AlexB67

I still got me old Pentax XL 10.5mm, the predecessor of the XW 10mm but got at about half price years ago, it was my first high end ep. I still love it, I vouch for  Pentax, the few eyepieces  that remind me of ortho likes views but with wider views, comfort and eye relief to boot.

It took me a couple of nights to get the adjustment right, but then I never looked back. Keep an eye out on the second hand market, You never know, but I expect XLs may be relics by now, and more likely to score an XW.  If you are like me I get a kick out of buying something used at half price when it still works like new.

1 hour ago, Piero said:

After a lot of messages, I finally placed an order for a 12" F6 (20% CO) Lukehurst classic dobson with John Nichol's optics! ? ? 

Congrats, Looks like a very nice scope. the weight of it is even significantly less then my 10 inch Skywatcher Flextube ?.  Even got the curved spider vanes design, nice thought, and a friendly F ratio.  My only deterrent  would be the assembly time if you have to do that each time,  taking it out of the house, or fitting it in car.   The main reason  l love the flextube design is for travel in a small car , yet it is very quick to setup each time. The tube is build like a tank too which make it quite heavy, but you'll not dent it  .... unlike the much more expensive Orion UK Dobs I saw last year at a party. ?

at 470 euro a piece and 30 deg FOV you have to be very hard core planetary observer  to have them in your arsenal.I would take Delos,Ethos or Pentax or any other ortho over them any day.Saying that,if money was no object,i would love to have them in my Ep box.

i would be also interested to see observers views or reviews on lower mag Delos vs Pentax,lets say in 10 or 12-14mm range for DSO.

Alan did a review of the 14mm pentax versus delos at one time if I recall, it is somewhere in this subforum, or perhaps it was a 10, not sure. 

One of the man criticisms of the longer focal length pentax range is field curvature in faster Newts getting quite noticeable, though the paracorr does a very good job of removing most of that from what I gather that it is hardly visible, which wil be added to my stable at some point anyway so not too worried. 

My next purchase is a 14mm and likely will be the Delos, but I've not decided a 100 percent. perhaps it may be a XW or if an older XL tuned up. Often the second pentaxes can be got a  bit cheaper too wich is another consideration for me as well.  I am firmly stuck into that second hand buying though for those premium eyepieces, as Michael said in another thread there are many happy  enough to shift stuff along on a frequent basis, and I'll happily grab a bargain and wait a bit for something to turn up 

count me in for Delos too.never looked through one,but i will not give up orthos for planetary any time soon.thats why i have 2 sets of orthos

I can see why I only have the 5mm BGO and love it, so even if I did have a pentax XW5 I would not sell the BGO, they are great on doubles too and I've been be using it for that too a lot lately, and in my 10 inch Dob the 5mm delivers 240x on saturn it is a marriage made in heaven, sharp contrast laden views, as crunchy as crisps.

I can dig the ortho experience after owning one and it is a very pleasant one even if the eye relief is tight and FOV small.  I can only imagine how good some of those real top end orthos must be like, but I am hapy with the BGO, I may even get a few more atsro hutechs or second hand BGO in time, since they are not that expensive. 

When I look through a pentax though it is the nearest thing that reminds me of an ortho in how it renders things, even if I haven't got one in the same focal length to compare that's the feeling I get looking through them, there is that next to no glass feeling when you look through them, yet pentaxes are full of glass.

sorry for the OT. 

Very interesting read Alan. I have yet to sample that Delos range.  Having looked through a couple of pentaxes though they are my favourites in the case as overall performers  considering  ease of use, wide FOV,eyerelief as well.   I can dig why RikM ended up with a set of them, I am not jealous ......Who am I kidding 

The  only downside of such eyepiece once you have looked through them is I want more of them, and they ain't cheap, but worth the money and saving for IMHO.  I don't every see myself ending up with the 3.5 anytime soon, but the 5mm some day perhaps if I am getting too lazy for my beloved  5mm BGO. 

I really should get myself a case or two for these:

Enough to open your own telescope house, we know where to go when items are out of stock

Nice and compact, and even the BGO colour mixes well with the TV, not that it matters. Imagine the same amount of ethos  and delos, the case would be weigh like a concrete block 

Zooming in to binary stars and watching them spring apart does put a grin on your face 

Never thought of a zoom for that purpose but I can imagine that would be fun

Wow, those skywatcher eyepieces look massive. Seeing them in a picture never does them justice for size, but your case serves as a good size comparison. You'll need a suitcase for the full set. :-0)

Hopefully I'm now finished...............

DSC_0011.JPG

That's what astronomers always say  Very nice. ( Drools )

I thought I was perhaps beginning to suffer form a little bit of ocularitis with my small collection until I saw this.

.. My dream case will come true one day. :0)

My very humble reasonably priced case with the Radian incoming today. The Radian substitutes the Skywatcher 6mm UWA in the case and the SW gets relegated back to the box. Still a much better collection than my camera lens with heaps of barrel distortion as show in the picture :0) 

Had to do a bit of repair job on the foam and rearrange to accommodate the Radian, but it all fits.

