Louis D

In the US, they used to be sold as Zhumell and are now sold as Apertura.  You can search on those two names on CN for user feedback threads as well.

And those images show the tension screws on the knob axles.  Still, not the best place to put a tension screw.  It really should be on the center of each axis.

3 hours ago, johninderby said:

An SGL member was less than impressed with the Hercules mount.

 

Interesting.  On the current iteration, there's no included dovetail clamp, but there are tension screws on the belt knob axes.  You can even see the threaded holes where they are supposed to be in the photos.

6 hours ago, KP82 said:

I saw you mentioned RVO heavy duty Alt/AZ, so I thought I'd chip in. Don't be fooled by the spec. This mount while being pretty well built is not going to hold a payload of 10kg well. I've got one and my estimate is about 5 - 6kg max.

That appears to be Hercules's smallest mount, 2.5 inches, ironically labelled heavy duty.  Their 4 inch or 6 inch mounts might be better choices.  I wonder what happens when the belt rots years down the road.  Are those things generally available items?

6 minutes ago, garryblueboy said:

Es tested it on his set up and no false colour either side of focus 

Awesome!

For the colorless acid test, check the color of a bright star on either side of best focus to see if it remains the same color.  This works great with a Newt, but not so great even with Chinese FPL-53 triplets.  I'm curious if this arrangement can pass this test.

1 hour ago, johninderby said:

You will find that there are those who will only use alt-az mounts with slo-mo controls and those that aren’t bothered. Just what you prefer.

And those who find themselves using both depending on the moment.  My DSV-2B has both a handle and slow-mo controls.  If I'm getting too much sticktion rebound with the handle, I'll fine tune with the slo-mo knobs.

36 minutes ago, Pitch Black Skies said:

So basically Louis, you cannot ever see the whole field of view with UWA eyepieces, that's what gives them the immersive effect.

You can, but you have to expand your area of concentration from your central vision to include your peripheral vision.  Think of it like when you're driving.  You can only read signs if you look straight at them, but you can see cars entering the road from the right or left, just not at high resolution without moving your gaze.

You can't pivot your eyeball to take in the edges without rotating your head as well or you'll lose the exit pupil.  Think about it.  Does your eyeball pivot about an axis through your cornea?  No, it pivots about an axis roughly through the middle of your entire eyeball.  Thus, your entrance pupil swings from side to side necessitating that you move your whole head to keep it centered above the eyepiece.

Kidney-beaning or SAEP makes it impossible to see the entire field at once regardless of eye position unless you have an enormous entrance pupil (dilated iris).

See the below post by @Ruud which does a good job explaining the different types of blackout:

3 hours ago, Astro Noodles said:

My first reaction about a minute into the video was 'How much is that bad boy going to cost ?'  🤣

I'm on the waiting list. 😉

20 hours ago, Stu said:

There is a global shortage of computer chips affecting areas such as the automotive industry amongst others causing some manufacturers to suspend production

New car prices are up 7% to 9% in the US while used car prices are up 14% on average.

Real estate prices are going through the roof here (25% year to year increase) due to a lack of new homes due to a lack of supplies and labor.

18 hours ago, PadrePeace said:

I bought a new car (made in the US) last Aug

Was it a Lincoln (based on your location)? 😉😁

The Starizona SCT Corrector IV got high praise in this CN post relative to 6 Celestron, Meade, and Antares R/Cs, both Chinese and Japanese made versions.

3 hours ago, Stu said:

It’s a heavy beast though!

3 hours ago, Stu said:

Not sure if I will use the top clamp, perhaps I’ll fashion something to mount a TelRad on there.

If you just put a Telrad up there, you could ditch the counterweight and save a significant chunk of weight.

Another update on CN from Marcus.

The key takeaway from this post in my mind is the 26mm eye lens diameter which will limit absolute eye relief to 17mm if the AFOV is 75 degrees and the lens is flush mounted to the top.  My guess is that usable eye relief will be closer to 15mm at best, making it very tight for eyeglass wearers who want to take in the entire field at once.  It will be very comfortable for non-eyeglass wearers, though.

On 18/04/2021 at 14:18, reezeh said:

Ask him politely again,  but secretly record the conversation, especially his response.

Depends on one or two party consent if that is legal.  It varies from state to state here in the US.  I'm not sure about the UK/EU.

On 18/04/2021 at 14:18, reezeh said:

If it is, let's just say not very nice then buy about half a dozen guinea fowl and keep them in your affected garden.

Legality depends on local zoning ordinances and HOA CC&Rs if that's allowed at any particular address in the US.  Again, not sure about the UK/EU.

