John

As I said, I had to collimate my 90mm mak when it arrived.

I had to collimate my 90mm mak-cassegrain when I got it so I would have been frustrated if I had not had them.

Given your priorities, the mak-cassegrain 127 I think.

Thats odd. I have a Celestron branded 90mm mak-cassegrain and that does have collimation screws Some versions of the Skywatcher 102mm mak-cassegrain do have collimation facilities for the primary mirror. This is the rear end of a Skymax 102:

I'd want something like a 40mm 2 inch for maximum field of view, a couple of mid range focal lengths - say 18mm and 10mm and a couple of higher magnification eyepieces, say 7mm and 5mm.

Exactly the same here. The investment lasts a long time and many eyepiece cleans.

You should see sharply focused views of distant objects (ie: hundreds of metres or more away) regardless of where you are observing from. Make sure you are using our lowest power eyepiece for this, ie: the one with the longer focal length in mm marked on it, eg: 20mm or 25mm.

I think all the 100 degree eyepieces have eye relief of around 15mm. Sometimes the usable eye relief is less due to a recessed eye lens or protruding eye cup design. Generally I'm not sure that 100 degree eyepieces are that suitable for those who wear glasses when observing in all honesty. The Morpheus are probably your best bet. I believe they actually give you slightly more than 76 degrees in practice.

The Orion LHD line of eyepieces claim 80 degrees AFoV and 20mm of eye relief but I've never used or even seen one: https://uk.telescope.com/Orion-LHD-80-Degree-Lanthanum-Ultra-Wide-1252-Eyepieces/e/274.uts APM's 84 degree eyepieces state long eye relief: http://astrograph.net/APM-125mm-HI-FW-84-Degree-AFOV-Eyepiece Again, I've not used one myself so I can't confirm one way or another.

Mistakes happen, can be understood and forgiven provided a prompt and positive reaction results from the supplier. The "blarney" about the condition that customers should expect new scope optics to be in is more of a concern if they really believe that Hope you get sorted with a scope sometime real soon Rich

Having compared the engineering of the Vixen SP / GP and GP-DX with the chinese clones it is obvious even to a non-engineer such as me that the Japanese made Vixen's are made to higher tolerances and quality than the clones.

The additional .5kg may well be explained by the "cage" that the baffles are mounted on before installation into the tube with the LW II. The objective cell looks to be exactly the same comparing mine to photos of versions bought recently. It is a very sophisticated design executed with great care. Given the cost of these objectives you would expect that I think. The T-Rex is the first mount that I have used with my 130 F/9.2 that handles the tube length and weight really well. It has been a touch under-mounted on the Giro, Skytee II, Celestron AVX, Vixen GP-DX and HEQ5 mounts that I have used previously despite these being on a Berlebach Uni 28 tripod. The T-Rex does handle 150mm F/8 doublet refractors well I believe but I'm not sure about 150mm triplets such as the TOA and LZOS because they tend to be quite a bit heavier again. A DM6 or Rowan AZ100 would also be suitable alt-azimuth mounts I think. If I was going to go back to an equatorial I would consider a Lozmandy GM11. With the dew shield and the binoviewer tube extension retracted the overall OTA length is 103 cm (excluding a diagonal). Mine weighs 9.4kg complete with tube rings, DT bar, 9x50 RACI finder and 2 inch diagonal installed. I think the weights quoted on the websites are for a bare tube.

I agree with John. I'm no imager at all but I've been happily surprised what even my basic android phone can do held over the eyepiece. I've bought a very cheap phone holder which makes this a little easier. Here are a few of my mobile phone shots which are nothing special compared to what the specialist imagers can produce but they made me happy

The scope is now on the T-Rex alt-azimuth mount which really deals with the tube length and weight so much better than the Giro II that I had when I first got the scope. So I might as well post a photo or two of the current setup

I've looked at the specs of the latest version of this scope and the differences that I see are: - The tube is CNC alloy rather than Kruppax 50. - I think the baffles in the new scopes are assembled all together as a unit and installed into the tube. On my scope the baffles are individually installed. - The Starlight FT focuser is 3.5 inch whereas mine is 2 inch. - The CNC LW II optical tube weighs 1.48kg more. Having looked at a few vendor listings, I'm rather surprised at how much these are to buy new now !

I think the Aero ED30mm is a decent low power / wide angle eyepiece. It is a 2 inch format though. In the 1.25" format I think the 30mm Vixen NPL is a good performer for it's cost. If you can run to an Explore Scientific 24mm 68 degree that's better again.

The spending often starts when a nice scope arrives ....... We don't want any "weak links" in the optical chain, do we ? I'm sure the views will be lovely

I think I posted this earlier but a dew shield is a "must have" with a mak-cassegrain or an SCT.

Nice choice - the modern equivalent of my Vixen ED102SS F/6.5 I reckon

Sounds like the decision is made then

Another of our members has owned an AZ8 for some time now:

I've bought a William Optics Megrez 90 and more recently a Tak FC100-DL new from retailers and they were both in immaculate conditon both optically and cosmetically. My TMB/LZOS 130 F/9.2 triplet is around a decade old and has had two owners from new. The objective of that is pretty much immaculate as well. If I had bought the scope that @Rich1980 has been supplied with second hand I would have been pretty miffed if the condition of the objective had not been disclosed to me by the seller and taken account of in the pricing. I have bought used scopes with objectives that needed cleaning and then re-aligning but I knew full well what I was getting and it was priced accordingly.

I would use the side fitting. I only use the top fitting for very small / light scopes or a camera.

I used to own the same scope many years ago - the Vixen SP102M. Very fine scope ! The SP mount is similar in capacity to the Skywatcher EQ5 mount but for imaging you might need something more stable such as the Celestron AVX or Skywatcher HEQ5 mounts. Vixen retired the SP a long time back replacing it with the GP mounts and then with the current AP mount. It is possible to fit a Skywatcher EQ5 dual drive system to the SP mount but some DIY modifications are needed: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/362825-drive-for-early-vixen-super-polaris-mount/?p=4674995 Optically, you won't find much to beat the Vixen unless you move to something with an objective using and ED or Fluorite glass element. Vixen achromatic objectives are very good even by today's standards.

It should be OK with the 200mm F/5 with appropriate counter weighting on the other side of the mount. Don't use the stock Skytee II dovetail clamps with such an optical tube though. This refractor is longer and heavier than the 200P F/5 and my Skytee II coped with it quite well. Note an ADM clamp is used: