Mystic Wig, Cats and BBHS Prisms

[Nightspore]

By about 18:30 GMT on Thursday 30th (festival of ‘Hekate Tri Via’) I had set the 72ED up, it’s been used as many times as the Titchy Sixty so far (although it’s now in the lead place, as usual). The ever trustworthy and sincere MET Office site claimed there would be no clouds, nothing, nada, zilch, not a sausage, nothing nebulous, until way after midnight. Naturally they were about as accurate as Mystic Meg. In fact they probably use her to predict the weather. I’m considering using the entrails of my next door neighbour’s cat for future weather auguries. The aforementioned feline’s guts may well be used for meteorological predictive garters if it defecates in my observing space again. Either that or I predict I’ll brain it with my crystal ball! The main jet stream had diverted from the Midlands and the overall residual jet stream wind velocity (Monty Python joke alert: African or European? lol) was only around 44 KPH. Which was hunky dory. However, I think the humidity was a bit high. Not sure what Hekate thought, probably too busy playing with her snakes.

 

 

The gear I took out with the 72 hasn’t really changed from last time, with the exceptions of the Baader Sitall BBHS mirror diagonal and 7mm Nagler. These have been changed for the Baader BBHS conventional prism and 6.7mm ES. The mirror might have been accidentally marked by a long eyepiece barrel. There is a mark in the mirror that I’ll have to check out later. Many Baader 1.25” mirror diagonals have no safety stop. I believe this is to eliminate any vignetting if used with 2” adapters or something like that (insert Baader BS of your choice). The prism has a slightly smaller housing than the mirror, although it is constructed to the same exacting tolerances and standards. Many people (well, Bill Paolini) claim prisms regularly out-perform mirrors. Visually, I can’t tell the difference between these two BBHS diagonals. I’ve added a spacer to the diagonal adapter to raise its height.

 

 

As for the Nagler swap, I know what you’re thinking. You think that I must have got too spaced out by my spacers, or I’ve inadvertently inhaled too much Baader Optical Wonder Cleaning Fluid. I think the Nagler’s great, it’s just that …. its overall ergonomics bug me! (is it just me?). Why are TV eyeguards so annoying? What’s wrong with bog-standard flip-up/flip-down guards like on something as mundane as most Chinese Plossls?

 

 

My guess is because TV EP’s are actually manufactured in non-Chinese mainland factories. Which is strange, because standard GSO (Taiwan) Plossl eyeguards are fine. Tele Vue Plossl eyeguards are a tad idiosyncratic at best. Don’t get me started about the TV undercut. I don’t even think there’s much between the visual quality of the two eyepieces. It’s nice to be able to see the field stop without needing a compound eye. Then there’s the magical kryptonite (obviously some form of witchcraft) the ES are filled with to alleviate misting problems (and confuse evil faeries, of course) in humid conditions. The 6.7mm gives me 62.6x on its own, 100x with a threaded Barlow element, and 141x (nearly 144x!) with the Baader 2.25x Barlow. 

 

 

A near transit Saturn was my first target at 105x with the 4mm Astro Hutech orthoscopic. The colour separation and clarity were excellent. The rings were equally sharp and I could see Titan and Rhea. Titan’s yellow colour was quite apparent. Even at 141x there was very little degradation. Again I thought I got a glimpse of other moons (Dione?). Jupiter was very well defined, even at 141x, although 105x was sharper. Io, Callisto and Ganymede were nicely defined discs and individually had rich colour separation. Just as with the BBHS mirror. I dropped down to 100x (6.7mm + Barlow element). Of course, the white fluffy stuff took Big Jove away for a while.

 

 

I turned my attention to some open clusters. But first I split Zeta 1 Aquari and Iota Cass at 100x. It wasn’t long before the 14mm Morpheus was in the twistlock of the Baader BBHS prism. At 30x, the Perseus Double Cluster was magnificent and perfectly framed in the 76° FOV. I think the seeing was probably superb and well above average, it was the patchy cloud and humidity that let it down. That and the 87.4% illuminated rising Moon (Gemini) wasn't helping.

