John

Google threw this up:

http://www.specola.altervista.org/alterpages/files/BrochureTelescopiMARIOSPADA1991.pdf

Looks like it might be a heavily modified Celestron SCT but I've never heard of them until now.

I don't know the Tel Vue 8-24mm zoom internals (it is the same as the Vixen LV 8-24 zoom) but here is a Baader 8-24mm zoom strip down which might give you an idea what to expect:

https://roslistonastronomy.uk/be-afraid-be-very-afraid-baader-8-24-zoom-lens-stripdown

I did another zoom a couple of years back and they are complex and fiddly things mostly because of the sliding mechanisms which are greasy and use tiny nuts and bolts.

There are 7 glass elements I think, as well.

Hi and welcome to the forum ?

What were you trying to see ?

36 minutes ago, Jiggy 67 said:

John, is that first one a Hyperflex??...I was looking at one on FLO and looks really good for the price!!....added it to my wishlist!!

It's the same but under different branding. This zoom is available under quite a few branding and at quite varying prices !

I picked the lowest cost that I could find because I was not sure how it would be but I've been pleasantly surprised.

15 minutes ago, Dr Strange said:

The 31 Nagler will be completely wasted on the SCT. The SCT has far too narrow a field of view to justify the 31 Nagler. The 31 will do well on the 80mm though.  

I can think of at least one member here who uses the 31mm Nagler in their 8 inch SCT and gets superb results.

The most basic type that you can buy is an achromatic doublet - 2 lens elements. This would be your "standard refractor"

Nobody makes or sells a single element (non-achromatic) refractor.

The next step is an ED doublet refractor which uses a low dispersion glass element to reduce markedly the amount of chromatic aberration visible.

The next step is a triplet which if well executed can reduce chromatic aberration to virtually zero. 

Within each of the above types there are a range of qualities available and a wide range of pricing. The more expensive ED doublets can be somewhat more than a low to mid cost triplet for example.

The major advantage that the reflector has is that the cost per cm of aperture is a lot, lot lower because there are less optical surfaces to figure, polish and coat.

There are plenty of threads on the forum discussing the merits of the various scope designs. In my view they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Thats probably why many of us end up with a variety of them !

If a 3-6 Nagler zoom popped up at a decent price I might be tempted to get the pair

I have one of these:

And one of these:

I like them both and use them frequently. They probably get more use than the other eyepieces I have because they are so flexible.

I've also owned a few of the Baader zooms (a Mk II and a couple of Mk III's) one of the low cost Skywatcher 8-24's and the very expensive Leica 8.9mm - 17.8mm ASPH zoom.

I would not want a zoom as my only eyepiece but I've certainly found that they are very useful to have in the astro "tool box"

I use one of these zooms quite frequently for lunar, planetary and double star observing. Not the widest field of view at the long end but image quality is good. I use a 2.25x barlow with it but my refractors are shorter focal length than your 127mm mak-cassegrain is so on it's own the zoom gives you 70x - 208x:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/ovl-eyepieces/hyperflex-72mm-215mm-eyepiece.html

A touch over your budget but a lot of flexibility !

Congratulations on the scope.

What barlow do you have ?

Just don't want it to be the "weak link" !

Great set Jeremy

I've ended up with a 2 inch case and a 1.25 inch case as well. Bit extravagant I suppose but they are all absolutely essential tools of course

I've tried binoviewing quite a few times but each time I've just not got along with it. I can seem to merge the images OK but I find it easier to pick out details when just using one eye. Maybe I'm similar to Don in this respect ?

My latest attempt to get into binoviewing is shown below. 130mm triplet refractor which is binoviewer ready, ie: can reach focus without the need for an extender element or barlow. The setup worked wonderfully but I still found myself preferring the mono approach 

Shame really

Too much choice these days:

FPL-53 or Fluorite Glass ?

Carbon Fibre or Aluminum Tube ?

Smokey Bacon or Cheese and Onion Coatings ?

Another thread which amply illustrates how the "your mileage may vary" adage applies to eyepieces 

Perhaps we need an eye assessment service to advise which eyepieces are likely to please before purchase. Rather like being fitted for a suit !

2 hours ago, azrabella said:

I finally had the opportunity to test the newly arrived Fullerscopes 20mm 82 Degree eyepiece barlowed using an ES 2x tele extender which gave me an effective wide angled 10mm. I compared it directly with a Baader MkIV at 12mm - only difference was the markedly larger fov with the Fullerscopes eyepiece.  I then tried the same thing with the Nirvana 16mm, again reducing down to an effective 8mm. No discernible difference. It seems that I now have a redundant Baader zoom eyepiece, plus I've saved money by not having to purchase a 12mm UWA.

I had the Fullerscopes 20mm 82 degree for a while recently (maybe the same one ?).

I don't know the scope that you were using it with but I found the edge of field astigmatism really distracting in scopes of F/8 and faster. It would be OK in an SCT or F/10 or slower scope I think.

