scopes n stuff 12/2/05

[Starkler (Geoff)]

I met up again last night with Dave47tuc, and his two friends Mark and Julian for some observing fun down on the Mornington Peninsula and this time took a few happy snaps I know some of the group will like

Some eyepiece testing thoughts below.

Heres Strikers next upgrade, 14 inches of portable aperture

Mark and his 14inch LX200 . With extra batteries its capable of 80km/h on flat ground :-)

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Heres our Dave47tuc standing next to Julians 18 inch obsession to give an idea of scale. The scope isnt that big , its just that Dave is small

[Starkler (Geoff)]

You call that an eyepiece ?

This is an eyepiece !

My baby 10 incher with 31mm nagler type 5

[iceman (Mike)]

Holy cow! They are nice!

Good night of observing? What was the nag like in the 10" GSO?

[Starkler (Geoff)]

The 31mm ?

Awesome! 2 degrees of field but for the price of one of those holy hand grenades, its just a pure indulgence thats hard to justify.
Having said that I might buy one if I cant get a regular fix for free

Eyepiece testing

Early on in the night we played around with eyepieces and who wouldnt given the opportunity to try out nearly every nagler known to existance

I wanted to compare my pentax XL + barlow combo to the shorter focal length naglers for contrast and sharpness.
I was considering replacing the two XL's and barlow for a nag12t4 and a shorter nagler or radian for planetary work.

Viewing Saturn, I was surprised to see that the pentax/ultima barlow combo gave slightly sharper views and much less scattered light than any of the shorter naglers.

Comparing my new 7mm ortho (native) to the 14mm XL barlowed showed less light scatter than the XL as expected, but surprisingly the XL/barlow combo gave nothing away in sharpness and detail on Saturn. Dave thought the ortho was less sharp.

Conclusion : I'm happy that I chose well with the eyepieces that I have and wont have to to sell them to Striker for a song

[Dave47tuc (David)]

Geoff,
It was a great night once again and glad you could join us

Julians 5, 3.5,and2.5 mm Naglers are type 6, so your xl Pentaxes are very nice as we observed.

So you can keep them and enjoy what they have to offer.

The 31 is always there for you to enjoy

It 's certainly one hell of an eyepiece in you dobby and any scope for that matter

[Striker (Tony)]

Very nice scopes boys....love that 14inch...wow....

Honestly I dont think any of the Naglers suit your scopes in any way.......let me know when your getting rid of them....lol..

And when I upgrade I am going straight for the 16inch.....thank you very much...hehe

BTW I had my 17 mm Nagler in Andrews(astro_south) Dob last night looking at tuc47..absolutely awesome.....we also tested out the GS 42 & 50 mm where we did see minor seagulls in the big dob but was passable.......Andrew may clarify on this later.....

[ving (David)]

*faints*

shouldnt that be "portable" as in inverted comas? I'd hate to try and put it in my astra!

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Boys and their toys

[DougAdams]

Whereabout on the peninsula are you guys observing? I nearly slung the scopes in the car last night to head out of Melbourne and was thinking of finding a nice quiet golf course out Pakenham way. I really should scout out some likely locations in the daylight

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Doug, Dave has a friend who lives out the back of Rosebud on the ocean side of the peninsula and we observe there.

I have my own little spot about 10 min out of cranbourne thats ok for sky darkness, but less than ideal in other ways.
Finding a publicly accessable place thats suitable isnt easy.

[DougAdams]

Thanks Geoff - my parents live in Narre Warren and my sister is just off Jetty Road in Rosebud. Next time I do the visit rounds, I'll snoop around for some scope sites. It's the safety aspect that makes me a little wary...

[iceman (Mike)]

heh yeh, when Rod and I were at the Mangrove Mountain soccer fields on friday night, a car came and pulled up and you just don't know who it is and what they want.
But i've got my green laser pointer as a safety device! I'll shine it in their eyes if they get too close

[Comet Hunter]

Phoar!! The 18"er must pull in some light giving some awesome views.

[Dave47tuc (David)]

Originally posted by Comet Hunter
Phoar!! The 18"er must pull in some light giving some awesome views.

Let me tell you the 18" is some scope

DSO's are awesome the detail you can see is

The detail in NGC 2070
Has to be seen to be believed. We used a 17 Nagler with a UHC filter and no photograph is as good

If you ever get a chance to look through one(18" or bigger) Do so its

[Comet Hunter]

I could only imagine! One day!!

Ice, You've been working very hard lately and I think you need a holiday mate!! I think you should take your Toucam with you down to Dave's - someone needs to give bird a run for his money with Jupiter

[iceman (Mike)]

I wish Andrew!

Hoping to look through some monster dobs at the SPSP! With any luck I'll be climbing up the ladder of some 30" or something..

[gaa_ian (Ian)]

Its not hard to see how aperture fever sets in
Maybe this is how people end up becoming professional Astronomers
I must ...I must have acccess to the Keck twins