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Hi Ed,
The cross that you mention are diffraction spikes caused by the vanes of the secondary's spider. It can be a symptom of a pinched primary too. Next time you clean your primary you can check the clamps to see that they a bit tight. But in a Newtonian with straight vanes you will get a cross, pinched primary or not.
The haze you see is not uncommon with bright objects. It comes from several sources:
* Light pollutions. A scope will collect not just star light, but ambient light pollution too. The larger the aperture you use in the Big Smoke, the worse the consequences.
* Dirty optics, namely the primary mirror.
* Quality of mirror polish. This introduces more scattering into the image, which appears as haze.
* Internal reflections within eyepieces. The better the quality EP the better the coating qualities to reduce these internal reflections and improve transmission. But also, the more lens elements, the more surfaces there are, and the more inevitable the internal reflections, even ghosting, there can be.
This last point, you can throw money at the problem with expensive EPs. Another options is to use EPs with fewer elements, like orthoscopics, or plossls, the TMB Planetary Type II 'clones', or splash out and get Monocentrics!
Alex.
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