to investigate next time.

 

Diagonal

Here it gets weird. Initially I was using my Zeiss-spec T2 prism. I could see very faint fringing on the limb of Jupiter - blue at about 2-o-clock and red at 8. I switched to an Astro-Physics Maxbright and the colours rotated so that blue was at 4-o-clock and red appeared at 10 or so.

 

Note that Jupiter was near culminating - about 50° above the horizon - so I don't think it was an atmospheric effect.

 

I'll try with other diagonals and perhaps see whether this is an artifact from my binoviewers.

[tturtle]

A few weeks ago viewing Jupiter with the BV and 9.25 SCT with fairly good skies I saw the moons for the first time not just as points of light but as tiny disks. Really cool.

[Jeff B]

Last night was one of those rare nights here with fairly steady 7 Pickering seeing, and bouts of 6 and 8.  

 

So I really enjoyed Saturn early on followed by Jupiter, then, for grins, Neptune and Uranus (and yes, I believe I saw the polar brightening).  All were just etched, allowing me to get up to ~350 X with a great pair of UO 18mm HD orthos with my Levatic CZAS viewer mated to a Denk Power Switch (picture attached).  I didn't want to swap out the 18s for my Clave 16s as I have nailed the R/L focus and didn't want to mess with it.  Also, higher power would just show more of the junk in my eyes.  

 

Actually the most pleasing views of Saturn and Jupiter were at ~260X, looking very sharp and etched.

 

Bino-viewing rules the planets and moon....the sun too, BTW.....and then there are double stars....

 

Jeff

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[Eddgie]

Saturn and Jupiter. Near perfect seeing for my aperture with a very very light fog. I was using my 130mm Apo with Baader 2" clicklock. While I don't need the GPC to reach focus, for planets I use it because without it, the color free Apo is no longer color free. Putting in the GPC makes the view perfectly color corrected again, so I use it for planets, lunar, and doubles. Eyepieces were the SVBONY 3mm to 8mm zooms. 

 

I took a look at Saturn a couple of weeks ago and it has not really changed much in angular size. Still beautiful but at this aperture, while you can see banding, the color saturation is not as good as with my larger scopes, but they rarely work at full resolution because of seeing (what is near perfect in the 130mm is not near perfect in the larger dob)

 

This was my first view of Jupiter with the new Apo, and I was pretty thrilled. Again, not the color richness of larger scopes, but still enough to see and the contrast across the disk was quite excellent. Moons were identifiable by size. It was the best view of Jupiter I have had in a few years. 

 

I used mostly the 5mm setting, which along with the GPC gives about 273x. The 4mm setting takes the power up to 341x I think, and for my eyes, this is too much. The limb was still sharp, but the dimming simply made it hard for my eyes to see the lowest contrast detail and with no power in between, 283x was clearly the better power for my eyes. 4mm was sharp, but just a bit to dim. Even using both eyes, floaters were aslo bothersome. Great view at 273 though. Lots of structure in the belts, one dark thin belt about 40% across the disk, very nice polar dome, a hit of structure in the equatorial band. 

 

One of the things I like about the Max II is that because the eyepiece holders don't rotate to focus, even though the zooms are a bit stiff, I can still rotate the zooms without having to worry about losing focus. 

 

At 4mm, I found it difficult to merge sometimes. To solution was to rotate both eyepieces in the holder so the problem is likely due to a slight tilt in one of the eyepiece zoom mechanisms. I could see that Saturn would move in a small circle when I rotated the right eyepiece. It could be the parfocalizing rings though. The 3-8mm eyepiece have kind of a long barrel and this means that the end of the barrel can bottom out on the rear prism retaining ring, so by using the parfocal rings, it puts the end of the barrel a couple of mm higher in the holder. 

 

I did a few doubles as well and I also used my image intensifer some I (even at f/7, the image intensifier worked pretty well. My first time using it in this scope).  I think I am going to get a focal reducer for it. Since the scope is binoviewer friendly, I have oodles of inward focuser travel.

 

Anyway, mostly I spent my time on Saturn and Jupiter and of that time. Jupiter is 45.1 arc seconds now, but it is growing and by Dec 1, it will be 47.9, so the best is yet to come. 

