Thread: Lost is space
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Old 08-09-2009, 09:03 AM
astro744
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astro744 is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 1,244
I find a low power sweep of the sky to be very rewarding and may I recommend a Tele Vue 32mm Plossl, currently available at a very good sale price in Aus, to give you 28x mag. and 1.7deg true field in your telescope and an exit pupil of about 4.5mm. (I'm working on 900mm focal length & 130mm diameter mirror).

This will be your premium low power sweeping eyepiece that you will use most often. You can then add a premium 2x Barlow to complement the eyepiece at a later stage to give you in effect a 16mm eyepiece. If you wear glasses and need the eye relief go with the Tele Vue 2x Barlow and perhaps later a 3x Barlow. If not go with a 20mm or 15mm (or both) Tele Vue Plossls to complement the 32mm Plossl. This will form a premium Plossl set that you will enjoy using very much. The are also 25, 11 & 8mm Plossls that complete the set should you want other powers without the Barlow.

Since you are close to the CBD, a UHC filter will help and there are plenty on the market to choose from each with different characteristics. In fact there are now some very low cost UHC & O-III filters that may be worth trying. The narrowband UHC & O-III are for boosting the contrast on an object once you have located it. They are not meant for use whilst sweeping since they can block out too many stars. For sweeping a more gentle filter is desireable but then you wont get as much a contrast boost as with the narrow filters but for your location a more gentle filter can be left on the eyepiece just to darken the backround a little but you may find galaxies disappear or become fainter with a filter in place.

There is another way to darken the backround and that is to use an eyepiece wihich will give you less exit pupil and may I suggest the Tele Vue 24mm Panoptic. It is costly but will give you a beautiful 1.7deg (68deg apparent field) at 37x and 3.5mm exit pupil.

As far as Saturns rings go; well the planet is setting soon after sunset at the moment, but its rings are edge on. The rings will slowly open up over the next 7.5 years after which they will start closing again.
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