russ.will

My first decent scope (and the first I paid for) was an 8" Dob.  It arrived collimated amazingly, and I did't actually collimate it for the first 8 years of owning it!

 

Gave me spectacular views throughout that time, and with stock 10mm and 25mm EPs only :)

 

I'm fairly lucky by the sounds of things ;)

As I stated above my 8" Newt was so far out as to be comical. You can't assume because even based on our sample population, statistically you'll be missing 25% of the primary mirror.

Russell

And that's another good reason. Time is, for many people short. Dump a GOTO Mak in exactly the same spot every night and you'll be slewing from one target to the next in minutes, not using multiples of those minutes prodding around the skies.

For those with the time and patience, go Dob, but lets not assume that is the case for everybody. It's not.

Russell

That's an impressive list! Keep it up though because your extensive ownership experiences results in some excellent advice for the rest of us. I think a post outlining the reasons behind some of your major buying/selling decisions would be really interesting and informative....if you're prepared to share one day? Rob

I thank you for these kind words, but my opinion is just one of many and I'm far from experienced.

I've tried to outline some of my glacial thought processes in the post above. I'll try to do more of that in future. :)

Russell

I seriously couldn't remember what most of that cost, which is probably just as well. Mind you, a lot of it was bought second hand and a lot of it was bought from the USA. Even including VAT and import duty, plenty of the EPs landed brand new for what you can get for it second hand over here.

Plenty of the decisions were based on purely wanting to find out what all the fuss was about and/or, as a result, having to let something go to balance the books. Thus, there's quite a lot of that list I at least miss, if not regret selling.

Two examples would the the ES82 and Maxvision EPs (sold to fund TV Delos) and the AR127-L & EXOS 2 GOTO (Sold to fund LX200).

With all the fuss about TV EPs, I thought I'd go for what's renowned as the sharpest EPs they've ever made - Delos. I also reasoned that as you're not using the outer edge of an UWA most of the time, I wouldn't mind regressing to an SWA. Also, my eyes aren't getting any younger, but as it stands I'm a little long sighted with the merest hint of astigmatism. Maybe a long ER would be handy for what will inevitably mean glasses on viewing in the future?

In reality, the sharpness advantage is negligible and mostly right at the edge of FOV, just as well, because that edge now spends more time in view. Two and this was a more personal thing, I just couldn't get comfortable at an EP with arms length eye relief. Despite the fantastic screw and fold up eye-cup combination, I never found a position that stayed comfortable from one subject to the next - By which I mean, DSO, Moon and Sun. I could just seem to set them and leave them. This may be just me, but they were my EPs to use, night after night.

So, looking back, I pondered what I had used and enjoyed most. That was UWAs and EPs with 13-15mm of ER. In reality, I had pretty much exactly that in (most of) the ES82s, so that was a regret. However, in deciding that the Delos weren't keepers and not being one to look back, I decided to try out some Mega Wide Angles (hereafter MWA). There wasn't a cat in hell's chance I was going to spend Ethos money and SW/WO appear to be retreading the mistaken path they did with the Nirvana/UWAN clones - Namely, they've left out probably the most useful FL out of the lineup; What is the problem they have with producing something in the 11-14mm range?

That left the Meade XWAs or the ES100s. I actually don't care what the EP looks like, but some ferreting around t'internet was turning up ES100s at better prices and some good discounts too, so that was that. By the time I'd outed some soon to be redundant Maxvisions too, I think the change from Delos to ES100 stood me in at about £220.

I've not had a first light with the 14 & 20mm yet - those massive ES boxes hold some serious cloud - but I did manage to squeeze in two decent sessions with the 9mm and it was absolutely superb. You almost get the entire moon in the FOV of the 9mm (in the LX200 8") and that is one vertigo inducing, impressive sight. The image is absolutely crisp, right up until about the last 5% (if that) of FOV and by then, you're snapping your eye tendons to see it, so it's irrelevant. Treat the extremes like you would your own eyes ie, enjoy the sharp panoramic view in front of you, but when you want to see something right off to the side, you turn your head. You don't stand there trying to look around your own nose.

Wither the glasses? I'll deal with that when it becomes a necessity, not before.

The AR127-L and matching EXOS2 GOTO are firmly in the camp of regret selling.

When I bought the LX200, I had gone to see an LX90 12" and a CPC1100. They were both in very nice nick, but the 12" ACF on the LX90 is a bit under-mounted, whilst the lighter Celestron felt solidly mounted, but was made of plastic.