 

 

The Owl Cluster was great, the colours in the eyes of the celestial strigiform were intoxicating, with the ‘head’ at around the 10 o’clock position. The serpentine Melotte 20 and the Pleiades were very good at 30x with the Morpheus, but I actually preferred both of them at 12x with the 35mm Eudiascopic. Inevitably the evil faeries made the clouds cover the sky. So much for Mystic Met Office! It was Thursday, perhaps I should have invoked Thor. Knowing my luck he’d have got me with a thunderbolt, much to the delight of Mystic Wig and the ‘soon to be garters’ cat. I packed up and accepted the fact I was ‘Prism Boy’ now and not the ‘Mirror Man’. Twentieth session since September 5th done and dusted. Hold on … is that the bloody cat?

 

 

Edited December 1, 2023 by Nightspore
Evil Faeries

[+Stu]

Good read, and haven't heard Mirror Man for quite a while. For better or worse, I'm not quite sure 😄 I've opted for the Baader T2 prism to go with my Mak.

[Nightspore]

4 hours ago, Stu said:

Good read, and haven't heard Mirror Man for quite a while. For better or worse, I'm not quite sure 😄 I've opted for the Baader T2 prism to go with my Mak.

 

Thanks. This T2?

 

 

It's good, well made housing and excellent optically. It's not BBHS though. You can buy T2 clicklocks but they're not cheap.

 

 

Better made than the 'Xmas cracker' Takahashi. Although I think the Tak' prism is slightly brighter.

 

 

I used the Baader BBHS prism before on the 72. 

 

 

Say She She (say what?) prefer prisms anyway lol.

Edited December 1, 2023 by Nightspore

[+Stu]

1 hour ago, Nightspore said:

Thanks. This T2?

I think that's the one. I got a bit carried away and ordered the clicklock ep holder 🤫

[Nightspore]

Found these:

 

102mm Mak with Baader prism.

 

 

The Baader has a 'Starbase Orthoscopic Plossl' in its adapter.

 

In a later outing I decided to have a dedicated lunar session with the 102mm SkyMax and the Starbase Plossls. The Moon was high and conditions were good. I have to say I was not overly impressed with their performance. The 9mm exhibited so much ghosting I seriously considered contacting Yvette Fielding and the team at ‘Most Haunted’. Even the usually reliable 6mm had some slight but quite noticeable ghosting and they all had serious scatter issues. I can only attribute this to the Kubota Optical Corporation single coatings. - my own review.
 

I'm still not sure about the effect the KOC single optical coat had. I assumed a single coating was the cause of all the problems, although Don Pensack convinced me otherwise as he reckons single coatings can actually work. Don knows a great deal about EP's, and IIRC, he reckoned the flaws in the Starbase must be more fundamental. Best place for the Starbase is at the bottom of the Cut. Seriously. Cheap Chinese Plossls outperform them easily.

[Nightspore]

3 minutes ago, Stu said:

I think that's the one. I got a bit carried away and ordered the clicklock ep holder 🤫

 

Yeah, the old 'clicky' is a lot easier than fiddling with three individual screws. Pricey, but you'll appreciate it on cold nights when your fingers are unresponsive and frostbitten!

 

 

Beats the Tak' clicky.

 

 

And Orion (Long Perng).

 

[+Stu]

@NightsporeExactly, the less fiddly little silver knobs I have to mess with the better. Plus I've made the mistake in the past of selling things a bit too quickly and this will hopefully be a keeper so I thought I'd invest. I had the set of Baader Classic Orthos, only ever used them with my Bresser achromat so probably didn't get to extract the best out of them. Speaking of cold and frostbitten, have you ever had the need for a dew heater strap on EPs?

[+Streetbob]

A very entertaining report. Made me chuckle.  Thanks 

[+Glafnazur]

Thanks for another great report Dave. 

[Nightspore]

52 minutes ago, Stu said:

@NightsporeExactly, the less fiddly little silver knobs I have to mess with the better. Plus I've made the mistake in the past of selling things a bit too quickly and this will hopefully be a keeper so I thought I'd invest. I had the set of Baader Classic Orthos, only ever used them with my Bresser achromat so probably didn't get to extract the best out of them. Speaking of cold and frostbitten, have you ever had the need for a dew heater strap on EPs?

