John

Still looks a great scope Shane

I love refractors and have owned more of them than any other kind of scope but there are many things that my 12" dob has shown me that no frac that I could ever afford or be able to use could show and those sights make up the richness of the hobby just as much as the things that fracs are so good at. If it's showing me something lovely and even better, something that I've not seen before, then it's a "proper scope" regardless of the design IMHO @ baggywrinkle: I'm a bit confused when you say that your AA152 "....is sharp across 80-85% of the field...." Do you mean that the scope has field curvature, coma or similar or do you think the eyepieces are the main factor perhaps ?

Thanks for the suggestion Anders My LZOS 130 F/9.2 is the LW version - 8kg with the rings plus a little more with the finder and 2" diagonal. Having been through the process of trying to find a mount for a 6" F/12 Istar for nearly a year my suggestion would be to try things before you buy, if at all possible. Despite trying a Bray Tablet Alt-az mount and also an EQ6 head on the massive Meade LXD750 3" tripod I was still not happy with the scopes stability. At that time I did not have the budget for an Ayomaster or an APM Maxload both of which might have done the job plus I was reluctant to spend more on the mount than I had on the scope, which was a bit naive with hindsight. Good luck !

Very interesting stuff ! What Meade did not get right, others can sort out in due course The Meade 178ED is listed at £7K (mounted) in my 2000 BC&F brochure. I'd have been a bit annoyed if I'd forked that out back then and found that it had the sort of issues that you mention although I guess it was cheap for a 7" APO compared to the likes of Astro Physics. Maybe thats why they were underrated ? Look forward to reading your reports on the scope

Thanks Derek but I'm afraid I won't be at SGLXII.

I'm going to try a few different options out. I find until I actually try something, I can't really determine whether it will really suit me. Fortunately we still have a pretty active used equipment market in the UK I've used the TMB / LZOS a few times on the Giro II and it's useable but I'd like a bit more stability at high powers. I'll lookforward to reading any thoughts you have on the Meade 178ED. Having seen these in Telescope House in London back in the early 1990's and having read an interesting variety of views on them since, I've always wondered what they are really like.

Looks like my old Istar but they do all look alike ! The mount looks decent - I could not find something which held mine steady enough for my liking. Even the EQ6 / 3" steel tubed Meade Giant tripod was not up to it. I've just sold a Sabre as it happens. Nice mount but did the same job as the Giro II that I already have.

Those are "big ones" Is that Tom Yate's 7" Meade ED by any chance ?

I find the Virtual Moon Atlas useful and it's free !!!: https://www.ap-i.net/avl/en/start

I'd probably go for getting the magnification about equal Derek. Eyepieces of comparable quality would be good to but I guess they don't need to be exactly the same. When I was comparing a Skywatcher 150 F/8 with a minus violet filter, with no filter and with a chromacor, I tried to put some order of magnitude of the amount of CA that was being shown around the moons edge by finding a lunar crater that was appeared about the same size as the CA halo was wide, if that makes any sense. It's not exact of course but it did help me to quantify the differences to some extent

I'm not the original poster here but I can say that the objective lens of the scope (which has 2 elements like all achromatic objectives) has a focal length of 900mm and a focal ratio of f/5.9. You multiply the aperture of the objective lens (152mm in this case) by the focal ratio to get the focal length. I've seen reports the colour correction of this scope is actually slightly better than that of one of the chinese 150mm F/8 achromats such as the Skywatcher Evostar and the Meade AR152. Thats quite an achievement for an F/5.9 achromat

Lovely looking scopes those There is a palpable excitement about being at the eyepiece end of a long white tube like that with the stars twinkling invitingly above.

The AFoV of the Baader Classic 32mm (which is a plossl) is closer to 46-47 degrees I felt when I compared one with other ~30mm eyepieces.

Not posted in this thread yet so here are my ED120 and TMB / LZOS 130 triplet sharing the Giro:

Thats a great setup I used to use my ED120 Pro on my AZ-4 from time to time but I felt that it was not quite stable enough at high power for my liking. You obviously find yours good though.

Thats why everyone is "russian" to get one ! I'll get me coat .....

No problem Gerry ..... eagerly waiting for the clouds and rain to clear off

Here is a photo of the underneath of the tripod hub. The large metal disk pressed against the bottom of the hub is cut from 4mm thick steel so pretty strong:

Hi Gerry, The mount in those photos is a Giro II (German made). It is not a direct fit for the tripod top though. I had a strong steel plate made which sits below the mount head and then I run an M10 bolt through it and into the bottom of the Giro II mount. The flat base of the mount sits against the flat tripod hub top and a large knurled knob, threaded for M10, is used to tension the bolt and plate holding the mount firmly onto the tripod hub. I believe that you can get an HEQ5 / EQ5 adapter to fit the Oberwerk version of the tripod but whether that is an Oberwerk product or a 3rd parties, I don't know I'm afriad. I'll try and get some photos of my arrangement and post them as soon as I get a chance.

Hi John, The tripod is one of the ones that are used on the Helios big binoculars: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/helios/helios-quantum-7-25x100-binoculars.html I got mine (just the tripod) from the Astroboot website for around £110 I seem to recall. I've modified the head slightly to take the HEQ5 type mounts. Currently the spreader bars are plastic but I intend to replace them with metal ones or chains. In the USA they are sold under the Oberwerk branding: https://oberwerk.com/product/oberwerk-wooden-tripod/ It's a stable tripod even when the legs are extended. It's at least as stable as the EQ6 tripod that I had before it and a touch taller as well.

Hi Bart, Nice case !!! Whats the eyepiece to the right of the Nagler 7mm ? Looks interesting !

Thats a well thought out set Mark

My 12" dob on Saturn tonight. Shows how low the planet is from the UK currently

Newt - Jules, Newt - Jules ...... I'm gradually getting used to the concept !