[Highburymark]

Mine was a daytime Ha session on the Sun. For quick observations I use TV85 and Solarscope 70mm filters. MBII, starting with 32mm Plossls, then 18mm orthos, and finally Nagler 13s for a full disc (only just a full disc, the Sun fills the 82 degree AFOV) at 120x. 
I need to get back into binoviewing the planets. I’ve been having such good results with single eyepieces recently that I rarely take the binoviewer out for Jupiter and Saturn. But the reports above whet the appetite.

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[Doug Culbertson]

The weather has been rather uncooperative lately, but I did get out last week for some Ha solar and again the same night for Jupiter and Saturn. While the planets looked great in my 10” dob, nothing benefits from binoviewing as much as the sun.

 

 I didn’t think to take a nighttime photo.

 

 

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[UnityLover]

It is not from last night, but from a few years ago. For possible interest I include the report.

Location: mountain pass at 1700 m (5600 ft)
Sqm-L at zenith: 21.3- 21.5.
Instrument: Newtonian 6" (Skywatcher 150P) on a Omegon Twinmaster mount.
Binoviewer: Linear (Omegon)
Eyepieces: APM UFF 18 (42x; 1.3⁰) and Super Plossl Omegon 15 mm (50x; 1⁰).
Time: mid-February.

I observe the Auriga and Gemini clusters. The big ones look fantastic. Of the small ones, NGC 2158 is extensive but it does not resolve any stars (in bino). NGC 1907 looks smaller, but I do see a handful of faint stars.

M 31 and M 33 are a little low, but I can see, in addition to the two satellites, the first dust line in M31 and NGC 604 and the arm that leads to it (I'm not sure I can see the other arm) in M33.

M42 is spectacular. I remove the binoviewer and I see the same extension of nebula, although a little brighter. The flame is practically the same in bino and mono mode. I don't see the horse head in any way.

I take a look at Eskimo (without filter) and it looks small and lack of details, of course, but with greater extension than from the city.

Something happened with M1 that caught my attention. In bino mode I noticed a bit of mottling, which in mono mode disappeared. This reinforced my choice and I was happy to see in situ the effect of observing with two eyes.

I observed a lot of galaxies. Although with such a small aperture and low magnification, I could detect only the cores, some halos (in the brightest ones) and shape notes, binocular vision seems to me to enrich this type of observation.
M 81, 82, NGC 3077, 2976, 2683, 2841, 2903, 3227, 4565, 6207, sombrero...

That night I saw stars of m. 12.3 with the binoviewer and 13.3 in mono mode.

Binoviewers divide light gathered in half, correct? If so, I can see the m31 dustland and an arm of m33 with ngc 604 from montauk point...

[Takuan]

Binoviewers divide light gathered in half, correct? If so, I can see the m31 dustland and an arm of m33 with ngc 604 from montauk point...

Hello, yes, correct. I don't understand what you mean about Montauk Point.

[UnityLover]

Hello, yes, correct. I don't understand what you mean about Montauk Point.

SQM 21.75 coastal beach. Has new york's first lighthouse (I think), big fish, and beautiful views. Only an hour away.

[Eddgie]

nothing benefits from binoviewing as much as the sun.

 

 

100% Agree. 

[kimcheese]

Unfortunately. Nothing. Option would have been viewing clouds.  Plan was to binoview Saturn and Jupiter.  Day before solar BV session in the morning. Sat and Jup in the evening, but viewing mono with the reflector.  Probably should have also set up the  refractor for BV, but too lazy and too much of cold temp wimp.  

[Takuan]

Last night I was looking at the moon with the dob. A short session before dinner. The seeing wasn't bad at all, and I set the 5mm eyepieces (Omegon Cronus WA) for 250x. One of the good things about the Linear is that the compression rings on the eyepieces work much better than on my BT. I put the eyepieces upright and the images were perfectly aligned.
Finally, the seeing got worse, and I switched to a 10mm Plossl. A small crater in Plato was the great feat of the night 😁. The eastern shadows of the ridges on the plane looked like the beard of an empty face (there are times when I feel like a gloomy landscape, but not yesterday).
The seventh day of lunation is one of the good ones and I had a good time, despite the "only" 120x. After a while, the clown face of the Cassini crater recommended that I go in for dinner, to which I quickly obeyed. As usual in these cases, dinner was especially delicious.

