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Posts Made By: Jim Cantrell

December 30, 2004 04:46 AM Forum: Eyepieces

Barlow and other EP recommendations?

Posted By Jim Cantrell

Hi Kirk, here's my two cents, and possibly worth about that much. Orion Shorty Pluses are on sale now for about what they often sell for used, get yourself a new one, take good care of it and you'll get close to your money back should you decide to sell it later. Add a 6mm UO Ortho, which can be found used here occasionally for around $45 if your patient, and you will be all set for some fine planetary and lunar viewing for a relatively modest additional investment. A 6mm will probably be useable more often than a 5mm, but one of the really grand things about the UO Orthos is their affordability, you'll try a 5mm and 200x sooner or later and push the envelope. smile

Jim

August 30, 2005 02:26 AM Forum: Binoviewers

William Optics new Binoviewer

Posted By Jim Cantrell

I saw the specs Williams has posted, aperture listed at 20.2 instead of the 22 available on most models in the $200 price range. Any one have any idea how much difference 1.8 mm will make?

Jim

October 12, 2005 12:45 AM Forum: Beginning Astronomy?

Panoptics - Worth the price for a beginner?

Posted By Jim Cantrell

I will put in my two cents here, counter to the prevailing trend. Although my experience is short, and I haven't taken any polls, I would guess that there might be one or two people out there that have damaged an eyepiece.

Handling and care of eyepieces is not rocket science, but there is a learning curve or else we would never see those posts asking how to best clean them and there would be no need to advertise the condition of the ep in an Astromart ads - they would all be pristine.

My advice: there are some pretty good eyepieces available out for very little money, for less than the price of a Pan, you can get a complete set of plossls and a decent barlow.

Buy 'em, use 'em. If, after a year, they are all still prisine, you didn't need this advice, sell them for what you can get and put the money toward higher quality, but, if there are some that aren't so pristine - well they were cheap ones, get rid of them and buy some higher quality.

Jim

December 17, 2005 02:13 AM Forum: Eyepieces

Barlowing Zooms

Posted By Jim Cantrell

I've tried my SW5-8 with the Shorty Plus 2x and the Antares 1.6 and noticed no degradation in the images with either.

Popular belief is that more glass reduces brightness and/or contrast. Background brightness changes with the barlow due to the mag change, but I've looked for changes in contrast with a variety of barlows and eyepieces, but haven't found any when using decent quality barlows. I have used some low quality shorty barlows that muddied the view a good bit, but did it uniformly with every eyepiece regardless of the number of elements they had.