The problem started when I spied an absolutely pristine LX200R 8" in the show room. The R was the briefly used annotation for the first ACF optics. It was also only used whilst LX200s were made in the USA - Under the ACF banner, production was shifted to Mexico. Everything from the solid aluminium knobs with butter smooth action, to clutches that locked up tight with finger tip pressure said quality. Grabing the forks, or OTA showed zero backlash and a view at the eyepiece that settled almost instantaneously. Prising the (metal) dust cover off revealed optics that weren't just clean, they looked new. 

The clincher was that it had the Meade electronic microfocuser already fitted. This is not some aftermarket afterthought. It is like having an electronic crayford. It connects into the base of the scope and is operated from the GOTO handset - No extra handsets, no loom of wires. In subsequent use, I've noticed very, very little mirror flop, but with the fine focuser, it is obviously zero. This is a quantum leap over a Starlight upgrade fine focuser, which still requires you to actually touch the scope. No, this is an integrated SYSTEM.

It was £300 over budget, but I wasn't leaving without it and that's when the fate of the Bresser was sealed.

The regret is that I really liked the versatility of that scope. It was as happy splitting doubles as it was burrowing into the moon and was surprisingly good on DSOs. Not quite 8" Newt good, but better than a six, mostly because of refractor contrast. Especially once I'd had it professionally collimated (one of the best value upgrades you ever shell out for - A whole £40 in this case) it was remarkably CA free. Sure there was a hint around the lunar limb and cranking the mag on Vega started to show a bit of colour, but I've looked through scopes with ED inscribed on the lens cell that were worse.

The R&P focuser was slightly agricultural, but that same long focal length (F9.4) that keeps colour at bay, also gives you more depth of focus to play with, so it was less of an issue than you might imagine. However, even that basic focuser, knobs and all, was aluminium. The OTA tube is aluminium, not bent steel. the dew shield is aluminium, not steel or plastic. The lens cell is aluminium and unbelievably, not only has the usual push-pull screws for collimation, but a ring of screws around the outside for centering the lens elements. Some well thought of Apos can't even offer that up and it plays right into the hands of a professional collimation.

All in all, when you pick one up, you feel like you got your moneys worth and that makes it a pleasure to use and touch. I like this in anything I buy. I know plastic knobs turn just the same, but you can't ever love them. There's one of these on UKABS at the moment for £190, which is a complete steal.

The EXOS mount is better known in a former life as a Meade LXD75; a mount that suffers slightly from the reputation of it's fore bearer, the LXD55. It's another EQ5 class Vixen GP clone, but unlike the more popular alternatives, it comes with 2" tripod legs and that makes a difference when they're fully extended. The LXD75 was an evolutionary upgrade, but crucially all axes on this mount run on hefty roller bearings. The worms were well adjusted out of the box, with very little detectable backlash. Bedding in introduced a touch, but this was easy to adjust out. So, like the AR-127L, nothing revolutionary to be seen, but well crafted and properly screwed together when it leaves the factory.

What does set it apart from the Synta competition is the handset (a Meade Autostar #497), which is far more fully featured. There's too much to go into, but I'll give a couple of examples. There's a little red torch in the end - Nice. You can tell the handset what scope is on-board. If your scope isn't Meade/Bresser, pick the best approximation. Why does it need to know? If it knows it has a long frac on board, it knows to avoid destroying it's motors driving the focuser of a long frac against the tripod legs. You really can set it slewing and turn your back on it.

I was very sad to see that package leave, but it was bought by one Mr. David Lukehurst - yes the highly respected maker of handcrafted bespoke Dobs - and so it was nice to see it go to a good home. I asked him, given that he has access to what are obviously premium instruments of almost any configuration, what he wanted with a 5" frac. He said he wanted something that was quick to be ready for use and would cope with a suburban atmosphere and sometimes less than ideal viewing conditions.

You see chaps, a 12" Dob isn't the answer to everything and that bombshell was from the horses mouth! That said, having met the man, talked astro (in-so-far as a rabbit in the headlights of such experience and knowledge can) for an hour, I'm convinced I will get another Dob. The LX200 is surpassing my DSO expectations based on previous 8" Newts, but there's really no replacement for displacement at lower powers.

From what I know of the scopes I've owned, it won't be Chinese, it will be made from premium materials and if I'm going to that cost, it will be large and I know who it's coming from. I won't be parting with the LX200, or the 80mm Apo to own it though. This one is going to require saving for.

Russell