Vixen Erect Image Adaptor? - for a reflector?

[erick]

Does anyone have experience of this adaptor?

http://www.myastroshop.com.au/products/details.asp?id=MAS-173

Though I've been using my scope for months now, I still have trouble inverting everything in my brain when going from charts to sky to scope. For an obvious target, it's not a problem, but for a faint or small target, I really need a good "picture" of the starfield. I really struggled the other night trying to get onto the Saturn Nebula which, as I recall, was in a pretty non-descript starfield. I wonder whether this adaptor will make my life a lot easier when I'm searching through the stars and comparing to charts and binocular view? The object would be to find the target, then pull the adaptor out and work without it to study the object with selected eyepieces.

I'm guessing the main disadvantage would be additional surfaces/lenses leading to light loss and possible reflection problems? What does it do to the apparent field of view of an eyepiece, say my 32mm TeleVue plossl (50 deg) which would probably be the 1.25" eyepiece I would be using with this adpator to find objects?

I do like the idea of trying it with terrestrial viewing and the Moon. I notice that the advertising specifically does not mention anything else in the sky. Is it is completely unsuitable for astronomical purposes, even for the purpose I propose for it?

Thanks
Eric

[erick]

No comments?

[iceman]

There was a thread in the beginners forum about using a diagonal on a newt. Maybe it's answered there?

[Terry B]

I haven't used one.
I agree that it is hard to get your head around the image reversal. I cheat now mostly and use goto but when I am trying to find something specific I print a chart already reversed from Skymap Pro. I'm sure all of the planetarium programs can do this.

[erick]

Thanks Mike and Terry. :)

[erick]

OK, I bought one from My AstroShop. Wish I could have got the current "Blowout" price from the Vixen shop in America - $US38 - but they won't ship outside the USA. The only site I found that would ship wanted so much for shipping that the lower price - some $US65 - didn't make it worth buying from OS. I could have thought of various ways, but I wanted it now and buying locally I had it in my hands in a couple of days.

Tried it tonight on the Moon. I thought it performed quite well. It made no major differences to the views through my 32mm and 20mm TV plossls. The image was exactly the orientation I see by naked eye and binoculars - just what I wanted! It was funny, however, moving the scope. I have trained myself well, so I kept heading the wrong direction :lol:. But I got the hang of it. Next to try it on a starhopping exercise. I'll wait for dark skies.

BTW, I was pretty happy with the seeing tonight. I pushed up to 600x :scared: using 6mm Vixen and TV 3x barlow, and still had good detail at the terminator (very close to the limb now). Had a bit of fun with my 10mm Vixen in a stack of the 3x barlow and my GSO 2x barlow - somewhere around 680x! Still seeing enough detail to make it worth trying. (Of course, not using the Vixen image erect for this fun and games! If I did, and could reach focus, I'd almost be stretching to reach the scope, since the stacked barlows, image erect and eyepiece would have been a huge length ;)).