John

I had one for a while (not with the Sky Tour). It worked well enough with my Vixen 102mm F/6.5 refractor but was not really stable enough when I tried a longer tubed scope on it (100mm F/9). It's a lovely looking mount but has it's limitations as tube length grows. Not sure if the TV 102 (F/8 ?) will be entirely stable when used at higher magnifications

Despite the issues already mentioned in this thread, its hard to overlook the Skytee II (and clones) when looking for a reasonably heavy duty alt-az mount if the budget is less than £500.

It's the tube length that puts the strain on the mount, rather than it's weight. Virtually any mount can handle 3-4kg of weight but the near metre long tube is a whole different matter due to moment arm force.

I got the Baader Aspheric 36mm to use with a 150mm F/12 refractor that I had a couple of years back. It was a nice eyepiece at that focal ratio but I was rather dismayed when I tried it with my F/7.5 ED120 refractor to find quite extensive astigmatism in the outer 25% of the field of view.

The Hotech that I had was out of collimation as much as the low cost ones were I've also tried the Baader and a couple of lower cost laser collimators, all with similar issues. I don't seem to have much luck with laser collimators ! I have actually kept one of the cheap ones because it proved the easiest to collimate itself. I tend to use it more for checking optical alignment of refractors rather than my newtonian though.

Yep, the True Track motor / motors will fit onto an EQ5 and the Vixen SP / GP mounts. The only difference between the Orion True Track and the Skywatcher ones is that the housing of the RA motor of the Orion ones is curved to match the shape of the plastic RA motor cover on Orions version of the EQ5. It fits fine on either the EQ5 or the Vixen mounts mentioned though. Synta, the manufacturer who makes Skywatcher stuff, also makes stuff for Orion and a number of other brands so the quality is the same.

I've never managed to get a laser collimator (I've tried a few ) to agree with my cheshire eyepiece and yet the star test shows the cheshire to be correct. Result - I no longer use a laser collimator.

Good suggestion. A 2 inch diagonal will also need to be acquired as well though, if Neil does not already have one.

Canadian Astro Buy & Sell: https://www.astrobuysell.com/propview.php I use the UK version of this site all the time and it's excellent

Those scopes compliment each other rather than compete. Ideally you would own both and then have a nice wide field scope for the deep sky and a nice scope capable of sharp planetary views at high magnifications. I realise though that going for both is not likely to be feasible

The Cocoon Neb is a tough one to observe. It needs really dark skies and it's actual surface magnitude is a lot fainter than the integrated magnitude figure that is quoted for it. It is one of a relatively small group of nebulae that a H-Beta filter makes a positive impact on. A UHC will have a small improvement. Even with the help of these filters it is regarded as a challenge. Not quite as hard as seeing the Horsehead Nebula but getting towards that sort of challenge. The Blue Snowball has a much brighter surface magnitude and much higher contrast. I'm sure it is not your technique but the challenge of the target that it the cause of your frustration.

If it's not specified then assume FPL-51 or equivilent. If it's FPL-53 they will say - it's a lot more expensive than FPL-51 ! Still probably made in the same factory though.

Most deep sky objects are just smudges of light even with a 9.25 inch scope. Filters such as the O-III and UHC type do help make some nebulae stand out more. The views with a scope don't generally look anything like the images you see of deep sky objects because those are captured by highly sensative CDDs and are the results of many minutes or hours of culmulative exposures. Light pollution and moonlight can make even the brighter deep sky objects difficult to see. They will seem more impressive if viewed under really dark skies but still won't rival the images I'm afraid. Practice does help the eye to pick out deep sky objects. M81 and M82 are a couple of the best galaxies. M101 and M51 are somewhat fainter because they are face on to us.

The TS and the Altair scopes are probably the same item under different brandings with slightly different detailing.

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If you can find one, the Russian mak-newtonians are superb planetary scopes. They rival top quality apochromatic refractors of a similar aperture. They are quite heavy and their tubes are newtonian length but their tiny central obstruction and excellent baffling really produce very contrasty and sharp images of the planets.

I did a review of the Baader Classic orthos for the forum a few years back:

I can get 1.6 degrees with my 12 inch dob and the 31mm Nagler eyepiece. This shows the whole of the eastern or western segments of the Veil Nebula but not both in the same field of view. You need something like 3.5 degrees to get that which is where shorter focal length scopes combined with the wide / ultra wide eyepieces come in.

So if you want the most compact tube, you go for an SCT

How do you collimate accurately without a centre spot on the primary ?

I think a low power, wide angle eyepiece is a great asset in a fast scope - the challenge is finding one that performs reasonably well without breaking the bank Going for 70 degrees rather than 80 would help - there are reasonable performers such as the Skywatcher Aero ED 30mm or the Panaview 32mm. They won't be perfectly corrected at that focal ratio but they will be better than a low cost 80 degree eyepiece I think.

In his original post Raph was looking at 82 degree eyepieces in the 2 inch fitting and also mentions Naglers and the ES 30mm 82 degree eyepiece so it's reasonable to assume that he is looking for a wider field of view than the 1.25 inch fitting can provide perhaps ?

You can get a perfectly good 52 degree 32mm focal length eyepiece in the 1.25" fitting which will show the same true field of view. I can't see the point of having a 2 inch barrel on a 30mm focal length eyepiece if the field stop fitted restricts the AFoV to 50 something degrees Having wide FoV eyepieces in a short focal length scope delivers some wonderful observing opportunities eg: the whole of the Veil nebula in the same field - one of my favourite views in the hobby

Yes, but OO service attitude could be much better from my personal experience, alas I wish I could say different because I love my OO 12 inch dob.

The APM 80 degree 30mm is the same as the one you linked to earlier I believe. These are produced under a number of brandings and have been for over a decade now. These are chinese clones of the original Japanese Kokusai Kohki WideScan III 30mm eyepiece which I've also owned. The Japanese version was a little better corrected but still showed large flocks of seagull shaped stars in my F/6.5 102mm Vixen refractor !