John

There are some ideas in this thread:

17 minutes ago, Geoff Barnes said:

Hi Craig, while it's not 100% spot on it is perfectly good enough for visual use. Would only need to be better for AP really.

I agree. Get on an use the scope as soon as the clouds clear

Is it because a quality objective lens puts a very high % of the energy into the airy disk and very little elsewhere ?

15 minutes ago, Robindonne said:

It was indeed a nice offer.  It also had a €250,- counterweight in his offer😬.   I just don’t have the equipment/scopes for this mount.   
You want his emailadress?   I think its available, i spoke to him 3 weeks ago.

Thanks for the offer. I might have been interested last year but I managed to get a T-Rex mount for my 130mm F/9.2 triplet refractor in February and that does the job excellently as well as having slow motion controls.

49 minutes ago, space3 said:

...in your opinion is the extra cost of the SSW worth it?

Not really. Personally I was a little disappointed in the SSW's and found them rather awkward to use as I said in my review.

Just now, Robindonne said:

While searching for an manual mount i found a used azMaxload.   The guy asks around € 450,-(£410,-).  I didnt take it because i liked the slomo controls, and my scopes are not really that impressive and heavy.   It was a single loader, if thats how its called.  
 

maybe it’s a nice deal for someone who is interested?

That is a really good deal. The AzMaxload is more than twice as much as that to buy new in it's basic form:

https://www.apm-telescopes.de/en/mounts--tripods/alt-azimuth-mounts/apm-azmaxload-mount-single-view-version

I have only ever seen one used one for sale here in the UK in the past few years. The asking price was a lot higher than the one that you were offered.

I don't think they do a Luminos 5mm ?

I've used the SSW's and the SLV's and they are pretty good. Very different eyepieces though:

Both these Vixen ranges would be a touch better than the Celestron X-Cel LX I suspect although the ED120 is not too fussy over eyepieces.

I very much enjoy the Pentax XW 5mm in my ED120 but that is definitely in the SSW price zone.

7 hours ago, Nik271 said:

I just thought of another solution: observe Mars when the sky is getting brighter: just before sunrise or after sunset. These days Mars is highest above horizon around 5am in the morning and here in the UK sun rises 45 mins later so 5am is perfect for me. If you have tracking your mount may follow Mars even during the day.

I have seen Venus during the day and then it did not seem bight at all.

That is the best time to view the planets - where there is still some light left in the sky

38 minutes ago, Stu said:

That’s what I’ve used with the Vixen 4” Fluorite, x300 and it seemed quite happy. I imagine it would take more on an excellent night.

My earlier point was that's what top grade optics can do.

More "run of the mill" optics do seem to reach their useful limits at lower magnifications, even if the seeing conditions are good.

10 minutes ago, StarGazingSiouxsie said:

Oh, I know, I wasn't taking the ***s. Just being happy  

Well that's OK then !

Please folks - no suggestions of anything illegal

Many thanks

17 minutes ago, chiltonstar said:

...but of course within the limits imposed by the size of the Airy disk for that aperture, I presume?

Chris

From some reports I read on forums, apparently not 

18 hours ago, StarGazingSiouxsie said:

Yes! And Io has that slighty burnt pizza topping surface,. which, whilst not really discernable through an eyepiece, given nice viewing conditions one can make a slightly orange tinge to it, like Mars had a baby and it ran off to Jupiter. I noticed this the other night, I checked and I was correct, it was Io! 1 in 4 chance, I know, but I'll take that  

My point was serious - you really can tell the difference in their disk sizes with some practice and it does not take a hugely powerful scope to do this. I've yet to see any markings on the Galilean moons but I know that one or two observers on this forum have see vague details on Ganymede's disk.

Top quality optics = top quality high magnification performance, when the seeing allows.

It's not rocket science

Now the mount issue is decided, it would probably be better to start another thread to discuss the differences between the 150 and 200 dobsonians, accessories etc, etc

6 minutes ago, Nair al Saif said:

Yeah together the 6inch dob with accessories costs 250 meanwhile the scope only on the 8 inch is 283. Actually with the accessories the 8 inch costs 319(same as the eq lol)

 

Would collimating be a bigger issue because of the lower f ratio?

There is not a lot of difference in collimation ease / maintenance between the two scopes.

The accessories you have mentioned so far are just the start ........

I agree with John re: the desirability of the additional aperture but budgets are important too and there will be some additional accessories that you are likely to want over the coming weeks / months so don't blow all your £'s on the scope.

10 minutes ago, Alan White said:

Oh and JID has so far not fitted a handle his one yet..... but time will tell 😉

They have a handle built in - you hold them like an ice cream:

If you observe Jupiter's Galilean moons really carefully at high magnifications you can make out that they have different disk sizes. It's fun to try and work out which might be which from observing them and then to use a tool such as the one linked to above to see if you got it right

Just now, Nair al Saif said:

Moon filter or Polarizing filter?

I don't use either even with my 12 inch dobsonian.

Some folks like to use them though.

10 hours ago, Alan White said:

This news makes me sad that Vixen are dropping a fine product again, a great shame.

 

A few months after these first came out I had a chat with FLO about doing a review of them. Steve said that he would be happy to send me some but pointed out they had hardly any interest in them and could not recall selling one so we decided that they were probably too "niche" to be worth a review on the forum.

Funny how things change

I use a short version of the cheaper one. Mine was free in fact - they used to supply them with Skywatcher dobs.

Well congratulations on getting the scope.

In my view, LZOS objectives are right up there with Takahashi and Astro Physics in terms of optical quality.

According to this review, the weight of the tube should tell you what it is made of:

http://alpha-lyrae.co.uk/2018/06/03/apm-lzos-115-triplet-apo-refractor-review/

It looks like a Kruppax 50 tube. Not sure what they used in 2001 though

One benefit of that material is that the scope will be practically immune from dewing. Mine just never has even though the tube exterior has been dripping with it.

If you need to know for sure, Markus Ludes at APM keeps records of all the LZOS scopes that APM have ever sold. He was able to supply me with duplicates of the original 2006 paperwork - the originals were lost by the previous owner of my scope.