Mrbloke

12 minutes ago, Thonolan said:

Yeah, those build quality issues are hugely disappointing. There are not many reviews out there but so far I had read it's an excellent design. However this seems to be similar to what it's reported from Explore Scientific dobsonians.

The nearest ES scope is less than half the price of this though!  I would much rather have a Sumerian for my money based on this review. Most upsetting as its a considerable sum for a scope.

Thanks for the info both of you.  Great that you both pointed out the same thing!

Mrbloke...do you mean find a clear patch of sky outside my home, then adjust the light pollution settings on Stellarium until it matches my actual view of the sky?  That sounds like good advice...now if only we had a clear patch of sky right now lol.

Thanks again

Exactly that.  I find that Stellarium is more than a little bit optimistic about my level of light pollution, so I went out, checked what I could see and tweaked it accordingly.

If you refer to the sketch of M31 in post 1 of this thread, this is extremely accurate as to what to expect.  Don't hope for too much in the way of colour, that's pretty much just for the astrophotographers out there!

Thats really going to depend on your level of light pollution and the quality of the sky at the time.  If you find out what you can see in a portion of sky at your location, then adjust the light pollution level in the sky and viewing options menu to match it, this will help.

Fascinating read throughout! You sir, have the patience of a saint.  I think I would get about 2 hours in and then think - perhaps not...

What's the shower cap for?

A bit of a thread resurrection, but this mini-review really helped me determine where to start my EP collection.   I now have the 18mm and 8mm of these and am very happy with them.  It is certainly a significant upgrade over the stock EPs and make viewing much more immersive.