Louis D

My wife would kill me if I left my 15" Dob assembled in the living room. Perhaps if I get a second home in retirement I can find a spot for it there to leave assembled.

I just find it relaxing to get outdoors, under the stars once in a while, and just wander around the sky with a scope (or two). I know roughly where the "good stuff" is and take another look at them once in a while; but really, I just need to unwind and get away without ever having to go more than a few feet from my back door. I also enjoy comparing equipment being an engineer by education and practice. It can be a fairly technical hobby and dovetails nicely. My wife also likes her "me time" while I'm outside not bugging her. If I'm having a poor observing night due to weather or bugs and come in early, she acts rather disappointed that I'm done so soon. Some people get away by camping, hiking, horse back riding, riding bikes (motorized or not), 4-wheeling, boating, etc. I do it without much advance planning or travel. Sure, there are those who pack up everything and travel to dark site or star parties on a regular basis, but that's not why I got into astronomy. I can travel thousands to millions of light years without ever setting foot outside my backyard. Merely looking at internet images isn't remotely the same. I read APOD daily, but that hardly diminishes my desire to look directly at the heavens above us.

I'm sure you're simply paying for a different name imprinted on them. To get a different lot run with different coatings would be prohibitively expensive for a single retailer. Besides, you'd hope that the designer optimized the coatings and wouldn't vary them from lot to lot. The exception would be Tele Vue which has been known to update the coatings on their older eyepiece lines as newer coating technologies have become available/affordable over the past four decades (their Plossls were introduced in 1980). In the past, at least, you were paying for their no questions asked, no restocking fee return policy. They're more expensive than other retailers in the US as well. Despite that, their version of that zoom is still quite a bit cheaper than the BHZ. Baader products are quite a bit more expensive in the US than in Europe. The BHZ is $289 most places and $325 on Amazon. It's $213 from FLO (when VAT is removed to have an apples to apples comparison since US retailers don't include sales tax in their prices because it varies from locale to locale). That's a $76 to $112 difference right there. The Stellalyra zoom is $172 from FLO, making it only $27 less expensive than the Orion version. The BHZ is an absolute bargain at $213 from FLO by comparison. If I wanted one, I'd probably cross import it since that avoids sales tax and is well under the $800 daily duty free import amount into the US. Even with shipping, it's only $229. That's $60 less than the best US price with free shipping and out-of-state/no sales tax. They used to sell them, but I think they dropped them because everyone else was selling them for $60 apiece every day when they wanted $60 to $100 apiece depending on their sales. FLO sells the entire set of Starguider eyepieces for $335 shipped to the US, making them only $48 apiece. Not many Americans have realized this relative bargain.

In the US, the BHZ is $125 more than the Orion version of the Stellalyra zoom, so I'd probably get the BHZ if you're seeing such a small difference in price.

You could also try removable wheelbarrow handles.

From what I've read, a lot of NV observing is at low powers (1x to 3x using Galilean camera telephoto adapters) to enhance naked eye viewing of the night sky on a grand scale.

Now that I've seen how poorly they're made (zinc(?) castings that break under normal loads?), it's almost an insult to equate them to agricultural equipment. I grew up around farms in Iowa and all the farm equipment there was very robustly made from steel. Any castings were also very durable. That's not to say things didn't break, but it was generally due to getting a large rock or similar in the workings.

I've noticed most custom astro shops always trend toward the high-end over the long run because it has the highest margins for the amount of work put in. Similarly, just about the only passenger vehicles made in the Detroit area nowadays with full union labor are high end pickup trucks and large SUVs that start in the $70,000 range and go up from there.

Reminds me a lot of the metal used in die cast tractor toys. I've read it's a zinc, aluminum, magnesium, copper alloy. The Chinese may be having issues with zinc impurities causing zinc pest. Makes me glad my DSV mounts are CNC machined from solid 6061 aluminum and use stainless steel fasteners throughout. No castings or welds anywhere.

If they have an x at the end, just multiply it by the focal length or focal ratio to get the final FL or FR. If they say f/6.3, it's really an 0.63x R/C because it was assumed it would be used with an f/10 SCT.

Or blow it off and mess up everything because they can't be bothered. 😉 😁

Is that in C or F? For US submittals, does it autoconvert from F to C?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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:

I'm on the waiting list. 😉

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.

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.