Great views with 2" Barlow. Wow factor 10.

[Moonman]

A marvelous night last night. Got a good couple of hours in before the moon came to spoil the view.

I have procured some midrange equipment(on a budget at the moment) over the past month or so and finally got the chance to use them and I got some very pleasing visual results.

Got my first chance to use a 32mm GSO wide view plossyl (Ta Darren) and if performed well giving pleasing views of the orion nebula and the other usual favourites.

The best result i got from combining my Andrews 2" UW 80 deg with a 2" GSO achromatic barlow. The WOW factor of this combination was very high. It almost seemed like being there.

Had mixed results with Mars but with some experimentation I found reasonable views by combining the 32mm with some red/orange & blue colour filters and a 1.25" Barlow (Ta Dave Pretorius). It was slightly easier to keep Mars in the FOV with the wider view that the GSO gave.

I have a pair of 15 and 20mm GSO's turning up next month so hopefully the wider view these give will allow me to mag up some more without losing too much resolution of surface features.

If anyone has any tips/advice on getting good visual detail on Mars I'd be grateful.

Ta.

[janoskiss]

Glad you had a good time observing, Michael. :thumbsup:

On Mars, barlow with the GSO 20mm, and when seeing is not too bad, on the 15mm should give you pretty good views. But as Davo P has demonstrated last night, temperature might be a significant issue down your way. Maybe you'll need to invest in a fan. Just keep an eye out for Davo's posts on the issue. Let him do all the hard work for us first. ;)

Just to clear up a bit of a misconception: The wider view of an EP will not give you increased resolution; it just means it has a larger field of view for a given magnification, that's all. (Of course if it's a high end wide-view then it will have not only wider view, but better transmission, contrast, sharpness/resolution etc.)

[Moonman]

Thanks Steve
Looks like a fan might be the go for another purchase down the track along with the Nagler of course.

[Moonman]

Oh look at that 100 Posts! :P

[davidpretorius]

congrats on 100 posts Mike!

last night was very nice and clear, but the temperature kept falling and falling and falling. I went to bed at a round 12ish and got up at 3am and still the mirror was not at the same temp as the ambient.

I am running another test as we speak.

I got good detail using my 12mm and 2.4x barlow. Even with the 12mm i can see dark smudges at times.

For your scope I would suggest the 15mm barlowed to give you 7.5mm, but you may have to go a 9mm or a 7mm for those great nights when you want to push the detail.

Have a look at my 6.5mm and 12mm and the different barlows next get together in your scope. You will get a good feel for image size and detail if the seeing is good!

I will love to have a look at your 2" barlow if it is still around at the end of the month to see if the view is going to be better than the ultrawide 15mm of andrews????

We must also go thru collimation next meet!

[Moonman]

Left the whole lot out tonight for an hour and half and by 11.30 then went out with the 32mm/2*barlow and a yellow filter and seeing was much better. While still quite small overall thru the EP I could see very distinct large and dark surface feature.

I will most likely at some stage just have to get serious and bite the digital imaging bullet get a webcam and laptop and really have a proper crack at it. Maybe for next opposition. Add that to the fan and nagler of course!

The 2" barlow will definitely be a starter for next meet as well as collimation advice.

Happy hunting

Mike

[davidpretorius]

Well done, clouds have stayed away, so green light for saturn!!!!

[dhumpie]

Sounds like you had a great night. And good to know the 32mm is starting to get some starlight :)

Darren