The polymer body sounds like it had to be specially made to take the lens groups. I read that the problem with plastics is that the internal blacking or flocking doesn't adhere to the plastic surface like with metal. I don't know how true this is. Before I discovered that Celestron actually market those 15mm Kellners as bino pairs I always considered they'd actually make a great pair of wide angle bino EP's. Straight draw tubes and light bodies combined with a wide angle view and big field stops and eye lenses make them prime inexpensive bino pairs. They can exhibit a bit of CA but that's normal with a Kellner I believe. Either way, they'd be superior to the 20mm SWAN's included with my WO bino's.

 

The 7mm Fujiyama arrived today and seems fine. The quality is apparent even in a short daylight test.



Unfortunately I'm having a bit of pants weather, so I'm not optimistic about using it tonight on anything astronomical.



It'll be a welcome addition to my grab'n'go set, now comprising of 6 & 7mm orthoscopics, 8 & 11mm TeleVue Plossls, a 10mm Baader Eudiascopic and a 15mm Antares Plossl M.C.

 

Ray - I was only giving my take on finders here - not intending to insult anyone who has such as a 6 X 30mm. If it came off that way - I sincerely apologize! I simply never could use them due to their smaller aperture and light-gathering ability.

I know you and Mak have developed a great online friendship, which I think it great! In fact, I was thinking about this yesterday, and was very happy to see you two found a more benevolent astro-community to engage with and nurture this friendship in. Without the likes of 'Stu(Pid)' overseeing all with a malevolent eye and a mind-filter set on "Find Infraction"-settings. Something I'm well versed in from my years of training 'Mods' and handling of the responsibilities of an international political-activist community - out of the Netherlands - with several million members.

If you ever feel my views are meant as a slight or (!) attack, I would be grateful if you could point this out to me. As you have done here. But please don't leap to any conclusions. I'm not in the habit of casting judgement or ill-feelings on people in online communities.

I'm sorry to hear about you requiring a shot of a cortico-steroid for your pain & swelling/atrophying wrist-condition, and I can empathize on that. Recently my left-side of my face swelled-up, and I had to get to the hospital fast - as it could have spread to involve the tongue and airway-tissue. I don't wish to try my hand at giving myself a tracheotomy! The triage-nurse took a long-look at me and took off. She was back in about a minute, told me "That IS impressive!" and led me to a bed in an exam-room. The doctor took one look and ordered a shot of the same thing you were - I'm guessing: Prednisone. And injected my bicep. Lordy!! That injection burned like a California-wildfire up my arm! But the swelling was going down almost instantly.

Upshot - we went over everything I'd eaten or come into contact with. Nothing new was the answer. The cause of this fiasco remains a mystery. Perhaps someone down-the-lane had sprayed some new, whizibang poison on their lawn - and it drifted in a breeze to my yard & deck, and me by proxy? I don't know. It's all speculative. But I can guess that this problem you had was just as much fun!

Tonight's the peak of the Perseids, so I must be going to run a few errands before establishing a nest with all I'll need for the night. The weather looks to be cooperating, too! What are the odds? I hope your skies will cooperate too! Take care,

Peace -

Dave

 

Close up of the Kokusai Kohki Fujiyama HD-OR 7mm showing the eye lens.



Comparison with Astro Hutech 6mm Abbe orthoscopic.



25mm, 18mm, 7mm and 6mm orthoscopics compared. All are Astro Hutech apart from the 7mm Fujiyama. Apparently Astro Hutech have discontinued their 7mm orthoscopic eyepieces.



There is a striking similarity between the Kokusai Kohki and Astro Hutech eyepieces and I feel certain they are all from the same manufacturer reputedly in Tokyo. I like their simplicity, lack of safety undercut and the fact they don't have rubber eyeguards. Baader winged eyeguards fit them well if I ever feel the need to use one. Despite the close eye relief on the shorter focal lengths and the 42° FOV these EP’s have incredible sharpness, clarity, brightness and contrast.

