johninderby

A box containing something interesting has arrived. 🙂

Might replace the Bresser base with a nice OO style hardwood ply one someday but of course keeping the Bresser Alt bearings. 🤔🙂

I’ve settled on the Bresser 10” for now. Still easy to carry around.

Had a 16” Meade Lightbridge but it was a big heavy lump and a right pain to move about. In the end went to Moonshane..

A simple way on an OO dob is to bolt a Skywatcher dovetail bar onto the tube then use a small saddle with weights attached.

Not much longer. 🙂

It is possible to fit a GOTO system to an OO mount but not cheap. The StellarCat system is one option. Here’s a lttle something I built a few years ago.

And this

There was this thread.

8 minutes ago, ukskies said:

Was the OO dob mount good ?

Think it’s the best commercial dob mount around. Very compact and strong, works very well and made of aluminium so no problems with rot if it gets wet.

The Bresser is the second best with proper sized bearings but made with laminate covered mdf so not as durable as the OO 

The Skywatcher is the poorest of the three with a poor bearing setup that needs mods to work properly and the mdf doesn’t seem to hold up as well as the Bresser.

4 minutes ago, ukskies said:

Yes I am thinking the 10" is the sweet spot. It's no good having a scope I'm not going to use because it's too much effort.

What do you think of the OO mirrors John. I remember speaking to Barry Pemberton years ago when they were in Crewe, he seemed to be on a mission for quality optics at affordable prices. I wonder how good the Orion mirrors are today with Zygo reports?

The 1/10pv mirrors are really good and are the ones to go for. When the seeing is good they just have more contrast and are sharper. On nights of so so seeing you probably aren’t going to notice the difference over standard mirrors though.The standard mirrors are about the same as the Bresser. 

9 minutes ago, ukskies said:

Wow There's a visible difference there John!😮

The OO 14 was a longer focal length model was it?

Ah just realised that’s the 10” not the 12”

Having owned maks and SCTs and now a classical cassegrain I would say that the mak is slightly better than the SCT but not by much on lunar / planetary. However I find the classical cassegrain edges them both out.

As they say in certain parts “ Proper Job” 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

There is a fairly big step up in size when going from 10” to 12”. I think of 10” as being the biggest of the small scopes and the 12” as being the smallest of the big scopes if that makes any sense. Of course to some 8” is huge so until you’ve actually seen one it’s a bit hard to visualise properly. 

My old OO 14” dob with my little old 10” Sywatcher.

Should sit nicely on my photo tripod / geared head for a nice grab’n’go setup. Only weighs 4.1kg and my photo mount will handle 8 or 9 kg. 👍🏻

Little less grab’n’go when on the AZ100 though. 😁

Right now at the offer price this looks like an alternative.

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p10748_TS-Optics-6--f-12-Cassegrain-Teleskop-154-1848-mm-OTA.html

Focuser is poor though and needs upgrading which probably expains the sale price. Pity the focuser isn’t the same as the 8” version. Most refractor crayfords will fit. 

Oh bother 🤬🤬🤬

Why did I just look at the forecast for this week? 😢

Well forecasts usualy change don’t they? 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

DPD now has my 80mm f/10. Looking forward to tomorrow. 😁😁😁

Anyone want me to post some pics when it arrives? 😂😂😂

17 minutes ago, Alan White said:

@FLO, just keep bring out nice new items and John will order them 😉  
AZ100 and now ED80 f10.

John is now very poor. 😢😢😢

Would like the 104 but there is a problem. ££££££ 😬

Had a 10” Flextube GOTO but replaced the flex tube with a solid tube which is actually about 1kg lighter. 

Up to a 10” dob is not a problem to transport in most cars. Base in the boot and tube across the back seat. 

The Skywatcher dobs have been popular for years but they do have their shortcomings. The standard focuser is rather poor and fitting a better quality dual speed focuser is very common. You will finds loads of mods to improve the movement of the scope.

You should consider the Bresser dobs. At first glance look more expensive than the Skywatcher but you do get a lot more scope for the money and they already have a great focuser. proper bearings, use tube rings to mount the OTA which means you can move the tube up or down for balance and also rotate the tube to put the focuser in just the right position. Also has a rubberised anti reflection coating on the inside instead of the Skyliners thin coat of not so black paint. Also comes with a 6 point mirror cell on the 8” and a 9 point on the 10” that better support the mirror. Just a much higher spec scope. 

Used to recommend the Skyliners until I got my hands on a Bresser. However as the Bressers have only been fairly recently introduced they are very hard to find second hand wheras there are loads of Skyliner dobs on the second hand market.

Yes like the way the series is developing. 🙂

You can tell some serious thought has gone into it and an excellent script as well. A quality production as befits someone like Patrick Stewart.

Science fiction for adults. 👍🏻

Hmmmm......red rings on the 80mm. 🤔

Yup the 6SE and  8SE are totally different scopes.