I would have thought that the Baader zoom would have been a betrer corrected eyepiece even if the AFoV was nowhere near as wide ?

The AZ-3 mount and it's tripod hub are an integrated unit. You can change the tripod legs if you can find some which will fit but the hub really has to stay with the head which limits the options.

3 hours ago, tonyowens_uk said:

As a prominent Western prophet said "the truth will set you free".  Objective eyepiece testing is far from straightforward and in any case is not the only criterion for value of an ocular. I had the chance to return the XW30 I had bought, following my own comparison (using my own preferred equipment). But though I intended to, I have not done so. 20 years ago I remember being blown away by the overall experience of using an XW10 compared with various commercially-available and privately developed high quality oculars - the ease of use, the lack of scatter, the ergonomics, even the smell. That memory was instrumental in my decision to buy a 6 element all-spherical design in 2020. The essential difference between the XW30 and the APM 30UFF (apart from superior tech performance and lower cost of the latter) is 'character'. We humans aren't the cold rational creatures assumed by most economic theory. As I've got older I've come to trust my non-rational judgements more and more...

The Pentax XW's differ in optical design and characteristics across their focal lengths. I too got hooked on them with the 10mm (loaned by First Light Optics). They also loaned me a 30mm XW to compare and review. That was nice but it did not make the impression that the 10mm XW had.

Currently I have the 10, 7, 5 and 3.5 XW's and feel that they are the best of the range for my scopes and preferences

Thanks very much for sharing that Neil. I think I can try and tread in your footsteps with the gear I have. It's the processing that I get foxed by

Please don't tell anyone on here though - they will think I'm getting interested in imaging and we can't have that !

More from my past.

1st pic, the Altair Sabre. Very nice to look at and it worked well but the 130mm F/9.2 was too much for it no matter how I adjusted things.

2nd pic, the Tele Optic Giro III. Simple, well made, lightweight and just did it's job without any fuss 

3rd pic the old AZ-3. Has it's faults but can be made to work decently well with a short tube scope on board (C5 in this case). Very light - this set up could be carried with one hand.

4th pic, Slik Master Classic photo tripod with my old TV Ranger on board. A really nice "old school" photo tripod capable of carrying a small astro scope rather well I found.

5th pic, my Tasco 12-TR 60mm on it's fork alt-az mount which I call "mr wobbles" for reasons that became clear to me again when I recently dusted this setup off and used it again.

6th pic AZ-4. Good solid, simple mount for the Vixen ED102SS F/6.5.

4 hours ago, Philip R said:

Here's mine...

AOK-AYO & Tele-Optic Giro ll...

 

my 'new baby'... the Universal Astronomics DwarfStar...

 

...with TeleVue Ranger & 13mm Nagler Type 6...

 

...and with my 're-modded' ETX105 & AstroBoot 'unknown' 7-21mm zoom... (oop's! I forgot to extend the tripod legs and remove the end caps and for this image).

Very nice stuff !

I had a DwarfStar mount for a while when I had my Tele Vue Ranger. Really neat little mount and surprisingly capable 

27 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

Had a go at stacking some images taken through my 10" dob this morning. There was a bit low light cloud around at the time. I think it came out alright though.

That looks great Neil - some nice detail of the tail structure.

I'd like to try the same next time I age a chance - could you let me know the approach you used ?

I know practically nothing about astro imaging I ought to say !

The Meade 10 will be a modest upgrade if it is a decent one and in good collimation. Its not going to be a big upgrade in performance though.

You would also be trading a very portable and easy to handle 8 inch setup for a very heavy and unwieldy setup. Both the Meade 10 inch and the CGEM DX mount are really heavy items. We have a couple of 10 inch Meade's in my Astro Society and having set them up myself a couple of times, I'm always surprised how much heavier they are than the 8 inch SCT's.

Hi and welcome to the forum

Was the scope not insured by the sender ?

I use Hermes a lot. Never had a problem with them but I do insure most things I send just in case.

4 hours ago, Shaun Sr said:

Thanks dr strange.  One question. Are the televue better than es 82s. Es where my original choice but got the TV instead.  And do I need anything bigger than  an 18mmm?:  

If you are going to get the 2 inch diagonal to fit the 18mm ES 82 I would definitely consider a longer focal length 2 inch eyepiece as well. An 18mm 82 degrees eyepiece barely justifies the 2 inch barrel fitting. I would be thinking about getting something in the 26mm - 30mm range with an 82 degree field of view to really exploit what the 2 inch format can deliver.

In the 8 inch SCT an 18mm 82 degree eyepiece gives you a true field of .74 degrees. A 28mm 82 (for example) shows you over 50% more sky. You will appreciate that when observing some of the larger deep sky objects and pairs of objects such as M81 and M82 which it's lovely to have in the same field of view.

Unless you are going to buy a wide field scope to compliment the SCT of course.

CO is telling me that I have "red" and 100% cloud cover for  the next 24 hours so I won't need to set my alarm