Tweedledee Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 (edited) Tried out a new scope tonight on loan from Damian. A Konus 150mm F12 Mak. Also had some of his eyepieces to try including a 10mm 82 degree Axiom, 9mm 100 degree Myriad and a 6mm 58 degree Burgess Planetary. The Mak is quite heavy, but the AZ4 coped OK with it. Didn't have much luck due to the thin cloud and poor seeing generally, but enjoyed getting out. I had even made a small observing list including doubles, globulars and planets, but didn't manage to see much. Started aligning the 12x80 finder on Saturn using my 25mm 100 degree providing 72x and a 1.4 degree FOV in the Mak. The view was a little fuzzy even at this low mag since Saturn was quite low and kept fading away in the hazy cloud. 1.4 degrees has to be about the widest true field possible on a 1800mm FL Mak, and I'm sure that with a darker sky and better conditions I would have noticed some vignetting towards the edge due to the narrow baffle tube. Had a quick look at epsilon Lyra and pushed the mag up to 106x and a 1 degree field with the 17mm Ethos but the two stars were just getting bloated. Took the scope to the other side of the house to get Jupiter and Venus. There was a little less cloud in their direction but they both didn't show well at 106x in the 17mm Ethos, although the view was slightly improved from what I'd just seen of Saturn. I just had to put in the 10mm Axiom for 180x and 6mm Burgess for 300x to see how big they would look, but of course the view was awful due to the seeing and low altitude, but the blobs where massive . The best view was in my new Fujiyama 25mm 42 degree Orthoscopic where the view was sharpest. A little banding was just discernable on Jupiter with Callisto on one side and Ganymede and Europa on the other but no trace of Io transiting. The phase of Venus was a lovely clean well defined semi-circle though the orthoscopic view was nice but very narrow. The small field of view took me back many years when as a teenager, all my eyepieces had a similar narrow field and included ghosting Ramsdens, Kellners and Orthos, with RAS thread fitting, not push fit . So that was a nice interesting change from my usual wide angle eps. At about 10.45pm I noticed the ISS which I wasn't expecting. It made a really bright and high pass at mag -3.4. Confirmed it online afterwards just to make sure. It was nice to get out especially with a different scope, but the sky was not dark and the conditions were poor. Looking forward to trying the Mak on a better night. I'm sure it will be impressive. The Mak had been out cooling for a couple of hours as per the photos below... Edited June 6, 2015 by Tweedledee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAZ Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 It will be interesting to see how you get on with the Konus. I have heard varying reports of how they perform, some are superb and other not so good. You might get a chance tonight, it's looking, well I'll not say anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted June 6, 2015 Author Share Posted June 6, 2015 After I'd packed everything away and finished posting the above, I looked out just before going to bed and the sky was superb. Much darker and not even a wisp of cloud. But I had to be up for work in the morning - Typical Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 I have never tried a 6" Mak before, I've heard rave reports about them especially on Cloudy Nights, apparently the telescope to use for double star splitting. I bet all the problems were down to seeing and of course the lack of darkness this time of year. It's interesting that the best eyepiece was your new Fujiyama, it just goes to show less glass is more Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Bino-viewer Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 Interesting report Pete. This is an F/15 scope i take it ? ISS very good for the next few days..... Saturday, 21:52, -3.5 23:28, -3.8 Sunday, 01:04, -2.5 22:35, -3.9 * all times are apparition start, overhead passes 2 - 3 mins later. May try to see it in the scope tomorrow night, working this pm .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stash Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 "Saturday, 21:52, -3.5 23:28, -3.8" is that correct? must its retro rockets on or on a go slow or am i missing ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 I have the same times as Rob has Clive. These are all overhead times, the actual pass overs start and finish at three minutes either side of the following times. Saturday/Sunday 23.31 01.08 Sunday/Monday 22.38 00.14 01.48 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted June 6, 2015 Author Share Posted June 6, 2015 Interesting report Pete. This is an F/15 scope i take it ? ISS very good for the next few days..... Saturday, 21:52, -3.5 23:28, -3.8 Sunday, 01:04, -2.5 22:35, -3.9 * all times are apparition start, overhead passes 2 - 3 mins later. May try to see it in the scope tomorrow night, working this pm .... Cheers Rob, will look out for those bright passes then. Good luck for seeing some shape and detail in the ISS visually Yes the Konus is F15. I was surprised when I first saw it, as it has a substantially longer OTA than the SkyWatcher 150 Mak, yet is still the same focal length. It obviously has a longer focal length primary and less secondary amplification than the SW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted June 6, 2015 Author Share Posted June 6, 2015 (edited) I have never tried a 6" Mak before, I've heard rave reports about them especially on Cloudy Nights, apparently the telescope to use for double star splitting. I bet all the problems were down to seeing and of course the lack of darkness this time of year. It's interesting that the best eyepiece was your new Fujiyama, it just goes to show less glass is more Yes, very interesting. I haven't tried the 25mm Fujiyama ortho against the 25mm ES 100 yet. Obviously they are totally different animals. As a very rough guess, I reckon there could easily be 30 times as much glass in the ES! Apparently with the almost magic high tech coatings on the big high end eyepieces there is virtually undetectable light losses or colour changes, contrary to what you would think with loads of big lenses and surfaces. The ES 100 shows almost 6 times the area of sky that the Fujiyama shows at the same magnification. It is also 10 times heavier at 1.2 kg and nearly 10 times the cost . I was thinking that these heavy eyepieces could benefit from having a handle like a mug . The Fujiyama seems very nice for a small eyepiece from what I've seen of it so far, with a really crisp well defined field stop and nice contrasty background of sky. It has a massive 22.2mm of eye relief and a good size eye lens making it very comfortable to look through. Edited June 6, 2015 by Tweedledee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 I have the University Optic 25mm ortho and I would expect that to be very close in performance to your 25mm Fujiyama. It looks so small compared to your ES25. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted June 6, 2015 Author Share Posted June 6, 2015 I have the University Optic 25mm ortho and I would expect that to be very close in performance to your 25mm Fujiyama. It looks so small compared to your ES25. I'm sure you are right Mick. According to my new eyepiece book, the ultimate seems to be the Zeiss Abbe Orthoscopic II set, which cost a fortune as per your previous thread about them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 There was a set of those on Astromart the other day for $4500 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted June 6, 2015 Author Share Posted June 6, 2015 There was a set of those on Astromart the other day for $4500 I knew they were top notch and rare, but never thought they might go for that sort of price . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 Annoying thing was the seller had two sets of them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted June 6, 2015 Author Share Posted June 6, 2015 Now that is just greedy! Or perhaps he had a bino viewer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philjay Posted June 9, 2015 Share Posted June 9, 2015 (edited) The Mak150s are a handy size, reasonable aperture without being bulky. Ive read different reports on these but never looked through one so cant really comment. At over 100x it should have aced Epsilon Lyra on even a slightly poor night, you should have got clear space between the components, my old 127 Mak used to split it easily at that mag. From using my old 127 Mak and my current 180 Mak I very rarely use a Mak for double stars. Even when conditions allow and the scope has cooled nicely I much prefer the crisper views in refractors. My 4" achro gives nicer, cleaner views than the Maks. I spose Im just old fashioned and like to see doubles as two neat airy discs instead of blurry blobs. I feel I can split far better with a refractor. But I love the views a MAk gives on lunar especially binoviewered. There is just something about the image, that's the main reason I got the 180. Edited June 9, 2015 by philjay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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