Hey, hey it's the Plerfles!



Telescope House finally replaced my 20mm Bresser 60° 5 element 'Plossl' pair.



And here they are in my bino case ready for action.

 

This one?



This was on my list. There's probably better lunar atlases now than the Rukl, but it's one of the most famous. Mine's an old Hamlyn edition hardback about 17cm by 12cm. I'm sure there are small cheaper versions like mine around.

 

Yeah, it actually surprised me. Rukl's atlas has had many different editions though I think. Mine's virtually a pocket edition, it was only a few quid IIRC. That one must be the super duper deluxe on steroids and then some edition lol. Mind you, Amazon have weird computer glitches with pricing. The actual atlas is out of print, which could explain the prices here.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1931559074/ref=dp_olp_used_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=used




We have a saying over here: 'taking the piss', often more politely rendered as 'extracting the urine', and $10,099.00 for a secondhand Rukl atlas is definitely taking the extraction of something lol.

https://www.amazon.com/Astronomy-Atlas-Moon-Antonin-Rukl/dp/0913135178/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

This looks more like it!

Blurb ~

This is a great book for telescope users and a fine one for ordinary browsers. It is an up-to-date atlas of the observable part of the moon. Maps of the moon compose the bulk of the book's 224 pages.

The introduction discusses history, terminology, phases of the moon, and the moon's surface. This is followed by maps of 76 sections of the near side of the moon, each accompanied by a small locator map. Facing pages include place-names and their derivations as well as map coordinates. Following the maps are photographs of interesting lunar formations (craters, ring mountains, walled plains), advice on setting up and using a telescope, descriptions of eclipses, and a glossary. There is a thorough bibliography and index of named formations at the end of the book. One can look up Amundsen, for example, and locate the ring mountain named after him.

The only comparable works are Moon-Mars-Venus (Hamlyn, 1976) and Alter's Pictorial Guide to the Moon (1967). This new book has far more information clearly presented, and names are up-to-date. As director of the Prague Planetarium, the author is knowledgeable and explains terms clearly. Any library with even one patron interested in or studying astronomy should consider this book.

~ op cit

 

I'm tempted to buy it, notice it's a penny under a tenner for me, so I'll have to pay for postage/packing lol.

 

Well, the Bresser Plerfles fit nicely into the WO dioptres.

 

If you'd like a nice photographic atlas of the Moon from orbiting spacecraft taken from the JPL archives, here's a free downlaod:

http://lunaratlas.blogspot.it/2016/09/photographic-lunar-atlas-is-returned.html

It is called the Photographic Lunar Atlas for Moon Observers by Kwok C. Pau.

One small problem though - it's 701MB! I have one, and it took me quite awhile to get it, too...

Dave

PS - Do scan it for virus and malware. It's been awhile since I did the download, so who knows what may have crawled in!

 

I got the S&T Pocket Atlas a month or so ago and take it out during my daytime cigar breaks to gain familiarity. I find it useful in this vein, so that when I'm out at dark with my scope & my planisphere, the planisphere makes way more sense, having studied the Atlas earlier.

 

That's basically how I use it. I often spend hours studying software or 'hardware' atlases to familiarise myself with certain areas of the sky. The Cambridge Star Atlas and Double Star Atlases are probably the best, but they're big and I have limited dexterity so a smaller 'pocket' version is always useful. Plus, I just wanted it lol.



I have a couple of planispheres, I've owned this one since I was at school.



First thing I learnt was that they don't work so well at night ROTFL.

 

New revised bino set. Gives me focal lengths of 5.7mm ~ 32mm with the three GPC's (1.6x, 2x, 2.6x). It's unlikely I'll use the Meade and Baader Plossls with the GPC's but the AH ortho's Barlow very well. It will be interesting to see how the Bresser 'Plerfles' work out. Daylight tests with them have been very encouraging.

 

I got David Chandler's Planisphere from Agena for just that reason- it's easy to read by red light. It comes with a nice plastic sleeve and you can see the southern view on the backside.

 

I bought one of those a couple of years ago. It is easier to read by my Pellor torch, but if I take it out with me I invariably never use it. Once I get an eyeball (or two) near the eyepiece it's difficult to distract me lol.

 

I can't remember what I paid for mine, but I'll bet it was under a fiver.

 

Well it is a lot easier to use than my ancient Phillip's one. Anyway, planispheres are only for checking where the stars are before astronomy software was invented lol. Plus, planispheres are useless for planetary positions!



The 9.7mm Meade Plossl I bought earlier sans packing and dustcaps (above) is actually one of the plastic housed DS series. Apparently they were giveaways with some Meade scopes. They also made 26mm Plossls like this. I suppose they were cheaper to manufacture. Supposedly the usual glass lens groups were used.



The 9.7mm, 12.4mm and 15mm Meade Plossls above are all genuine metal Meades and definitely not plastic plossls like the picture above it. After having compared both 9.7mm Meade Plossls I'm pretty convinced the metal housed one is superior. There was pronounced light scatter on the plastic Plossl while viewing a bright Moon and then Jupiter. It wasn't really noticeable when observing a twilight Venus earlier but I thought the metal 9.7mm also gave a sharper image, especially nearer the EOF. Comparing the 15mm Meade and GSO Plossls I don't find any real difference in performance. The Meade has a clearly defined field stop which the 15mm (and 6mm) GSO's don't, although the 9mm and 12mm GSO Plossls have sharp field stops. I don't know why the GSO 6 and 15mm have no clearly defined field stop but others have noticed this too. I don't know where Meade and GSO source their optical glass from, very possibly JOC, but I can't tell any real differences between them. I'd bet money the Meade and GSO Plossls perform well in scopes f/6 and faster though.



The Meade Plossls along with the 5.5mm Bresser Plerfle, the 9mm Expanse, 18mm BCO, 19mm TV Panoptic and the Baader 2.25x Barlow is my basic ST80 eyepiece set.

It's sunny here and the daffodils are out, the birds are singing, the hares are leaping and it's all spring-like .... blizzard you say? Oh crap! That means it's heading my way lol.

 

I think I finally have the range for the ST80. These seven eyepieces and short Barlow should give me everything including a choice of 50°, 60°, 66° & 68° AFOV. Magnifications from 21x with a 3.8mm exit pupil to 164x with an 0.48mm exit pupil. That ranges for a TFOV of between 3 arc degrees, 14 arc minutes at the largest to 22 arc minutes at the smallest.



It's highly unlikely I'll use the 19mm Panoptic, the 9mm Expanse or 9.7mm Meade Plossl with the Barlow. All I need now is really good weather and definitely no blizzard lol.

 

Hey Ray - enjoying the blizzard? Ours is great! Total white-out conditions - I can't see half-a-block down the street! We haven't had one like it in over 10 years.

Hoping I don't get a tree falling through my house from these heavy-duty wind gusts!

Fare thee well,

Dave the Snowman