32mm eyepiece

Astounding night of observing last night here in the Midlands.
Since I bought my 10" dob two weeks ago, this was the first night of reasonably good seeing experienced. I was waiting for the scope to cool down - and not having much patience, I used the 32mm (2 inch barrell) eyepiece that came with the scope: WOW. what a piece of kit. something all you experts probably already know, magnification is of course important but field of view is also important. Anyway after being mesmerised for an hour or so with these views I ramped up the magnification and started to look for some star clusters and other popular objects using just the 15mm - M31, M35, M36, M37, M42, M45, and to finish the night I had a long look at Saturn, could not make out the cassini division (don't know if that is a result of the rings closing or Collimation). Anyway an enjoyable night.

Declan

Did you try the 32mm without the Barlow? Thats pretty sweet. The FOV in a 32mm EP is great. I love using it just to scan the sky to see what i can find.

Its a very nice and relaxing EP to use.

I'm guessing in a 10" scope you should see the rings. I can still just about see the divide in my 3.5 " scope.

*edit*

Sorry you mean a 32mm 2"EP, not a 32mm with 2X barlow.

Now i'm with you.

Yes PJ, I don't have a barlow to suit. Never seen one but presume the exist? The quality (particularly in the centre of view was brill....)

seeing was quite good around 9pm - and i could just make out dust lanes of milky way.......did you ever feel that Milky way, as a name for our galaxy is a bit infantile.... - I wonder if we should start a poll to look for an alternative name? or maybe it has one already?

Fixed your post Declan so that there's no confusion about 2 32mm EP's, 2X barlows, or a 2 inch barrel...

Wiki doesnt offer anything useful about the name:


The Milky Way (a translation of the Latin Via Lactea, in turn derived from the Greek Γαλαξίας (Galaxias) sometimes referred to simply as "the Galaxy"), is a barred spiral galaxy that is part of the Local Group of galaxies. Although the Milky Way is one of billions of galaxies in the observable universe,[4] the Galaxy has special significance to humanity as it is the home galaxy of the planet Earth. The Milky Way galaxy is visible from Earth as a band of light in the night sky, and it is the appearance of this band of light which has inspired the name for our galaxy.

Some sources hold that, strictly speaking, the term Milky Way should refer exclusively to the observation of the band of light, while the full name Milky Way Galaxy, or alternatively the Galaxy should be used to describe our galaxy as an astrophysical whole

Kinda knew some of that and remark was tongue in cheek, but imagine we make first contact, will be be trying to tell these alians where they live - anyway back on topic : I was looking at barlows to suit 2" eyepieces, but cant see any in ireland, just thinking about it....so impressed was I with the wide views I had last night with the 32mm, 2"
Cant wait for another good night to seek out more DSO's

Declan