49 minutes ago, PadrePeace said:

What about the hypothesis that people that own seriously expensive kit don’t feel the need to publicise issues on forums such as this as they reasonably expect a certain level of customer after sales care for the price they have paid and likely get it as the top dollar brands don’t want the negative publicity anymore than the owners do. Just saying....

A lot of high end manufacturers do a significant amount of individual testing of each scope or accessory before shipment.  They also do extensive engineering testing before ever going into full production mode, and can therefore make actual claims about such things as environmental condition limits.  It all adds to the cost of premium products.

Anecdotally, I used to work in mainframe computer design and test.  We had to meet 99.9999% availability targets.  15 minutes of downtime per year was the typical quoted value.  This was inclusive of hardware and software updates that had to happen concurrently with up-time, so we had to design the system to be updated/upgraded in parts.  This level of reliability and up-time added massive costs to mainframe computers.

1 hour ago, vlaiv said:

Well cared for instrument can be purchased for 60-70% of price of new item.

Perhaps of the newly inflated 2021 prices.  I'm seeing asking prices closer to 85% to 100% of 2019 and earlier pricing.

If you don't want to go the fully flocked tube route right away, flock just the side of the tube directly opposite the focuser so the secondary mirror image is surrounded by a nice, non-reflective surface as seen from the focuser tube.

6 hours ago, bendiddley said:

I'm wanting to know why high powered plossl eyepieces are best suited to long focal length telescopes. Also if they are used in shorter focal length telescopes what limitations are there with this? Cheers.

I'd like to know where you got that pearl of wisdom from since I've never heard it before.

If you're willing to spend just a bit more than the Skywatcher (Synta) level, the Bresser/Explore Scientific (JOC) Dobs are better engineered (better alt axis, better focuser, etc.).  So, it really depends on your definition of best bang for the buck.

By best bang for the buck, do you mean it functions at the lowest possible cost like a Trabant or functions fairly well for a bit more like an original VW Bug?  Neither's a Rolls Royce (a full custom Dob or hand figured refractor), but both might get you from point A to point B on any given day.

7 hours ago, johninderby said:

A review. Ahh maybe could be used as a finder sdope , a very poor finder scope. More a toy for smartphone users.

 

After watching it, you realize this is at best a digital monocular.  I like the fact it was an utter failure on the moon, the easiest astro object for a telescope.  It couldn't even resolve any craters?

I like the fact the author had no idea why the frame rate dropped at night.  Really?  Never heard of increased exposure times due to image integration at night limiting the frame rate?

I'm surprised the author didn't point it at a portion of the Milky Way to see if it could pick up nebula.  It should excel at that unless it has an IR blocking filter.

It's a glorified security camera?  Resolution is ultimately determined by aperture, and with that tiny objective lens, it's not got a lot of ultimate resolving power.

2 hours ago, Adam J said:

News flash AP produce better engineered scopes than budget brand Skywatcher.

Do you expect Skywatcher to match TEC let alone AP or that it's fair to judge them by those standards? Of course not. Just because it's possible to make a scop operate at highly sub zero temps doesn't mean it's reasonable to expect it consistently from a sub 2k mass produced scope. I think it's ok to expect no pinching at 0c but -10c?

It's arbitrary anyway because you could not buy an AP scope even if you could afford one. 

 

 

I expect ES Esprit scopes to come very close to A-P/TEC scopes since they are priced within 50% to 75% of their new prices for similar size/type.  If you're going to price like a premium line, you'd better live up to that pricing.

I don't expect a $1000 90mm triplet to match a $3600 A-P 90mm APO.  However, a 90mm ES Esprit triplet, if it existed, would be priced around $2100, roughly 60% of A-P's pricing.  Considering that Chinese engineering salaries are less than half that of their US counterparts, and other Chinese overhead costs are a fraction of their US counterparts, you could certainly expect a similar level of engineering quality at that pricing ratio.  Otherwise, all we can assume is that either the Chinese are incapable of matching US engineering quality at a similar adjusted price point, or they are simply inflating the price of sub-par engineered products to create a perception of quality.

I've seen this with high end hiking boots.  When Vasque moved production to China from Italy, prices remained the same, but quality plummeted.  They looked the same, but they disintegrated within 6 months of heavy hiking usage, something that rarely happened before even after years of punishing hiking.  Clearly, someone was inflating the price of a sub-par product to match Western designed and manufactured pricing.

I also couldn't find much on TEC or AP scopes having pinched optics.  Perhaps they have better designed objective cells?