dweller25

News Flash….. You are a refractor man 🤣

The best piece of kit that I ever bought to combat ageing eyes is …. Binoviewers 🙂

A good C8 SCT will have a similar contrast level to a 135mm unobstructed telescope when used visually on the planets. So you are probably right, a 120/125mm refractor would be a close call. The 4” Starfield offers quick setup, low mass = quick cooling and will outperform your 127 Mak and ED80. The 120/125mm refractor offers more resolution and a slightly brighter image than the 4”. But they are more bulky. In my opinion a 4” refractor and a good 8” SCT are a great combination.

Just click on the home button (the house icon) at the top of the page then scroll down to the “Astro classifieds” section.

Assuming you have a suitable mount…. Both have probably similar optical quality, but the 120 has more resolution and light gathering so that would be my choice. PS - there is an SW Equinox ED120 in the for sale section.

Great pictures @Jessilee, welcome to SGL 🙂

You might want to start your own thread and introduce yourself 👍

Do you need more in focus or out focus with smaller eyepieces ? If in focus is needed you may be able to remove an extension ring off the focuser. If out focus is needed you can add an extension ring or just pull the eyepiece out a little bit and then secure it.

Welcome to SGL 👍

Hello @Florida Bear and welcome to SGL. A 13mm eyepiece gives x50 - thats the focal length of the telescope divided by the focal length of the eyepiece, so 650/13 = 50. At the moment Saturn is well past closest approach so is very small. You can certainly use shorter focal length eyepieces in your scope, for the planets I would suggest x185 (a 3.5mm eyepiece) is good. Or you could buy a x2 barlow lens that doubles the focal length of your telescope to 1300mm and then use a 7mm eyepiece to get x185. Comets are dull smudges even in bigger scopes. ”stellarium” is a great piece of free astronomy software that you can download to see what is in the night sky. Hope that helps.

I suspect you may need a good 18” scope and good seeing to view Amalthea.

I also think more and more that as the UK does not have consistently great skies that quality over quantity for visual astronomy may be the way to go.

I had an 1/10th wave OO VX8L mounted on an EQ mount, it did not blow me away visually compared to the 8” Skywatcher Newt that I had. It was lighter and a little better optically but MUCH more expensive. But both scopes got to some awkward viewing positions and the tripod legs got in the way a lot. I found my back started complaining after a while so sold them. Now all my scopes have the eyepiece at the back and I sit to view - much more relaxing and my back thanks me for it. But Newts do give the best performance to cost ratio.

Perfect, enjoy your scope 👍

Is the crown at the front of the scope, facing incoming light ?

@wookie1965 Just for clarity here is a diagram of how the lens arrangement should be, with the crown facing the stars…..

Result 👍🙂

Agreed 🙂

Awesome 👍

Correct, “you cannot make a silk purse out of a sows ear” 🤣

I had a good C6, an excellent C8 and a terrible C9.25. In my opinion SCT optical quality varies. For the same price as a C9.25 you can buy a Takahashi 180mm Mewlon with 1/20th wave optics which seem to get consistent praise 🙂

Brilliant 👍

Sounds like you may have bought a fancy brass scope toDAY ? 🙂

I have everything crossed 🙂🤞

I would suggest as your configuration is not working that you just flip the thin top lens over so that both arrows point in the same direction and give that a try to see if you get improvement.