31 replies to this topic

[maniack]

I think the use of high magnification (Exit pupils less than 1mm) are highly subjective.  It may depend upon on eyesight and visual perception  I have a very good Orion 100mm f/9 FPL53 refractor, (Same as skywatcher) and I still find .7mm the "best" view for me.

 

I have use .5mm EP (200x) on the moon.  That is a much brighter target.

For me 0.5mm exit pupil results in too many floaters, except with the moon it tends to be OK. The effect is worse on my larger scopes.

[Nautilus]

Here is a thread which the OP should take time to read.

 

Celestron Omni AZ 102 Discussions and Input - Owners Only Please

 

https://www.cloudyni...celestron omni

 

 

There have been 261 posts about this scope by members.

[CollinofAlabama]

kqle,

 

I've owned something similar, the Orion 100mm F/6, some time ago.  Regarding chromatic aberration filters, this old article from 12 years ago is still pretty good, I think.  Regarding exit pupil business, you'll have to determine this for yourself.  Maybe you shouldn't spend a fortune on this scope, although you could spend quite a bit of money enhancing it with the ultimate goal of using those enhancements with something like the AT102ED.  If you want to do that, definitely an upgrade in the mount to something like this, the AZ-5, is a good idea.  Of course, you're getting into the purchase price of a 6" dob with that mount.  One can get things used, besides mounts and including dobsonians, of course.  And living in California, you may have more options than most in that regard.

 

For eyepieces, I recommend the 5mm & 12mm Paradigm eyepieces from our sponsor for low cost, as well as the AstroTech UWAs.  Not all the Paradigms are of the same quality, the 5mm and 12mm being the standouts.  The same is true of the UWAs, but I'd say the 7mm, 10mm, 13mm and 28mm models are particularly good -- and they are 82° widefields, pretty nice, making tracking easier.  You will need something like this to take advantage of 2" eyepieces in a refractor.  Your 100mm F/6.6 will be a nice widefield instrument, btw, and would pair well with a 1200mm focal length dobsonian.  The dob would show much better lunar, planetary, globular and galaxy detail, but your refractor would frame large items in the sky overall better, star clusters and the like.

 

Good luck

[CollinofAlabama]

As an amendment to what I wrote above, you would probably not need to purchase all of these eyepieces.  Also, you will need to keep your own predilections concerning eyepieces in mind.  Some people have astigmatism such that they must wear glasses when looking through an eyepiece, and, consequently, will require an eyepiece with somewhere near 18mm or more of eye relief.  I don't wear glasses, and although I am not fond of extremely short eye relief (don't like Televue Plossls below about 20mm), I can handle the BCO 10mm without issue (it's volcano top helps a lot), so don't have issue with relatively short eye relief.  Therefore, everything I recommended above works for me.  Will it work for you?  An important consideration.  If you require long eye relief, in my opinion, one would be hard pressed to get better than the Pentax XW series.

 

Telescopes mounted in a manual tracking manner, like most dobsonians and all fairly inexpensive alt-az mounts, are greatly facilitated by eyepieces in the larger Apparent Field of View (AFOV) category.  I find that those at 62° and above greatly advantageous.  The Paradigms, at 60°, are a little below that.  For the 12mm model, this wouldn't matter much, but for the 5mm, it would be more difficult to manage.  You could consider only getting the AstroTech UWAs and getting something like the GSO 2.5x barlow (which operates more like a 2.1x barlow).  The 7mm AT UWA (which operates as a 7.5mm or 8mm eyepiece) would barlow down to something very, very powerful, in the 3.6mm to 3.8mm eyepiece equivalent, something you probably couldn't do very often unless the skies were very steady.  The 10mm would barlow down to an equivalent 4.76mm eyepiece, the 13mm to a 6.2mm eyepiece.  This barlow business would permit these three (and mostly commonly, two) to be barlowed to greater facility for you, so you wouldn't need the Paradigms at all.  Besides, with a 10mm and 13mm 82° AFOV eyepiece, a person wouldn't need the 12mm Paradigm.  Likewise, if you had the barlow, the 10 & 13mm eyepieces barlowed would again negate the need for the 5mm Paradigm, since these would still have the 82° AFOV, even though they'd operate at 4.76mm and 6.2mm equivalents.

 

Good luck

Edited by CollinofAlabama, 03 May 2025 - 12:19 AM.

[kqle]

kqle,

 

I've owned something similar, the Orion 100mm F/6, some time ago.  Regarding chromatic aberration filters, this old article from 12 years ago is still pretty good, I think.  Regarding exit pupil business, you'll have to determine this for yourself.  Maybe you shouldn't spend a fortune on this scope, although you could spend quite a bit of money enhancing it with the ultimate goal of using those enhancements with something like the AT102ED.  If you want to do that, definitely an upgrade in the mount to something like this, the AZ-5, is a good idea.  Of course, you're getting into the purchase price of a 6" dob with that mount.  One can get things used, besides mounts and including dobsonians, of course.  And living in California, you may have more options than most in that regard.

 

For eyepieces, I recommend the 5mm & 12mm Paradigm eyepieces from our sponsor for low cost, as well as the AstroTech UWAs.  Not all the Paradigms are of the same quality, the 5mm and 12mm being the standouts.  The same is true of the UWAs, but I'd say the 7mm, 10mm, 13mm and 28mm models are particularly good -- and they are 82° widefields, pretty nice, making tracking easier.  You will need something like this to take advantage of 2" eyepieces in a refractor.  Your 100mm F/6.6 will be a nice widefield instrument, btw, and would pair well with a 1200mm focal length dobsonian.  The dob would show much better lunar, planetary, globular and galaxy detail, but your refractor would frame large items in the sky overall better, star clusters and the like.

 

Good luck

Thank you for the recommendations!

[kqle]

Here is a thread which the OP should take time to read.

 

Celestron Omni AZ 102 Discussions and Input - Owners Only Please

 

https://www.cloudyni...celestron omni

 

 

There have been 261 posts about this scope by members.

Very useful link. 

[Arkade]

Yes, at somepoint a better mount/tripod would be good. Perhaps I'll purchase a better telescope/mount in the future as well as a Dobsonian. Your tube rings with handle looks like a good option, especially since the original dovetail is still in place and you didn't have to remove it. Thanks for showing.

An 8 inch dob is very reasonable brand new. In the UK, you can get a good gso 8 inch dob,fan,25mm eyepiece for $477 US dollars (£360) and there are always on the used market too for a lot cheaper