DonRemus

Hi great site but is there a buy and sell section ie items on eBay,or items members are selling

Once you reach 50 posts I believe the classifieds become available

Cheers. Just used Flickr for now

Anyone know a good free place to store sketches online?

Great site, keep up the good work folks. Have not seen a cross word anywhere.

Wish I could say the same for other forums lol http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/f16/freelander-td4-power-loss-124709.html

Actually theres quite a lot of difference between the Celestron Astro Master and the Skywatcher 130P and I would always tell people to get the Skywatcher version - heres why.......

Focuser

The Skywatcher 130P has a plastic focuser that can be tuned toi be quite nice. The astromaster has a horrible clunky focuser that looks the part but is very dog like, it might well be tunable but....well I couldnt be bothered to find out because....

Spider Vanes

The Skywatcher 130P has very thin metal spider vanes - the Celestron Astromaster has horrible thick plastic ones (so does the current skywatcher 130 non-P although I am sure the older version of the long tube 130 didn't)

Secondary Holder

The Skywatcher 130P has a decent holder with adjustment screws for tilt - The Astromaster has horrible over long screws with no adequate secondary mirror support. Its a pig to collimate. The sceondary mirror just dangles on the end of some long screws with little to give it support.

Primary Mirror Adjustment

The 130P has/had philips screws at the back end for adjustment - the Celestron has more professional looking thumb screws BUT they are hideous and ususally so tight you have to take mole grips to them to adjust them. They lack feel and add to the horror of learning to collimate the thing.

Finder & Finder Shoe

The 130P comes with a red dot finder mounted on a standard Vixen accessory shoe. The red dot is fine, its a bit plastic but this is a beginner scope after all. If you cant get on with the red dot the scope has a standard Vixen accessory shoe so you can always swap it out. The celestron has a hideous built in finder where the red dot is waaaaay too bright and the finder is hopeless mechanically. To get a decent finder you have to fit an accessory shoe - not a hard job but scary for those who may be not good at DiY and lets face it no one wants to drill holes in their new toy.

Mount

The Astromaster mount looks strong but in reality is so full of plastic its about as steady as a jelly trifle. The Skywatcher EQ2 looks a bit Meccano but it does actually work and its plenty strong enough for a 130P.

Collimation - General

The Skywatcher 130 has a collimation spot installed at the factory - the Astromaster doesnt. Again a bit of mirror spotting is not hard stuff for the hardened newt owner but its all bit unnerving for the beginner.

I have had two Astromasters to mess with and both were horrible - I am also the ex owner of a 130P and the 130P was a superb small scope to start with. A far more polished product wnad why Skywatcher ever stopped selling it with the RA motor is a mystery to me because the packagae price for a decent scope with good optics on a basic EQ2 with tracking was such a good deal.

Its a mystery to me why Celestron keep the Astromaster going when Celestron are owned by Synta who own the SKywatcher brand and the 130P is so capable. Perhaps someone at Synta likes the Action Man orange colors of the AstroMaster.

Sorry if any Astromaster owners are offended by this.

Just what forums are for!

Interesting read, good advice from a totally non sales related perspective.