Another 2 excellent novels by Shane   I would second that recommendation Qaulia.  I lie the idea of the ring binder charts, now getting into the more tricky targets it would be useful. I have some handbooks with charts  picked up second hand that I use, but the larger charts and framing them as shown is handy

I had a good session with it last night Andy. FWIW, I do like the pulse feature for the reason I thought I would. I wanted to centre on a star and it was very faint.  The pulse did exactly that to allow me to see it. In fact you can adjust the timing of the pulse so it goes on/off slowly. When it pulses slowly enough the see through window  goes dark enough so you can just see the star pop into view briefly.

Also surprisingly slow to dew up compared to my RDF on the heritage, and for sure compared to my finder on the  big scope, though I'll make a small dew mod for them anyway.  To give you an idea how easy and accurate these things are, Jupiter at 300x last night I was able to center on it in one go no bother at all.  Yes the skies were that good last night    amazing views. 5 new targets bagged in a short time with it and when I visited M35 and its little companion NGC2158 nearby I instantly thought, I can only respect the sketchers out there, get 2 boxes of  2H pencils, because there are more dots to draw before you run out of them

This rigel rocks, oh yes baby. Now if only the clouds would go away and my neighbour stops having a shower and switches the bathroom light off I'd be a lot happier   Now targets are there in seconds to half a minute, back to the good old times, that in combination with the finder this really works.

I'll write something about it in a later post  and the smaller negatives that are sometimes referred to, I say smaller, because IMHO because they are rather ..  small things IMO.  Some of it has to do with the small buttons at the front for example when finetuning it, but once done that is unimportant, and I presume it will not need readjusting  often once aligned.  Also the distance you have to play with in terms of how far you eyes can be away from it, but it works so accurately and the brightness control is great on it compared to my RDF. You can have the faintest of red rings if you want. This will do the job just fine for a long time to come. Easier targets the finder scope is not needed at all, but I'll keep it for sure, because that will not be always the case.

The Rigel is a good choice. I have one fitted between the focus mechanism and the spotter scope on my 200p and hardly ever need to use the spotter scope at all any more. I don't use the pulsing facility, others are right, it is a bit annoying. Although the biggest circle is only 2 degrees, it's easy to estimate 4 degrees on the rare occasions I need to. I didn't buy the bigger battery accessory- the little battery has lasted months now- just remember to switch it off when you aren't using it.

Thanks David, I'll be trying it tonight hopefully if skies hold up.  Interesting comments about the pulse, The reason I say why I think I would like it. If you are on the border line of not seeing something or seeing it  I feel it may be useful when under light polluted skies, or of it falls on one of the rings.    I have noticed for example with the  the RDF when I switch it off, immediately something may pop into view ( only just ) when with it on it will just appear that much harder to see.  My RDF does have a brightness control but the pulse would be another option I may like .. or not as the case may be.   

I only went for the little battery since they are so cheap to buy, so hardly worth it to add the battery pack. I investigated this and you can get such a battery pack as a non astro item dirt cheap, attach it to the rigel if I decided I wanted one.  Even the 8 quid one sold as an astro item it is not exactly a break the bank addon.

I'll let you know, ordered today so hopefully I'll be able to give it a test run soon this week.  I did not order the cloudbuster stickers to go with it  though,  so who knows when it will see first light :0) . 

You can get the pulse feature on the telrad too as an addon. You sort of nailed it Andy. Is the extra bulk size weight and  solidity worth the extra 2 degrees. Perhaps it is, but for me that was sort of the deciding point  versus everything else. I feel I can manage without that since I already got the finder on there too, so in my own mind decided  the rigel would be fine, but am I stupid or not in that decision, time will tell :0)

if it were my scope, I'd find a way to fit it and use the telrad and riser as this makes for less back bending too. either would be OK though.

I knew it, there would be at least one person saying     The rigel from the dimensions I see sticks up by itself a bit already.  Some of the reviews say without the riser it is a bit more of a comfortable height  above the OTA, but obviously with the telrad you have the option for a 2 or 4 inch riser.  I agree though, from having read around the telrad is that little bit more solid and is a slightly better solution. Without having tried either admittedly .. BUT .. the rigel I feel is good enough overall for me and has some other pros that appeal to me   

In the end, In the scheme of things it is a relatively cheap addon either way, perhaps I'll learn the hard way and find I'll want the telrad later, but no biggie if I want one, then I'll buy one at some stage.  I suspect I'll get on with either.

I think it's a good decision to go with the Rigel in this instance.  If I'd known then what I only found out the hard way after buying the telrad then I might have bought the Rigel myself

Fortunately I picked up the 2" extension second hand, shortly afterwards.

James

I also found looking around for that part in stock, they do charge quite high prices for little extras like that, as often seems to be the case with the little extras, like dew shields etc. 

