Celestron Hummingbird 9-27x56 (1 Viewer)

Hi

I just bought this mini scope as a way of lightening my load. I’ve tried it with Baader Morpheus 12.5mm, giving 16x and 76* afov, on a monopod and a shoulder stock. I really like it so far but my experience was so limited by heat haze that I’m not sure what tell you about it. It is really bright and sharp that’s for sure, when used on things near enough not to be hazy.

What I noticed most is that it felt like the depth of focus was quite narrow, surprising given the low mag. Is this just me getting used to a helical focusser? Or a function of the short focal length? 200mm by the way Or is there something else at work that I don’t know about?

Anyone used it and felt the same about the depth of focus?

Also any suggestions for other e/ps in the 15 to 20 ish range that are lighter weight than the huge Morpheus? Willing to trade reduced fov for weight savings

I’ll say more about it after some less hazy try outs.

Thanks

Boogieshrew said:

Also any suggestions for other e/ps in the 15 to 20 ish range that are lighter weight than the huge Morpheus? Willing to trade reduced fov for weight savings

Click to expand...

If you're willing to give up that wide FOV, there are plenty of fairly inexpensive astro eyepieces that area light and work well. The Astro-Tech Paradigm series is good and light. The Celestron X-Cel series are a little heavier, but I've heard good things as well.

Thanks Josh. I haven’t heard of Astro-tech paradigm. I’ll check them out. I had found the x-cels and intend to try them out soon.
Cheers

Ahhhaahh. Paradigms are the same as BST eyepieces over here. They seem a bit short on e/r but thanks for the heads up, I may give them a go to check the e/r for myself.

I just got the Humingbird 9-27x 56mm for my birthday. I am having a lot of fun with it but I was wondering if I could boost its power a bit for viewing shorebirds on mudflats and marshes. Has anyone tried a 2x Barlow or one of the Celestron Omni eyepieces? Or is this scope too small to have good results with higher magnification pieces? I don’t expect it to perform like a full sized scope but I just want a little more magnification to help with identification

Hi,

welcome to BF, first of all!

It is certainly a very fast instrument at f3.6 and with a focal length of 200mm which is quite ambitious with a small ED doublet - I would not try this beyond 40x maybe 50x which would mean a 5mm to 4mm EP.

Regarding Barlow or Celestron Omni I would choose neither as a final solution - the stock zoom is a fairly narrow affair even at the high mag end with 51 deg afov, so barlowing it will not be so great. Also it is not very probable that you will come to focus with a barlow.
And Celestron Omni series are basic Ploessl EPs which are fine for slow scopes of f6 and up, but they would not be my first choice for f3.6. Also short focal length Ploessl EPs are not known for their generous eye relief - the Omni 6mm (for a 33x magnification in your scope) has 5mm eye relief which is unusable with glasses and very uncomfortable without.

Your first step should be to crank up the stock zoom to max magnification and critically check the view:
- is focus easily found or do you have to search a bit for the least fuzzy setting?
- how is lateral CA when watching dark objects (twigs or a dark bird against an overcast sky) - how terrible is the fringing?

If the focus pops and CA is ok at 27x, you might try for more magnification - I would aim around 40x with 5mm EP - I would just use my 5mm Nagler which is very nice but not cheap.
A 4.7mm Explore Scientific 82 deg (42x) will give 95% plus of the Naglers performance at 50% of the price. Other options would be a 5.5mm Meade UWA 5000 (36x) or a 4mm Teleskop Express UWAN 82 deg (50x).

Your best bet would be an astro club observation night of course as these guys tend to have lots of EPs available and when asked nicely might let you try one or two... the downside is that these guys tend to meet under dark skies, so you might want to read up on star testing telescopes in order to see if it works...

A telescope meeting is an even larger event with sometimes hundreds or more people around - the larger ones are over a few days and have vendors around which will have all the EPs you can imagine for sale and test during daylight - often even at a discount. Also there sometimes is a flea market for used stuff (although well priced EPs tend to go quickly).

Or you find a brick and mortar store stocking 1.25" astro EPs and take your scope there or as a last resort sth online with a good return policy.

In general, astro EPs tend to go on sale a few times a year - in the US usually before xmas and around NEAF in spring. Used EPs are another option for great deals - expect around 2/3 of retail for a good example.

Joachim