May 2017 - astroshop.eu Blog

Archive for May 2017

New: Omegon Oberon eyepieces with 82° field of view

May 23 2017, Marcus Schenk

The new Omegon Oberon eyepieces have an 82° field of view and thus provide you with an outstanding free and open view. Apart from this, they are waterproof and filled with nitrogen. At less than 200 Euros they have a remarkably reasonable price tag and are affordable for almost every hobby astronomer.

Waterproof and filled with nitrogen

You surely know the situation when eyepieces lose their shine. When dirt, pollen and the grease from your eyelids cover the eye lenses. This is normally the point at which eyepieces should be cleaned. But this is not as simple as it sounds, because lenses need to be cleaned with great care and using optical cleansing agents. Omegon eyepieces make it incredibly easy.

Simply flush the eyepiece off under running water. And your eyepieces gleam like on the first day.

The benefits of a large field of view

Wide-angle eyepieces are the dream of any stargazer. In contrast to the standard eyepieces with a 45° or 50° field of view, large-field eyepieces give you the impression of floating through outer space. Above 70° the eye does not perceive the outer edge of the eyepiece, and a starry sky appears almost endless. The Oberon eyepieces with 82° fulfil this task even better, because here the eye can even move within the field of view.

The Oberon eyepiece series consists of six eyepieces with focal lengths of 7 mm, 10 mm, 15 mm, 19 mm, 23 mm and 32 mm. The three small focal lengths are available in 1.25″, the three long focal lengths in 2″. Any star gazer knows that sometimes it is quite difficult to find an object. A 32 mm Oberon eyepiece like this makes things a lot easier: A small magnification coupled with an 82° field of view makes the big Oberon a perfect finder eyepiece.

But also a 7 mm eyepiece with 82° has clear advantages: Viewing the surface of the Moon with a high magnification while still seeing large areas of the lunar landscape – it is just amazing.

The advantages of Oberon eyepieces at a glance:

•    Enduring: waterproof and filled with nitrogen – to protect against moisture and for a long service life
•    82° field of view: giant field of view, almost without limitation
•    Goof grip: serrated rubber armouring
•    Upscale design: anodised aluminium housing

Come this way: You can find further details on the product pages for the new Oberon eyepieces.

Tags: Omegon, Telescope Accessories, Eyepiece
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Now available: the new CGEM II mount from Celestron

May 17 2017, Stefan Taube

The American telescope manufacturer Celestron has revised their work horse for astrophotographers. The CGEM II is very popular, and rightly so, because when it comes to load bearing capacity it has a lot of reserves as compared to the smaller Advanced VX mount; but it is cheaper than the big CGX. In the field of equatorial GoTo mounts for mobile astrophotography the CGEM II takes a middle position.

The new CGEM II not only looks very trendy, but it also features a few real innovations when compared with its predecessor.

New powerful motor electronics with the latest firmware.
USB 2.0 port on the hand controller. This way you can simply connect the hand controller to a PC for software updates.
PPEC (Permanent Periodic Error Control) ensures precise tracking.
Autoguider port. Indispensable for sophisticated astrophotography!
Tracking beyond the meridian.
The mounting saddle accepts prism rails acc. to Vixen and Losmandy standard. No adapter required.
Improved tripod with height marks: This makes it even easier to place the tripod horizontally.

With this mount, the telescope, camera and guider may have a weight of up to 18 kg. This leaves a really big tolerance range.

We offer the CGEM II, but also as a set together with the Schmidt-Cassegrain optics with apertures ranging from 8 to 11 inch (~200 to 280 millimetres): CGEM-II telescopes.

Combined with the classic SC-telescopes this provides you with excellent astronomical equipment which will give you joy for the rest of your life! If you have extra spending money, you should consider the CGEM II with EdgeHD. This variant of the Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope already has the correction optics for the unavoidable coma error integrated, allowing you to take sharp photos right to the edge.

Whatever you will decide, with the CGEM II you can’t go wrong!

Tags: Celestron, telescope
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Observing the Sun with the DayStar QUARK Calcium-H

May 11 2017, Stefan Taube

The American sun filter manufacturer DayStar revolutionised sun observations with its QUARK series. For a comparatively low price you can now use a refracting telescope with a small aperture for watching the Sun in a defined spectral line – this is no more complicated than plugging an eyepiece into a diagonal mirror.

DayStar have now extended their QUARK series by a model to watch the Sun in a spectral line of the chemical element calcium. With the DayStar QUARK Calcium-H-line sun filter you can watch the sun at a wave length of 397 nanometres – or perhaps not: Not everyone is able to notice such short-wave light.

However, with a planet camera this short-wave radiation can be recorded without any problems. Corresponding tests were undertaken by our colleague Bernd Gährken:

For this photo 4 images were combined. In addition to the QUARK Calcium-H-line, an Omegon photoscope with 1.6x Barlow and a planet camera were used. The scope of delivery includes adapters for 1.25″ and 2″ focusers. The Calcium filter works without telecentrics and requires an optical path of 6.2 centimetres. With many optics the focus cannot be reached directly. We therefore recommend also ordering the reasonably priced path corrector. It can be screwed directly into the QUARK filter. In terms of cameras, we specifically recommend the Mono Guider from Touptek or the planet cameras from ZWOptical. When photographing a tight spectral range, the complete resolution of the sensor can only be utilised when using a black-and-white camera (“mono”).

Unfortunately there were no sunspots on the sun when this photo was taken. This exemplary image provided by the manufacturer shows what sunspots in the light of the Calcium-H-line look like.