Edited by Takuan, 22 November 2023 - 04:35 AM.

[Rustler46]

I have previously posted this report in the binocular forum. But perhaps it is more appropriated to post it here.

 

Tonight (2023-November-25) was perhaps a day before full moon. So the sky is quite bright. But I've been enjoying a series of clear, but chilly nights. Having a touch of frost in the morning is what is considered cold for this coastal Oregonian. So I wouldn't wimper too much out of respect to those who endure temperatures in the 20's and colder. But surprisingly the air has been quite dry. Likely this is from the offshore breezes bringing dry continental air to my locale. Usually being so close to the coast, I have a moist airmass from the Pacific Ocean. So having no dew was a real plus. The only problem was at times the moisture from my eyes would begin to fog the eyepieces. An electric hair dry warmed them enough to prevent that.

 

So despite the Moon, I couldn't stand it any longer. Out came the AT115EDT APO refractor for some observing. I started mono-viewing to have a look at Uranus, quite close to Moon. Then I switched to my William Optics Binoviewer with a pair of 26mm Celestron Silvertop Plossls. Even with the William Optics 1.6X focal extender it wouldn't come to focus. So out came my trusty Televue 2-1/2X Powermate. That did the trick at f/17.5 and 2013 mm focal length. With those eyepieces this gave 77X and 0.65° actual FOV. I have come to realize that the supplied William Optics 20mm eyepieces with 66° apparent FOV would work better. Those would provide essentially the same 0.66° actual FOV with magnification being upped to 101X. The Celestron eyepieces give a lower power but essentially the same FOV. Live and learn.

 

Long story short - I'm going back to the William Optics 20mm eyepieces. I'm hoping their optical sharpness will be at least what those old Celestron Plossls provide. That will be tested in a future observing run.

 

So here's what I observed on 2023-November-25, mostly with my William Optics binoviewer @ 77X:

• Uranus     [almost 2 weeks past opposition]
  @ 183X (mono) - Focuses down to a little disc, no color can be discerned, at this power no stars are visible in the bright sky, @77X with WO Binoviewer one star is visible in the FOV, the planet is different in not being a star point but having a small extent
• Moon
  Some features along the limb near Mare Humorum & Gassendi are visible, @77X with WO Binoviewer, at first I was confused by the mirror image, but with the Sky And Telescope Moon Map (mirrored) I could correctly ID features, dark floored flat bottomed (slightly convex) Grimaldi is apparent along with Hevelius, Darwin & Byrgius are nearby further south, the double crater Sirsalis is nearby, then Schickard, Wargentin (lava-filled crater) and Phocylides are identified, Inghirami nearer the terminator is half filled with shadow, further south is a very large crater – Bailly, its far wall is illuminated with interior crater well seen, half of its floor is dark, there are some tiny little peaks or rocks inside – little speckles, further away from the terminator toward Tycho is the trio of Zucchius, Bettinus & Kircher these three right at the end of one of Tycho’s rays, further up the terminaor from Bailly you can see at least part of Le Gentil, but this is quite the spectacular view with the Binoviewer
• Jupiter
  With WO Binoviewer, has a real 3D effect, 2 belts are seen, 2 moons on each side
• M37
  ​Open cluster in Auriga, with WO Binoviewer, bright Moon causes grey sky masking fainter stars, there are two brighter members with perhaps 15 in all, they keep coming and going with the seeing
• M42, Orion Nebula
  Bright nebula – immediately identified as a gas nebula looking sort of like PacMan, low elevation of 14° makes for poor seeing, 4 stars of Trapezium are seen with the 4th star coming & going, there is a definite color difference among the 4, the brightest is sparkling all different colors, averted vision shows nebula with the quadruple star (Trapezium) at the hinge of the jaws, along the lower “jaw” is a line of 3 stars (brightest one closest to hinge of jaw), there’s another star visible on the upper jaw, an interesting sight despite the bright moonlight
• M31, Andromeda Galaxy
  ​This is just a really bright oblong glow, the inner core is brighter, averted vision shows the long extent of the much dimmer outer halo, this quickly fades into the sky background, I don’t offhand see the companion galaxies, I’m just soaking in this light that has taken 2-1/2 million years to get to me

