Dave47tuc
26-01-2010, 10:48 AM
Observing report 25/01/2010.
Place: Main Ridge Victoria.
Scope: 5" Apo. Astro Pyhisics on AP600 mount. With William Optics binoviewer. 20mm and 15 mm eyepieces plus Barlow 2x. (see pic)
Seeing was poor to ok.
Transparency was good.
Purpose of the night was to Look at the Moon and Mars and Saturn with this set up. Also I wanted to evaluate some eyepieces I got with the 12" Dob.
We started with the Moon. Unfortunately the seeing was bad to just ok. Very shimmery but when the Moon was right on the meridian it sharpened up so we could use the 15 mm eyepieces. The view in the Binoviewer is very nice. Using two eyes on bright objects makes observing so comfortable. If you have not tried it do yourself a favour and find someone who has a binoviewer and give it a go. You will be surprised how good it is.
But with the seeing only ok at best we could not go to very high power. Also the Moon is in a quiet Northerly position as is Mars. But I sat in the chair and observed for a while just taking in the beauty of the Moon in a binoviewer. It was very relaxing and you could loose yourself in the view.
There where many fetures to look at, the terminator was quite distinctive with all its shadows, mountains and rills and craters aplenty.
Mars was suffering the fait of the Moon. Being so far North and in poor seeing. We had to wait till it was near the meridian to get any sort of view. But once there we could bump the power up enough to see the Polar cap, also many dark features on the planet. Sorry i did not have the year book with me to tell which ones they where!!! What did get me was with the binoviewer it was like i could reach into the eyepiece and pull it out! 3D not so much but a more satisfying view in a binoviewer. Colour was good with the very white polar cap and the pale orange on the disc and what to me was darkish blue features around the disk. You could see a major feature from below the cap to are large dark area to the South or North (anyone??) I hope someone takes a photos of Mars last night so I can look and compare to what we where seeing.
Moved to Saturn but it was still low in the East and yes that was Saturn with the rings starting to open up, but nothing to rave about.
I spent sometime evaluating eyepiece's that I got with the Dob. They are Bintel's 15 and 9 plossl's and 32 mm wide view. Now you can buy these for near nothing at Bintel or Andrew's They came with the scope are they any good, well yes not to bad. The 15 mm was just ok with a 15 mm tele vue plossl better. The TV had a little better contrast and was a little sharper. The field stop was poor on the bintel plossl.
I compared the 9 mm to a 8 mm TV plossl. the 9 mm did very well, the 8 mm was again a bit bitter in contrast, eye relief was about the same.
The 32 mm wide view was not to bad. It had field curvature but not to bad. Nice field and eye relief. Put it up against a few Nagler's and the Nagler's been many hundreds of dollars compared to the Bintel eyepiece for $70 odd it did very well. Yes the Nagler's where better on all counts and I did prefer them but if you could not afford them the wide view was very good.
Bottom line was all the better eyepieces where better, some by a fair bit. But the Bintel plossl's where very serviceable. Would they be the only eyepieces to own?
No! but if you could not afford any others they will satisfy you until you looked through a premium eyepiece then you could burn a big hole in your pocket.
But if you can not burn that hole the the cheap eyepieces will do you well.
That was the night, it was clear very peaceful and enjoyable to be under the stars. See you under them sometime. :) :thumbsup:
PS sorry about the pics taken with my phone!!!!:rolleyes:
Place: Main Ridge Victoria.
Scope: 5" Apo. Astro Pyhisics on AP600 mount. With William Optics binoviewer. 20mm and 15 mm eyepieces plus Barlow 2x. (see pic)
Seeing was poor to ok.
Transparency was good.
Purpose of the night was to Look at the Moon and Mars and Saturn with this set up. Also I wanted to evaluate some eyepieces I got with the 12" Dob.
We started with the Moon. Unfortunately the seeing was bad to just ok. Very shimmery but when the Moon was right on the meridian it sharpened up so we could use the 15 mm eyepieces. The view in the Binoviewer is very nice. Using two eyes on bright objects makes observing so comfortable. If you have not tried it do yourself a favour and find someone who has a binoviewer and give it a go. You will be surprised how good it is.
But with the seeing only ok at best we could not go to very high power. Also the Moon is in a quiet Northerly position as is Mars. But I sat in the chair and observed for a while just taking in the beauty of the Moon in a binoviewer. It was very relaxing and you could loose yourself in the view.
There where many fetures to look at, the terminator was quite distinctive with all its shadows, mountains and rills and craters aplenty.
Mars was suffering the fait of the Moon. Being so far North and in poor seeing. We had to wait till it was near the meridian to get any sort of view. But once there we could bump the power up enough to see the Polar cap, also many dark features on the planet. Sorry i did not have the year book with me to tell which ones they where!!! What did get me was with the binoviewer it was like i could reach into the eyepiece and pull it out! 3D not so much but a more satisfying view in a binoviewer. Colour was good with the very white polar cap and the pale orange on the disc and what to me was darkish blue features around the disk. You could see a major feature from below the cap to are large dark area to the South or North (anyone??) I hope someone takes a photos of Mars last night so I can look and compare to what we where seeing.
Moved to Saturn but it was still low in the East and yes that was Saturn with the rings starting to open up, but nothing to rave about.
I spent sometime evaluating eyepiece's that I got with the Dob. They are Bintel's 15 and 9 plossl's and 32 mm wide view. Now you can buy these for near nothing at Bintel or Andrew's They came with the scope are they any good, well yes not to bad. The 15 mm was just ok with a 15 mm tele vue plossl better. The TV had a little better contrast and was a little sharper. The field stop was poor on the bintel plossl.
I compared the 9 mm to a 8 mm TV plossl. the 9 mm did very well, the 8 mm was again a bit bitter in contrast, eye relief was about the same.
The 32 mm wide view was not to bad. It had field curvature but not to bad. Nice field and eye relief. Put it up against a few Nagler's and the Nagler's been many hundreds of dollars compared to the Bintel eyepiece for $70 odd it did very well. Yes the Nagler's where better on all counts and I did prefer them but if you could not afford them the wide view was very good.
Bottom line was all the better eyepieces where better, some by a fair bit. But the Bintel plossl's where very serviceable. Would they be the only eyepieces to own?
No! but if you could not afford any others they will satisfy you until you looked through a premium eyepiece then you could burn a big hole in your pocket.
But if you can not burn that hole the the cheap eyepieces will do you well.
That was the night, it was clear very peaceful and enjoyable to be under the stars. See you under them sometime. :) :thumbsup:
PS sorry about the pics taken with my phone!!!!:rolleyes: