paulastro

In the year of owning the 8inch version of this scope, I have taken every opportunity to sing its praises as a true game changer, resulting in me having the most productive and enjoyable observing year ever I've ever had - and that's over a period of more than fifty years. A large part of this being down to the Starsense location system. I have a review of the eight inch on this forum and so have several other members, and so I'm not going to go through it again here. Having said all this, earlier this week I part-exchanged my eight for the ten inch version that a very good friend of mine owned. He wanted a smaller version, I thought it would be a chance to have a little larger scope with all the advantages of Starsense, so the deal was done. I had first light with the ten on the night of July 19th-20th, and thought I'd share some of my thoughts. They are the same focal lengths, so the only obvious difference is their weight and tube diameter. I was a bit concerned about the weight difference, around four kilos I think, but in use it made little difference to me. I only have to unlock the garage and move the scope a few yards, the base first then the tube. Also both scopes have some advantages in moving them around over other makes of the same size Dobs. The side panels of the base are partly cut out, which means you can grasp the sides of it by putting your hands through each side. This is much easier than picking it up by its handle which I find much more awkward. The tubes have a large knob at the eyepiece end and a large handle on the tube at its balance point. It is easy to carry the tube by the handle alone, or by also grasping the knob with the other hand as well. If you think this isn't helpful, then you can't have tried moving a dob covered with dew after an observing session. It's skin to something like trying to wrestle with a slippery eel! Anyway, on Monday I was out from 11.30pm to 2.25am, and it was very dewy, and not great transparency. I observed 16/17 deep sky targets and Saturn and Jupiter. It is of course not a comparison with the eight's performance - not possible unless you have them side by side on the same evening. The star (sorry) of the night for me was M11, the wild duck cluster. It looked good in the 17.5 Morpheus, but with a x2 barlow it was quite stunning, The arrangement of so many similiar mag stars close together with excellent contrast giving a black background was probabley as good as I've ever seen it from home - in any telescope. It's low altiude makes it a challenge a lot of the time from Yorkshire. Also impressive were the E and W portions of the Veil Nebula, with a 30mm/70 Ultima Edge with the old Japanese version of the Ultra Block filter. They were not usually observable on the eight so I was pleased to see them. I spent a few minutes on M13 with the 12.5 Morpheus when the transparency was a little better, filling getting on for a third of the field it was very impressive - lists of expletives won't do it justice. In a similiar vein, I had a fine view of M81/M82 at opposite sides of the field of the 17.5 Morpheus. One other object worth mentioning is Saturn. At its low altitude and very average seeing I was not expecting very much. I have to say, its nice to be wrong sometimes. In better moments it made my jaw drop. Even with the rings at only 7%, all three main rings and Cassinis were finely displayed, as were the rings crossing the planet, a sharp limb and what was a very pale looking equatorial belt and 3/4 satellites. There were also other hints of disc detail. All in all the scope performed as well, or better, than I expected in the conditions. As my 8inch had, the 10 inch has fine optics, and combined with Starsense, they are both phenomenal packages in my view. The pics below are my rather soggy ten inch after Mondays dewy session, and my eight inch after a very frosty session last Winter.

😴😴😴

JUST ADDED POST ON SAME FORUM RE NEW 12 INCH STARSENSE DOB !!!

Just came across this on U-Tube. Now a 12 inch Dob version. The tripods are for the x3 tabletop Starsense solid tube dobs, in earlier post. Price of 12 inch 1499.99 US dollars.

I should point out, it was Astro_Dad who spotted these new telescopes before I did and told me about them 😅.

If Celestron sold the bracket and software license for, say, £100 and people were tempted to buy them instead of the cheapest scope at around £170 to remove the bracket, they would make more money I would have thought. Celestron could stop making the cheapest scope(s) to save the manufacturing costs as well. Though, I'm sure the brains at Celestron know more about marketing than I do 😊. Mind you, there will still be people who would be unwilling to pay £100. That is despite the fact that for purely visual observers it's by far the the easiest to use, most enjoyable, cheapest, most versatile and quickest locating device there is. When you think it can be fitted on any size telescope and save the cost of buying an expensive suitably sized goto mount to put it on, it really is a no brainer.

Great to see Celestron expanding their innovative range of Starsense Explorer telescopes. I've always said you can't have too much of a good thing!

Rather heavy showers today, but lucky to have a few breaks. Single frame plus two crops, 12.46 am, Altair 80 ED-R, Olympus E-M5 Mk11, 1/500 at 200 asa.

Single frame and crop, 7.24am, Altair 80 ED-R, Olympus E-M5 Mk11.

Mostly cloudy but managed a short view and took a few single frames through cloud, pic below taken at 1.30pm. Altair 80 ED-R, Olympus E-M5 Mk11. AR3363 now on CM, and new large AR3372 coming onto the disc. SN227.

Excellent images Steve, thanks for posting. 🙂

I whole heartedly agree with you. I'm amazed everyone doesn't use it by now. It' really is game changing.

I use one of the multi-head finder holders I bought off a friend for this purpose - you can see it in the pics.

Stu. Some months ago someone advertised a SS phone holder and base along with the remaining code numbers They had bought one of the cheaper scopes to used the holder with their dob. They had sold the dob and then had no use for it. If I recall correctly the ad was in 'the other place'. I wasn't actually looking for one at the time, and it's the only one I've ever seen for sale without its scope. Someone else later provided me with a printed Vixen finder foot to SS base adapter which is is the icing on the case, as it means I can use the SS system with any scope with a Vixen finder foot of course which is fabulous. I can't see Celestron selling just the phone holders with a code number any time soon unfortunately.

Welcome to the Starsense Club Stu, about time 😊. Thank you for your excellent report. I'll look forward to reading about how you get on using the SS unit on your Dob. Having had my Starsense Dob a year yesterday, I feel confident I already know the answer. You're in for a real treat. The first time I used it I said it was a game changer, and a year on I'm I'm still of the same mind. It has delivered the best,most enjoyable and productive years observing I can recall. I also now have a second SS holder and base on a Vixen adapter which enables me to also use SS with my Altair 80ED, C5, and 130PDS. I agree re the tripod and mounts being the achilles heel on the cheaper range, and I wasnt terribly impressed on a used DX version which I ended up returning. In my view, FLOs reducing the price of the 8 inch Dob version to only £549 make it great value compared to the DX versions, and also compared to other brands Dobs without SS.

Single frame and crop, 6.24 am, Altair 80 ED-R, Olympus E-M5 Mk11. An early morning grab before cloud came in.

I prefer a Magnum myself 🙂.

Sorry wookie, the title was a little insensitive of me 😔. Still, plenty of life left in this solar cycle yet 😊.

Single frame and crop. Altair 80 ED-R, Olympus E-M5 Mk11, 7.17am, 1/400, 250 asa.

Single frame, and crop, taken at 7.48am, Altair 80 ED-R, Olympus E-M5 Mk11, 1/500, 250 asa. SN119.

Lovely pic Stu. I meant to thank you for your info on the MSM mount. Mine duly arrived and I'm delighted with it, far better than anything else I've tried. I'm kicking myself though, I should have tried it myself on 29th and 1st on the Sun instead of my usual snaps with my 80ED and Olympus. Makes me think I should make a solar filter for my new 130PDS and try that with it 🙂.

Single frame and crop taken at 12.53pm, Altair 80 ED-R, Olympus E-M5 MK11.

Really?

Yes, I won't admit to how many times I tried to get on the site. Quite traumatic 😱.

Single frame and crop. Altair 80 ED-R, Olympus E-M5 Mk11, 7.17am.