Popping the I 3 back in the focuser, I was then able to see them. Forget about using the I 3 for faint fuzzies. It doesn t raise the brightness of faint extended objects beyond the level of the green background. If you want to go deep, stick with a regular eyepiece. Conclusions One of the unexpected advantages is that its ability to show bright deep sky objects still brighter makes it very useful for public star parties.
Visitors often have a hard time seeing objects that experienced observers find easy.
They may be bright to us, but the public finds those faint hazy patches to be a letdown. The brighter background also makes it easy to observe with both eyes open, thus reducing eyestrain. And you find yourself concentrating so much on the objects in view that the green-colored background and scintillation of the phosphor screen tends to be ignored after awhile. But there are plenty of drawbacks. When others want to take a look, in addition to adjusting the focuser, they ll usually have to re-focus the eyepiece on the phosphor screen in order to get the sharpest possible view.