 

A very nice visual tour there, MTN. I do believe I'll keep those on file for reference. Orthoscopics are the only likely eyepiece-purchases I can justify. I could still use a few more of the upper FL ones.

That should about cause my collection of equipment-cases to explode!

Clouded-up here, with monsoon-like rains in the pending forecast. Of course. Meteor-shower peaks & new telescope-purchases - guaranteed to cause floods.....

Dave

 

Thanks Dave. I actually have a pair of the 25mm AH's for my bino. I did have a pair of 12.5mm AH's for the bino as well. They seemed fine at first and I used them for a lot of planetary viewing. One night I used them on the Moon and discovered that both eyepieces had a flaw on the edge of the field stop. A small fuzzy black triangle could be seen when looking through them. After much cleaning of the eye and field lenses I realised that this flaw was probably internal. I'd had them too long to return them to the retailer so I used the brass smooth drawtubes on these Celestron 13mm Plossls.

 

Ah! Most resourceful, Grasshopper!

Don't you just hate when you find the problem was within the lens' itself? Your Ortho-problem reminds me of when I found the problem with my original Skywatcher-branded ST80, which was giving me a blurry effect on stars and DSO's that was localized in just this one little spot, was within one of the two achromats itself. That required me to have to purchase a new ST80 to fix.

Fortune would have it that Orion-USA was having a sale on just the OTA of the ST80 itself. That helped lessen the blow a bit.

I'm hoping to find someone who is not likely to be the 'fussbudget' as myself to give the old, Skywatcher-blue, scope to as a starter telescope to learn with. Once I get some spare time to re-assemble it and find a suitable (cheap) tripod & mount for the little beast.

It's now totally clouded over here in Podunk, this being the peak night for the Perseids - of course!

Growl!

Dave

 

Not sure if this is applicable to observing with small apertures, but I've successfully transported the heaviest individual part of the Big Cat in the Catmobile to the observing sweet spot on my second back lawn.



You can see the (recently moved) tripod/mount for the Bazooka to the right which is more or less where the Big Cat will be set up. I leave the Bazooka mount and tripod out in the summer months with some bin liners covering the mount to facilitate faster setting up times. I won't do this with the Cat's GOTO and tripod of course.



The Catmobile was pretty easy to get back to the Makcave as well. With my disability it is necessary to try dry runs with virtually everything in daylight first to make sure there are no surprises on the night.


Admittedly not quite so difficult as the 'trolley' that NASA deployed to move the Saturn V onto the launch pad lol!

 

Personally, I'd remove it Ray. I suppose it depends on how hot the day is and how long the OTA is out in daylight. If you don't need it it's just extra weight.

 

It should be able to be removed without needing recollimating. I always remove mine after a session as I break down the gear. Just make sure you don't accidentally turn the scope in the mount/bracket or adjust the X/Y axis screws and it can be taken on and off regularly without needing adjusting.

 

Should be fine.

 

Removing the finder if there's no filter for it is a way to reduce the chance of an unintender 'Ooops!'- moment we all are capable of. It won't hurt the finder to stay on the scope - capped - in the Sun. But removing it only takes a second, and it only takes 1/200th of a second to have a permenant loss of vision in an eye.

It's probably answered somewhere in this thread, but I'll just ask: What method are you using to find the Sun with?

http://www.spaceweather.com/

Dave

 

I found this on bandpass interference filters if it's of any interest:

http://www.edmundoptics.co.uk/optics/optical-filters/bandpass-filters/

 

Thanks, MTN - I've already heard the 'Sirens' Song' from the Edmund-site. And I found this one awhile back:

http://www.edmundoptics.com/microscopy/eyepieces/edmund-optics-rke-precision-eyepieces/2075/

The Edmund RKE-eyepieces are nearly legendary over here - in a small circle of people at least. They are often claimed to give people the "Porthole-view on a starship" experience. But I've yet to try one personally.

Thanks' again -

Dave