Podcaster: Shane and Chris
Title: Actual Astronomy: First Upgrades for your Telescope
Organization: Actual Astronomy
Link : https://actualastronomy.podbean.com/ ; https://www.deepskyeye.com/
Description: The Actual Astronomy Podcast presents First Upgrades for your Telescope. In this episode we talk about how to transition to new eyepieces, finderscopes and star charts in the most seamless way. Recommendations include buying quality over quantity and used where possible.
Bio: Shane and Chris are amateur astronomers who enjoy teaching astronomy classes and performing outreach where they help the eyes of the public to telescope eyepieces.
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Transcript:
First Upgrades for your Telescope on Episode 490 of the Actual Astronomy podcast. I’m Chris and joining me is Shane. We are amateur astronomers who love looking up at the night sky and this podcast is for everyone who enjoys going out under the stars.
Ok, this episode is based on an email we had from our most recent Patreon supporter Joe, thanks Joe!
Joe is in Austria. I have to be honest, I totally messed up and was answering emails late at night and read Joseph’s location as Australia…sort of a dumb and dumber moment….fortunatly I didn’t embarrass myself too much.
Ok, to the email!
Joe writes:
Hey guys,
I’m a big fan of the podcast here!
I live in rural Austria, Bortle 3 and got a 10inch starwatcher dobsonian in Dezember for XMAS. It came with two Plossl eyepieces 25mm and 10mm. Also I got myself a nice observing chair and a star chart. I also got a cheap 2x barlow, but am not very happy with it, as it seems to loose a lot of light.
After observing all kinds of planets and some clusters and nebulas, I feel ready for my first upgrades.
Could you please cover “first upgrades” in a podcast episode?
I’m thinking about eyepieces (maybe a zoom?), a telrad or RACI? Also any Filters that would be essential?
Thanks for the great podcast!
Cheers,
Joe from the Alps!
Thanks Joe!
Ok, let’s start with what our first scopes were and what our first upgrades were.
What was your scope Shane and What did you upgrade first?
For me I had an 8-inch Dob, I bought an 11mm and 32mm TV Plossl set + 2x Barlow and Telrad – Zero Power finder…. so my first upgrade… it was to a RACI.
My first eyepiece upgrades were to Canadian Eyepieces…Speers Waler 7,10,14, 70-degree then to the 10/14 80 plus the 5-8 zoom. I still have the zoom but haven’t used it much. I learned the 70-degree was where it’s at for me as the eye relief was longer and I couldn’t see any more of the field with the 80-degrees than I had with the 70-degree. So when I upgraded again I dropped back to 70-degree as I prioritized eye relief over FOV and moved onto Pentax. I’ve bought a handful of eyepieces since.
First scope upgrade was to an 80mm f5 achro.
What would you recommend for Joseph Shane?
My recs:
Caveat – glasses or not- if glasses then get eye relief…and Joe told me later he doesn’t need it but his wife sometimes joins him.
I think a nice low power eyepiece for some of those deep south splendours would be amazing! Perhaps a 30mm UFF would work nice in the 10-inch, I’m assuming it is f4.7. But we’ll work through a list of options for you. These 10-inch dobs are enough to keep you going forever and to be honest I’ve looked through more of these than any other mass produced scopes and all have very good to excellent optics.
I think you are on the right route with a RACI, that was my first upgrade for my first dob, also, critical for the refractor and my first upgrade there too. UHC Filter too, but you need a 2-inch eyepiece to play with those so i’d say eyepiece before filter. Maybe a laser collimator would be high on the list too. Then something in ~10mm 70-100 degrees depending on if you wear glasses or not, after that a 2-inch 2x barlow and a Paracorr. See with a 10-inch with a 30mm, 10mm and barlow, it’s like 30,15,10,5….eventually a ~19-17mm (that new Nagler Type 7 19mm would be ideal) and maybe a ~7mm. Then there’s the upgrade for the sky chart, something like Interstellarum. But I’d really focus on quality, honestly you could get 4 eyepieces and a barlow for that scope and never have to think about another eyepiece.
The Morpheus or Pentax or Nikon are top tier long eye relief models, there are tons more if ER is a low priority and you can fill out a good selection of 100-degree.
But stick with trying to get that 2-2.5mm ExitP, ~5mm and a barlow…at least.
From Stephen: What I currently own is…
– Celestron X-Cel LX eyepieces in 5, 7, 12 & 25mm focal lengths
– Celestron Omni 32mm
– Celestron 8-24mm Zoom
– Svbony 3-8mm Zoom
– Celestron X-Cel LX 2x Barlow
I know. It’s not the most efficient lineup and I’ll likely shed a few of the lesser used eyepieces above. Not looking to spend more than $200-ish per eyepiece and will probably just get one initially because I also have to invest in the 2″ diagonal. One option I was considering was the Astro-Tech 28mm UWA 82 degree for $239. A little outside of my price target but I also get the discount on Astronomics as a Cloudy Nights member. Any other thoughts?
Thanks Stephen
End with an Email from Leonid who we’ve been emailing with for a while now as he works through his upgrades.
Hi Chris and Shane,
Well Happy Canada-Day!
I finally was able to get my 80mm F/10 telescope out to view the moon, looks good, too early to tell to be honest with you about it.
This telescope does punch through the light dome much better than my ZenithStar 81mm. And the views of double stars are impressive.
I found that the views with the Zeiss BBHS 2’’ diagonal are a bit more warmer and subdued as compared to a mirror 2’’ diagonal, which also shows a bit of light bleeding on the edges of the moon.
I also had to adjust the focuser of the telescope to accommodate two inch diagonals to prevent creeping in the vertical position.
Chris thanks again for suggesting that I get an alt-az mount it is really a faster setup mode for me.
Well I am happy that the Masiyama 32mm works well with this setup! The pictures of the moon and Mars were taken with it on Sunday night.
I really enjoyed your podcast this week!
Because I enjoy my Pentax XW’s so much I will be getting the 16.5mm version as it will fill a gap that I have, also because apparently it will behave well with all of my other scopes. I figure that the eye relief will be similar to what I have with my ES 30mm 82 degree.
I will let you know how it performs later on in the summer.
For now,
Clear skies
Leonid
Thanks Leonid!
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