In summary I was impressed with Uranus' non-stellar appearance, particularly mono viewing at 183X. It is amazing that William Herschel recognized its image as non-stellar, thinking it was a small comet since it moved. This was after there were at least 13 prior observations of Uranus by other observers. These had placed it as a "star" in an atlas or other sketch. It took the master observer to discern it was something different - the first planet discovered in historic times.

 

Clear Skies,

Russ

[TG]

30F in bright moonlight but clear and steady. Around 12am, the seeing steadied to where the Galilean satellites were stable disks with occasional flaring. Nice festooning on Jupiter. E/F in the Trap. Some double stars. Uranus was a sharp disk but no sign of any satellites (the Moon would have made it impossible anyway).

 

Equipment: 178mm refractor, 6" f/12 Mak, Baader Mark V, Maxbright II. Eyepieces: Aus Jena 15.6mm (microscope), Nikon 12.5mm (microscope), Takahashi TPL 12.5mm, Morpheus 17mm.

 

Edited by TG, 29 November 2023 - 03:48 AM.

[jtaylor996]

I started observing Jupiter mono in my 14" dob last night, and the seeing was just terrible. I kelp hunting which EPs would allow me to pick out details in the rare moments the atmosphere would sharpen. Ended up being a 13mm nagler.

 

Since I happen to have a pair of those, I put the scope in bino mode. It's a skywatcher dob with those parallel trusses, so I can shorten the tube a couple of inches (they even helpfully put a detent there for binoviewing), and pulled out the Denk for straight through operation (no GPC, etc).

 

Binoviewing certainly helps with seeing issues, but only just a bit.

 

After that the kids and wife came out and we also viewed M42 and the moon (which is always pretty jaw dropping in a 14" BV).

 

[Takuan]

Last night I had a short session with the dob in the city. Transparency was good, but he clouds only left me half an hour. However, I enjoyed it, since the sky had been covered for 10 days. I used a pair of 15mm Chinese Plossls for 83x and ~0.6⁰ on the Linear.

First one of my favorite areas of the sky in autumn. M 103 and its splendid orange star above the delicate little star dots of the cluster. Hence the mysterious Trumpler 1 and the superb C10.
The clouds were approaching, so I went to Auriga. Of the trinity of Messiers OC, I stayed for a few minutes with the compact and beautiful M37. I also enjoyed, despite not having sufficiently adapted night vision, a handful of stars in NGC 1907.
The sky was already very overcast, but I quickly took one last look at the Perseus DC. I prefer the view with a BT to frame the two members, but I enjoyed the last photons of the night from this galactic neighbor.

Edited by Takuan, 04 December 2023 - 01:46 AM.

[Rustler46]

Can anyone report on the quality of the William Optics 20 mm eyepieces? I know they are just run of the mill cheap. But 66 degree AFOV is a plus. I’m interested in the visual experience compare to others of that genre.

 

I discovered my Celestron Silvertop 26mm Plossls give the same true FOV as the WO eyepieces, just at a lower magnification. So if the WO eyepieces aren’t notorious dogs, the Silvertps will be sold.

 

Russ

Edited by Rustler46, 04 December 2023 - 05:24 PM.

[Doug Culbertson]

Can anyone report on the quality of the William Optics 20 mm eyepieces? I know they are just run of the mill cheap. But 66 degree AFOV is a plus. I’m interested in the visual experience compare to others of that genre.

 

I discovered my Celestron Silvertop 26mm Plossls give the same true FOV as the WO eyepieces, just at a lower magnification. So if the WO eyepieces aren’t notorious dogs, the Silvertps will be sold.