 

I used to have the BCO's (in pairs for my WO bino), I've only got the 18mm and 32mm left now. The 6mm pair had problems with the rubber holding the lenses in disintegrating and the resultant debris migrating across the lens surface. The others were fine. The 32mm are actually Plossls. 

 

 

I have thought about experimenting with a dew strap for EP's, but inevitably I considered it too fiddly. I think I have some 50mm heater straps somwhere.

 

 

I've tried various approaches to dew control.

 

 

But ultimately ended up with just really long extensions to refractor shields or unheated shields. I have a heated shield for my 235mm SCT.

 

 

I've experimented with heated finders.

 

 

A good unheated extension can

 

 

work on a smaller scope, especially if it already has an integral shield.

 

[Nightspore]

1 hour ago, Streetbob said:

A very entertaining report. Made me chuckle.  Thanks 

 

Thanks, glad you liked it. That cat's toast lol.

[Nightspore]

9 minutes ago, Glafnazur said:

Thanks for another great report Dave. 

 

You're welcome, Dave.

[+Bino-viewer]

Good report, and an entertaining read.

 

Regarding @Stu with eyepiece dew heater straps : i have used them but not much, as i find them a bit fiddly and something else to manage. 

I also have some for the binoviewer that i've hardly ever used.

As i tend to change eyepieces regularly, and i generally only use two or three pairs for binoviewing anyway, if its cold, i'll keep a pair in my coat pocket,

and swap them around so they don't get too cold.

 

Regarding diagonals, all of mine are 2" fit. I'm a big fan of Baader Planetarium stuff, and can't recommend clicklocks / twistlocks enough.

One on the end of the scopes focuser. This is the important one, as it holds an expensive bino rig securely.

Then another on the back of my 2" diagonal. This can be handy is it gives quite a bit extra out focus range without maxing out the focuser.

 

I'm interested in peoples opinions of low power 1.25" eyepieces.

I've used 32mm Plossls long ago and a few other designs in that low power range.

Then i realised that 68º 24mm wide angles gave the same view as 32mm Plossls.

More magnification, wide angle, rich field as opposed to less magnification, narrower field, but same view.

I've never looked back after buying my 24mm's Panoptics.

They are pricey new, granted, so mine were 2 separate second hand purchases and a good saving.

The ES 24/68º is just as good supposedly and quite a bit less £££

I have even sold off my 2" eyepieces having used a 31mm, 35mm and 42mm in the past.

 

 

And if binoviewing is of interest, i heartily recommend the Baader Maxbright Mk 2. They have the most beautifully designed eyepiece holders,

the dioptre adjusters and mini 1.25" clicklocks are as good as they get.

 

 

 

 

[+Stu]

@Bino-viewerI've never used them on an ep before. Now I've just got the vixen 8-24mm zoom and 24mm panoptic, never parting with the latter! So chances are I'll just have one ep in for most of a session. After owning the Pentax XW5 I'd be interested to try a lower power version, it was excellent! Probably a bit bulky for bino viewing though. The 16mm ES 68° was also very good. 

Edited December 2, 2023 by Stu

[Nightspore]

I have the ES24, in many ways I prefer it to the 24 Pan.

 

 

It's only real drawback is that it's only slightly lighter than a Renault 20.

[+Bino-viewer]

Yes, and you could argue the 24 Pan is better ergonomically, with its tapered top.

If you have a bigger nose (mine is average) its more comfortable to use.

[Nightspore]

32 minutes ago, Bino-viewer said:

Yes, and you could argue the 24 Pan is better ergonomically, with its tapered top.

If you have a bigger nose (mine is average) its more comfortable to use.

 

Luckily, I have a small nose lol. I always thought the field stop was bigger on the ES, apparently it isn't though. It must be one of those optical delusions.

 

 

I think the eye lens of the ES is slightly bigger, but as I can't find my ES 24 I can't make a comparison. I always thought the ES was quite ergonomic to use, considering it doesn't appear it. 

 

 

I've obviously put it somewhere 'safe' lol.

 

[Sojourneyer]

glad you do not have an Inka Dinka Do.  That sure could impede viewing

 

[Nightspore]

48 minutes ago, Sojourneyer said:

glad you do not have an Inka Dinka Do.  That sure could impede viewing

 

 

I did, but I didn't like the ergonomics lol.