|
I was looking at Saturn at around midnight on the 24th and the seeing here in Mildura that night was excellent (best I've seen in months - it's been awful this summer).
I could clearly see the Cassini division using my 6 mm eyepiece and didn't need to resort to averted vision. I could also see the (limited) variation in cloud colour and darkness reasonably well.
I hated the GSO 6 mm Plossl, which is why I replaced it early. The minute eye relief and tiny eye lens make using it unpleasant. However, this is inherent in the Plossl design. I think a 9 mm Plossl is the lowest focal length that is comfortable to use. If you do replace your 6 mm don't get a Plossl if you don't like the one you've got! On the other hand, I have found this summer, that the seeing has very rarely been good enough to use the 6 mm, so beware that if you spend a bit more money like I did, you won't use it all that often.
On the 24th I played around with my GSO 2x Barlow as the seeing was so good. My 9 mm Barlowed gave views with similar detail to my 6 mm on it's own, but with a larger image. My 6 mm Barlowed, was a wonderfully large image, but probably showed less detail than when not Barlowed.
Sorry if all that is a bit waffly, but hopefully it gives you some idea of expectations from another relative newbie.
|