All in all considering the rigel already comes with some extras like variable on/off pulse, it is pretty good deal I feel, even if it is made a little less solid.  If you want the on/off facility plus the riser base the whole telrad package is quite a bit more. The size, which is very much hammered home in your pics, the additional weight too, since a rigel weighs pretty much nothing without the battery pack, all those factors combined made me swing in the direction of the rigel in the end. No doubt  the larger 4 degree window is a nice thing to have, but not a must I feel in combination with a finder scope.

Looking at the pics that James posted (such helpful chaps on SGL ) I'd completely overlooked the size of the rim at the lower edge of the upper tube.

If it were me, I'd fit a Rigel, solves a lot of problems, much smaller, and lighter as well.

Regards, Ed.

I agree Ed, this is the conclusion I've come to. In the end weighing up the pros and cons I think the rigel is for me. The advice was great. I'd almost committed to a telrad, but just as I ended up buying 10 inch Flex Dob instead of a 12 inch solid tube that I almost could have ended up buying, the last minute decisions force you to think that little bit harder to ensure that I know whether it the right thing for me. I feared the rims would be an issue, and hence I started asking the questions on the forum. 

The pics James provided nailed that home how careful you have to be picking something like that, obviously it is doable, but all the same.  Hopefully it will be good advice for anyone else fixing a telrad to the 10 inch flextube DOb, because interestingly I could not find a thread asking about this particular issue, which is rare on SGL that something hasn't already been posted about a particular topic, or for that matter elsewhere on the net.

You can never be careful enough, buying and decision making is an enjoyable part of the hobby, going through the process before eventually deciding with great help from SGL. 

To turn it all on its head for the price and size I was briefly enamoured by the Baader Skysurfer III dot finder, John seems to rate it highly too, and seeing I seem to get on with a dot finder on my small scope so well, but anyway, the Rigel it is and will be ordered tomorrow.

James has given me another great idea. I swear my nearly empty plastic buckets of spare paint may well fit that size as spare dust covers, I would almost have thrown them away as I was clearing my room today, they may well just fit

I read numerous reviews, and while the telrad comes out better I admit in most cases by a tad, there is not much between them I feel. In any case, It is not as if getting a rigel cannot be superseded at a later stage by a telrad, if I found it not to be  to my liking at some stage. 

I substituted the laser dot finder from the Heritage onto the 10 inch with a bit of tape, even held in my hand at one point wedged against the finder scope onto the OTA, and that already improved my ability to locate targets quickly by miles. I am  quietly confident the rigel will do fine. 

Now awaiting for the thread to spiral in a telrad versus rigel debate :0)  

Yes agreed, thank you for everything.  I think the Rigel wins possibly in spite of the much touted telrad, I can live with the 2 degree limitation I think in combination with the finder scope. Besides, it will be a cheaper more compact solution with the flash on off rings included by default  already, and a much smaller footprint makes it attractive in this case.

Thank you so much James.  So without the added riser the only way the telrad could fit if it was quite a bit more over to the right, it would clear the rim and be raised enough without one ?, but not sure I'd like that anyway for comfort, so to me looks the riser is pretty much a must and something else I'd have to get, Stock on these things always seem tight but hope I can find somewhere  that have them .  I'd want to keep the finder scope in any case also.  Nice job you did with the scope btw. 

I think the poem in my sig still has some mileage in it

Coming to think of it, the Rigel is beginning to score some extra points though as a much less fuss alternative.  This hobby can be an awkward fickle so and so sometimes

It's a really awkward fit with the standard baseplate alone.  It will fit, but perhaps not in the most convenient place.  The problem is that the back of the telrad body fouls the lower ring of the upper cage where it widens to take the truss, and it isn't possible to move it "just a bit" further round because then the baseplate fouls one of the spider nuts (make your own joke up there; I was spoilt for choice).

With a 2" or 4" extension the telrad body is lifted out of the way of the ring and there's no problem at all.

if you'd like a photo, let me know and I'll drag mine out so you can see how it fits.

James

If you would that would be fabulous James. I think I understand from what you are saying, I suppose I can buy the riser bridge from FLO, does that make it much heavier still ? I'll buy you a cookie for the photo 

If the Telrad base is listed as being a certain length, then you could return it if not to advertised spec........

But from what you have said, should fit ok.   (or tweak it, as knobby says, lots of DIY 'tweaks')   A Dob lends itself to people who cannot resist modding their scope.

The Telrad base fits with long sticky pads.   You can do a temp fit with duct tape to decide the best position.

Lots of cures for balance probs with extra finders or heavy eyepieces. One I've used is magnets on the tube, easy to fit / adjust, or remove as necessary.

Regards, Ed.

Thanks Edd,  I am almost convinced 99% it will not be an issue now. I'd be picking this one up one second hand however so once bought that's it, it will need replacement tape. I suspect this would probably work perfectly though

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