John

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.

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

I don't use either even with my 12 inch dobsonian. Some folks like to use them though.

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.

They work superbly together. The effect is simply to create a 100 degree 4mm or 3mm eyepiece. No other impact of havng the Powermate there other than that and the additional weight and length to the stack. Eye relief does not change either. Certainly a lot less expensive than the Ethos SX 4.7 and 3.7

Lovely !!! Same as my 130mm F/9.2. Does yours have the Kruppax 50 tube ?

The paperwork looks superb ! 2001 is going back a bit but LZOS certainly do know how to make a fine objective lens When independently tested the LZOS objectives usually turn out to be at least as good as the supplied tests say if not a wee bit better. I'd like to see some pics of the scope, when you get the chance

Amazing how much detail you can go down to with that tool - I got down to boulders about 5 meters across sitting in the bottom of the Hadley Rille !

The long eyepiece plus Powermate stack can come in handy though

Great setup - one of my favourite combinations

Dobsonian mount every time for me. EQ3-2 is not really up to 150mm F/8 tube in my opinion. And I would stretch to the 200mm F/6 dob as well

My best Saturn was actually with an old C8 SCT that I used to own. Saturn was very high in the sky and the view with an 8mm TV plossl was absolutely breathtaking. No shimmer and no "coming and going" patches of best detail, just solid "Voyager views" for a couple of hours. Amazing. I've had some really nice views since, particularly with the 12 inch dob but the really top drawer nights are thin on the ground.

Nice big stack when you use a Powermate 2x with a 20mm 100 eyepiece

As Stu says, the conditions over here usually preclude being able to really push a larger aperture scope. I have had a few nights over the past few years when I've been able to usefully use 400x - 500x with my 12 inch dob but most often that does not deliver any benefits. With the refractors though, I reckon around 1 in 3 nights ands sometimes better than that, they can be pushed beyond 50x per inch with good results.

Been there, done that, decided that XW's were a touch better so eventually I let the Ethos SX's go.

In my case it is an observing area (patio) that is very close to the house so that I can pop in and out really easily. I keep my eyepieces, star charts, laptop etc in the dining room just a few paces and a pair of french doors away from where the scope is. Easy to pop in to warm up, use the loo and have a cuppa as well. If I did not have such a convenient arrangement I'm not sure that I would still be in the hobby to be honest with you

I've bought a couple of really cheap scopes over the past couple of months and those have proved a lot of fun for very little outlay. In many ways it's more satisfying getting some nice views from a £50 scope than it is pushing a £2000+ scope to it's limits

What scope does the original poster (@pob175) have ?

The link that @Shimrod posted is worth a look. I posted these approximations in your other thread yesterday: Exactly what YOU will see will depend on factors such as seeing conditions, how much time you spend observing and the positions of the planets when you observe them. This is not an exact thing to do and the quality of the view will vary session to session and even hour to hour. Placing a quantified value on additional performance potential is not really useful I feel. I think the consistent message though is that the 150mm Skywatcher dobsonian will give you the best potential performance for the budget you have available.