 

Russ

I liked the WO 20mm eyepieces that came with my WO binoiewer years ago, if you are talking about the same ones. The wide field was nice, and I didn't really notice any aberrations that jumped out. Until recently I also owned a pair of 26mm Silvertops that I thought were really nice. I certainly wouldn't consider the WOs dogs by any means. 

Edited by Doug Culbertson, 04 December 2023 - 06:02 PM.

[betacygni]

I liked the WO 20mm eyepieces that came with my WO binoiewer years ago, if you are talking about the same ones. The wide field was nice, and I didn't really notice any aberrations that jumped out. Until recently I also owned a pair of 26mm Silvertops that I thought were really nice. I certainly wouldn't consider the WOs dogs by any means.

That’s one of the nice things about binoviewing, the typically required amplifiers to reach focus make scopes give our eyepieces such a long effective focal ratio that even less expensive eyepieces tend to perform very well.

[kroum]

A few weeks ago viewing Jupiter with the BV and 9.25 SCT with fairly good skies I saw the moons for the first time not just as points of light but as tiny disks. Really cool.

Last week I had the same experience with a 10” reflector and my denk binoviewer.

 

I used my pair of 12.5mm Long Perng Plossls and the moons were indeed little disks and I could have sworn I saw just a hint of non-uniformity on their surface.

 

The detail visible on Jupiter was likewise very impressive and I saw both the GRS, as well as a very large festoon that seemed bigger and more apparent than even the GRS.

 

My coworker gifted me this old Orion 10” f5 OTA and after a couple of decades of using my own very astigmatic 10” f5, this new to me OTA is such a breath of fresh air!  It also has a 3 vane spider just like my 6” f5 reflector, which I much prefer over 4 vane spiders aesthetically.  Now I just need to upgrade the focuser to a low profile 2-speed r&p that can take the weight of the binoviewer and give me a little extra back focus so I can use the focal reducer arm of my power switch and shorten the adjustable spacer tube to maximize my low power wide field binoviewing ability…

[akdwivedi]

yesterday was a lucky day with a couple of hours of clear sky, enough to pull my celestron c6 with maxbright binoviewer. The target was Jupiter and with one click on az mount pro hand controller, it brought the gas joint in the center of the FOV. The maxbright with a 20mm eyepieces was enough to give a fantastic view of the gas joint and its 4 moons aligned in a straight line. I tried putting a 10mm ep pair but it was too much for the C6 and the seeing condition to handle and I switched back to 20mm pair. 

 

It was the best view of this year. I briefly moved the scope to see the Orion as well but it was Jupiter for most of the time before rainy season clouds rolled back in and I had to carry the scope with mount back to the apartment.

[noisejammer]

rain, rain, rain, rain.

 

It's that time of year.

[RAKing]

I have been dealing with a month's worth of clouds and cold rain.  But I finally got out last night and used my little Tak FC with a different FT adapter.  I have it spaced so I can use it with no GPC, but my preference is still with the 1.25x GPC.

 

Since I haven't been outside in a month, I did the usual Space Tourist stuff and looked at my favorite DSO, plus I did a couple of variable star estimates, and checked out some favorite doubles.

 

Everything I observe benefits from the use of binos, but some objects are better than others.  Last night, it was M27.  With a pair of 9T6 Naglers, I was treated to the usual "Picture Window in Space" view - and I also had a bit of the 3D effect that we get on some of our objects.

 

It was great to get outside again!

 

Ron

 

 

[Brollen]

Prior to the monsoon coming up the east coast, I had been using my Baader MB II binos with my SVX102D and SV90TBV fracs on a small balcony I have with a view of the eastern sky. Primary targets have been Orion and its star fields, nebula, the Trap and Rigel - its companion is easily seen - and other doubles. So much to see in Orion!

 

Later I turn my attention to Sirius once it gets high enough - still trying to see the Pup.

 

I use a 1.25” TV Everbrite mirror diagonal with the SV90TBV and a WO 1.25” Dielectric diagonal on the SVX102D. My EP pairs vary from the new AT PF 25mm and 19mm, to ES 68 degree 16mm and ES 82 degree 11mm. Great views with all these scopes, diagonals and EPs. I was using the 2.6x GPC, although the SVX102D also easily reaches focus with the 1.7x GPC.