John

Fascinating reports Gerry The only reason that I've not commented is becuase I've been away since Thursday so missed all the fun ! My Leica zoom arrives tomorrow so thats going to be very interesting to compare against my Ethos / XW's mix over the coming weeks Sounds like the Lunt contains subtly better optics than the Myriad / WO XWA's so perhaps not a clone or made to higher standards ? Good to see something that will take on the Tele Vues without asking for more £'s / $'s and even leaving a few in the bank for other purchases

Bit late to this thread. The scope is a rather early APM collaboration with Mathias Wirth. The interesting thing (which I don't know the answer to) is whether Wirth was involved with figuring the objective lens. If so then the scope is very special indeed. I've seen a scope with the same tube for sale around 10 years back in an optical dealer north of Bristol for around the same price as it's being offered for here. The risk is in the objective. A triplet is a specialist job to collimate. A quad even more so I feel It is quite a heavy scope for it's spec - my F/9.2 130mm APM / TMB / LZOS triplet is 9.5 kg all up (rings, diagonal and finder included). I reckon that the scope might take a while to find a new home at virtually £3K. We will see ....

The Tak 6x30 is superb quality but it's not RACI and thats my biggest gripe about it. I use a Skywatcher 6x30 RACI now and it's fine. I guess I'll keep the Tak finder and bracket in case I ever move the Tak on (very unlikely). They cost around £170 I think

Very nice scope !

Don't blame you Gerry - "you only live once" With your dark skes and experience, the reach of a 24" scope is going to be awesome !

My findings were similar. I also found that I needed to fold the eyecup of the ES 20 / 200 down to see the full FoV easily wheras I can do the same with the E21 with the eyecup up. Occasionally this seemed to lead to some stray light getting between my eye and the folded eyecup and onto the eye lens, reducing contrast a little. My observing site is not completely dark ! Very small differences though and I could have lived with the ES quite happily I'm sure.

Thanks Gerry. My favourite of the Myriads was the 20mm. Not just because it performed well, there was something about it that was just "right" in mt 12" dob An eyepiece that you can leave in the focuser all night for galaxy hopping !

Here is a link to my review of the Myriad 100 degree eyepieces for anyone interested: Plus something I did comparing the William Optics XWA 9mm and the Myriad 9mm:

Sorry - I forget that the ED PRO series refractors from Skywatcher are also part of the Evostar range. My Vixen ED102SS matches the Skywatcher ED100 F/9 that I owned before it for CA and SA correction. I'm not sure that all scopes of a similar spec would do that though - Vixen make very good objective lenses. The ED100 Skywatchers are very close to Takahashi scopes of a similar spec. The TS 102 F/7 might get close but without trying one I don't know whether it would match the Skywatcher ED100 F/9 It's not just about the ED glass element of course but the figuring, coating, mounting of the objective and the match of the glass of the 2nd element that creates the overall performance.

Amongst my weaponry (Python - Spanish Inquisiton ?) I have an excellent Vixen ED102SS refractor that has an ED doublet lens that uses an FPL-51 (probably - Vixen didn't specify) ED element. It's a really good all round instrument which can deliver low power views up to 3.8 true degrees in extent as well as handling magnifications of 220x when the seeing is good. While it's not totally colour free in the way that my Tak 100 F/9 Fluorite is, the Vixen's control of CA is far, far better than any Evostar achromat refractor that I've used, even the F/10 ones. If the TS 102 F/7 can get that sort of performance it would make a good all round scope

Not yet Louis

It matches the colour scheme better than an Ethos would

Have you ever used a Pentax XW 5mm Mark ? After a year of comparing them, I eventually reached the conclusion that the Pentax XW 5mm and 3.5mm were just a wee bit better performers than my Ethos SX 4.7 and 3.7. Not 100 degree eyepieces of course but so, so sharp

All the 100 degree eyepieces I've used seem to offer slight improvements in performance terms (not just the FoV) over the 82 degree eyepieces from the same brand. When a 100 degree range comes along that is consistently better than the Ethos then I'll think about changing. Meanwhile .......

I'll be interested to hear your views Gerry. My info is that optically the Lunts are the same as the Skywatcher Myriads and their clones. The 20mm Myriad was a very nice hyper wide eyepiece when I compared it with my Ethos 21. If I'd wanted to save lots of £'s in return for some very small compromises in performance (very small) then my Ethos 21 might have been in danger. The Lunts have the soft foldable eye cup which I prefer over the hard twist up / down style of the Myriad.

Makes sense Gavin. I was in Florida a couple of weeks back and we are in Costa Rica in September but I'm resisting the tempation. Wildlife seems to take centre stage on holiday which both my wife and I are interested in

Some very nice and interesting portable gear in these posts I don't take astro stuff with me on holiday apart from small binoculars and those get used mostly for wildlife / birding. I find that it's good to have a break from the hobby from time to time and I appreciate it when I get back

Hello and welcome to the forum. Which direction was the object and how far from the horizon was it ? A location, date and time (local) of the observation would help as well. Sirius does not actually blink but can appear to scintillate because, from northern latitudes, it is quite low down in the sky and we observe it through lots of atmosphere.

Some excellent items in there - room for more too !

There might be something in that

Unfortunately I believe they won't be making any more T-Rex's I can't imagine that they come on the used market much.

Thats very useful "rule of thumb" advice Mike My 130mm F/9 triplet is into GM11 territory I reckon I still think there is a niche for a manual alt-az that is somewhere between the Ercole / Skytee II / AZ8 and the DM6 / APM AzMaxLoad / T-Rex in capacity terms.

Looks a bit like a chess game Dave

I reckon its the rise in popularity of imaging that has driven the industry to produce faster apo refractors. Thats why scopes such as the Tak FC-100 DL fluorite doublet and the TMB / LZOS 130 triplet F/9.2 are different - they are squarely aimed at the visual astronomer. The original Tak FC100N was a F/10 fluorite doublet. Nikon and Pentax used to produce similar "slow" ED doublets some way back.

Interesting Mike and I'm sure it holds good Of my 4 refractors, I'm fondest of the Vixen and the Skywatcher simply because I've owned them a long time. They and the 12" (especially that scope) are the ones that have contributed most to my enjoyment of the hobby because they have been with me longer, of course. While the images through the Tak DL and the TMB / LZOS 130 F/9 are technically the best I've ever seen for those apertures, they have yet to become "friends" in the way the others have. These scopes will show me things that I have already seen slightly better than I have seen them before. The 12" dob is still capable of showing me new things. Gotta respect that None of this is surprising though - I've been in the hobby too long to nurture unrealstic expectations of kit these days How am I going to get some new "kicks" ? - subject for another thread I think. Sorry to rabbit on in your AP 130 thread Gavin. You have wonderful scopes mate - treasure them