RobertI

I immediately thought of my Heritage 130p when saw this mount, could be a perfect combination.....on a solid tripod. I'm not actually sure I need goto for visual, might be useful for finding dim objects in areas where there few stars, or small PNs at higher magnification, but then I'm not sure this is a good mount for using at high mags. Would save a lot of bending and twisting of the neck though. ? I guess its one of those things you just have to try and see if it improves the observing experience.

I'm quite excited by this, looks like it has been designed as an ultra quick setup, portable goto mount. No wires needed. I think one of these with Skysense and a 6" SCT or small frac could be the business. Sensible price too.

Really wonderful, thank you.

Superb, I would luuurve to have a look through that!

If it was me I'd favour the Vixen 130 over the 80 simply for its aperture (possibly a better fit for the eq3 too?). But I also wonder whether the better mirror of the Vixen over the Skywatcher would be noticeable in UK skies? But then you already have 6" dob and I know you like your fracs! Is 80mm going to be enough for you? Clearly I have been of no help at all.

Thanks for posting your results Don. Those are pretty severe abberations, interesting to see what spherical abberation looks like though! Interesting phenomenon with the focussing too, would like to know why. Not sure I'll be trying funstar though. Thanks again for doing this.

Doesn't sound promising, thanks for sharing your first go.

Having looked at Nytecams 's post on the CN thread and done a bit of research it seems that spherical abberation isn't the type of abberation which is restrcited to edges (as I thought in my earlier post) so the result will probably be large stars, even in Ha? I am guessing that, although the corrector plate ciorrects for spherical abberation, it is designed to correct for two spherical mirrors, so if one is removed, the correction is gone, or new abberations introduced? So presumably, stoppjng down the scope would not help either as the presence of the corrector means its not a simple spherical abberation issue any more?

Thanks @stash_old for pointing this out and @HiloDon for offering to try this out with the Lodestar - very interested to see how this turns out. If the distortion is restricted to the outer edges of the field, it could be fun to give it a go. I just had a look at my C8 and unscrewed the secondary, and although the fitting is not SCT (the diameter is slightly wider) it looks easy enough to fit a visual back if one could find the right sized washer - I'm guessing even that would be pretty hard though! But funstar looks a nice little product, watching with interest.

Thanks for the update Chris. I like the pictures by the way, the action shot of the scope pointing at the moon, and the other shot with the dob peeping out from behind the shed door, as if trying to get into the picture too! I guess for many of us, much of the joy is in the ownership, as well as in the use. It's a real shame that this scope is not yet giving you much ownership satisfaction. Really appreciate you being an 'early adopter' and trying this new scope out for the benefit of us all.

My that is a long scope! Hope you get a satisfactory response from Bresser, watching with interest.

That looks very nice indeed. I like the built in pilliar. I want one.

I have to say Chris, that scope and mount look like they were made for each other. The scope should be rock steady on that mount. It's also nice to see the unusual combination of dark blue scope and black mount. Very attractive.

Very nice indeed Matt. That setup must weigh a fair amount given by the nunber of counterweights!

Thats an interesting conversion to a crayford focusser. Did you post a thread describing how you did this perchance?

Loveley collection, really interesting to see the relative sizes of the scopes.

Those street lamps are so annoying aren't they, sounds like they don't affect the images which is great, but they are irritating when they shine in your face. I have three victorian gas light style lamps within 100feet which prevent me seeing anything visually! Light does leak into the ota at lower altitude when imaging (video astronomy in my case) i have a portable screen which i use to shield the ota, comprising a large black piece of card attached to a tripod. Works a treat. Some amazing images on this thread, and I watch with interest.

I don't know if this is related but I stopped getting monthly newsletters from him over a year ago, may be nothing though.

Sounds like it performs really well. It's seems a strange configuration to have the eyepiece pointing towards the mount - i guess it works ok in practice?

What a lovely little piece of equipment, so nice to see something different to the norm and so capable for its diminuitive size. Should be even better collimated!

That's a beaut Chris, looking forward to seeing it.

Interesting information about the two scopes being equivalent to one F stop, I'd never thought about about it like that.

Nice scope Starflyer, I believe I now own that little orange Zenithstar66, I recognise it as I also bought the rings and unusually shaped dovetail. Its a lovely little grab and go scope which also works nicely for widefield narrowband imaging and video astronomy. It also looks very nice sitting atop my black and orange C8.