I thought about starting a new topic, but thought I'd keep the mak loving in one place
I'm still getting used to the big(ish) mak, and it keeps amazing me with the views. Its been a bit cloudy lately, but the skys were clear last night, so I took the skymax out to cool when I got home. Several hours later I went outside to find high level clouds over most of the sky
I had set everything up, so I was damned if I wasn't going to at least have a little look around. Very brief views of Jupiter with surprisingly good views given the smattering of cloud (until it disappeared behind the clouds).
OK. The moon. It was in the clear for a bit, and even though it was full, It was all that was on offer. I put in the 8-24mm zoom and was quite taken aback with the view. In my dobs, a full moon appears quite washed out (low contrast) and gets a bit fuzzy when pushed to high mag. The mak showed wonderful contrast - and was still pin sharp at 337x (8mm on the zoom). Now I have always run with the 2 x aperture rule (1/2mm exit pupil), however I was wondering what values others use. I believe I could easily have broken the 1/2mm barrier judging by the view at 337x. Stars show diffraction patterns at 337x, so the extra mag would be for planets/moon which are quite bright.