Peter Drew

Nothing really beats wide angle viewing than********** wide angle long focus eyepieces, it's what they are designed for. When it comes to planets and double stars, wide field is not such a consideration, optical quality, colour correction and light throughput become more important with the shorter focus versions. 🙂

Lovely telescope, I have one as well. 🙂

A "Todmorden" pier could do all of that. 🙂

Bit too long ago unfortunately. 😥

I used to market a 8.5" F5 Newtonian with two secondaries and two focusers. The secondaries were mounted on different length pre-collimated stalks that could be interchanged without losing the collimation. The small secondary was on the short stalk, a 2x Barlow fitted to the focuser gave F10 and the larger secondary on the longer stalk operated at F5. The telescope was optimised for widefield and high res lunar and planetary. 🙂

I was put off bent piers after using a 16" SCT on its huge factory supplied one, a light tap and the image wobbled for what seemed ages. I have two 16" SCT's of my own, one is the full factory LX200 system yet despite being mounted on a "Gigawedge" the largest made for this telescope it is nowhere near as stable as it is when used in the alt- az mode, the inclined fork tynes being more sensitive than when they are vertical. 🙂

To achieve the configuration shown in the diagram would involve the use of a secondary mirror in excess of 50%, not "fatal" for imaging but still not desirable. A refracting re-imaging system replacing the second diverting flat would be better and could relay the image to the camera much in the manner of a periscope. A Mersenne telescope arrangement could achieve a similar result. 🙂

Difficult to make a "bent" pier stable. 🙂

I seem to recall that it was an 8" Cooke refractor that Dudley sold to the Saudis?. Apparently the "Tax Man" got wind of it and clobbered him for capital gains tax. I used to frequent the many astronomical outlets in London during that period. on one visit to Telescope House they had a massive 4.5" Zeiss binocular telescope on a huge mount. They dragged it outside on to the pavement so that I could have a look through it. Quite impressive, but as they say, if you have to ask the price...…….. The memory stuck with me and I eventually built myself a 5" version. 🙂

Interesting result!. 🙂

The best resource for anything solar is probably the "Solarchat" forum. 🙂

Which Daystar, there are several options. 🙂

Great image but I thought "us" amateurs had been using the "lucky imaging" technique for ages. 🙂

Just had a first look at an Apertura 8". General specification seems good. The altitude bearings look a little small in diameter which won't help the control of movement, a common fault with Dobsonians, getting the balance right will be essential. Using the eyepieces, as with most of the telescope functions is largely a matter of practice. Telescopes are not as easy to use properly as one might expect. Stick with it and you will soon be pleased. 🙂

Try it without a counterweight. 🙂

I had been looking on and off all morning and early afternoon but it hazed over completely after that. 🙂

On it too. 🙂

+1

And then there's the dilemma. A mass produced telescope for which the optical quality ranges from ok to outstanding. Which end of the scale is this one?. I think if I was in this position I would want to try it out first to see. 🙂

Yes indeed. It's been sunny here most of the day and I've been having a peek at it and a number of small others every half hour or so. 🙂

The saying "horses for courses" springs to mind. 🙂

My comment was by no means meant to sound like a criticism, just a mention of the problem I have to deal with. I'm sure that the vast majority of users will benefit from the build quality of the new Maxbrights. If I didn't already have a Denkmeier binoviewer the Maxbright would be top of my list. 🙂

Nice rendition, been mostly sunny here today so I have been keeping an eye on it. Several decent areas of limb activity. The prom in the images is relatively faint in my 60mm Coronado, wish I had my big "gun". 🙂

I have a slight visual defect that drops my right eye marginally below a horizontal line, I can accommodate it without undue strain but it's better if I can collimate a binoviewer to compensate. 🙂

The "permanently set" (collimated?) bit slightly put me off, I like things to be user adjustable. 🙂