Louis D

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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

There's the new 8-24mm Svbony zoom on ebay/aliexpress that's been getting good reviews on CN for about $60 from China. There's also a set of Plossls on aliexpress for $81 with a 2x Barlow that is similar in quality to the Celestron Omni Plossls.

I have the original 30mm ES-82 which is just usable with eyeglasses thanks to the eye lens being flush mounted to the top. I have the 26mm Meade MWA as I mentioned above, and it comes close to being a 25mm Morpheus except for the SAEP and CAEP. I have the 22mm NT4, and it is also just usable with eyeglasses. Perhaps I need to try removing the Instajust barrel to see if it is easier. I haven't tried any of the 28mm UWA versions of the WO 28mm UWA. None have their eye lens flush mounted nor have a greater than 30mm eye lens like the 30mm ES-82. All of the 23mm/24mm UWAs have smaller eye lenses than the 30mm ES-82 and are recessed to boot. I've read that the 31mm NT5 has slightly less usable eye relief than the 30mm ES-82 original due to the eye lens being the same size but not flush mounted. Given it has CAEP like the ES-82, I'm not likely to go out and buy it any time soon. The 21mm Meade MWA and similar have SAEP and possibly CAEP and overstated eye relief and AFOV, while not offering anything the 22mm NT4 doesn't already have. The 32mm Masuyama is insanely expensive for what it is, an insanely sharp in the center, poorly corrected in the outer field UWA. I am perfectly happy with my Agena version of the 30mm KK WideScan III clone if I want a poorly corrected UWA with a very sharp central region. If you put a TSFLAT2 in front of it with about 15mm to 25mm more spacing than needed to flatten the curvature of a refractor scope, it flattens out nicely and is actually pretty decently corrected to the edge with very good eye relief for eyeglasses and a usable 80 degree AFOV with no SAEP or CAEP. The inner 50% is actually sharper than the 30mm ES-82. As I've repeatedly said, someone should design a compact FF for it. If the price is under $100, you'll end up with a sub-$200 80 degree eyepiece of very good correction, excellent eye relief, light weight, fairly narrow build, and no nasty SAEP/CAEP. The 20mm Orion LHD is interesting, but with an eye lens the same size as the 22mm NT4 and 22mm AT AF70 (both of which I have), it's likely to have no better eye relief than either of them. I'll toss in a wildcard. I have a 29mm ES-92 of sorts. It's was originally a factory return 12mm ES-92 and somehow ended up with no lower barrel elements. I removed the empty middle barrel and replaced it with a series of step rings to reduce require in-focus from 40mm+ to about 20mm. It has a measured 48.4mm effective field stop (51mm physical FS), 93° AFOV (96° eAFOV), and 17mm of usable eye relief. It is decently sharp in the inner 20%, gets progressively stronger chromatic aberrations in the next 50% and gets insanely stretched stars in the outer 30%, and yet still looks miles better than the 30mm Kasai Super WideView 90°. However, if you keep your vision centered and use it to scan around star fields, it is highly addictive. The fact that it has a wider TFOV than any 2" eyepiece out there with a near hyperwide AFOV and still be usable with eyeglasses speaks volumes to what could be done. It just needs some chromatic aberration control.

By 2" EXTENSION tube, not adapter tube, I assumed the OP is using something similar to pictured image below to reach focus because the primary mirror is too far forward in the tube even with the 2" adapter in place: In which case the original hole is also 2" in diameter. If it is actually the SW 2" adapter below to which he's referring: Then yes, it's a larger opening into which it's being inserted. However, I don't see a compression ring in the adapter image or in any other I've found online, and the OP clearly stated it has a compression ring. Perhaps the OP can clarify if he's referring to the OEM 2" adapter or an aftermarket 2" extension tube. It sure would be nice if SW would switch to a GSO style Dob focuser with a native 2" opening that accepts a 1.25" adapter to avoid confusing users:

The 150p base can't be that much bigger than the 130p base since the 150p only has 100mm (4 inches) longer focal length. Given that the altitude axis is roughly at the mid point, the 150p base would only be about 50mm (2 inches) taller if it is proportionate to the 130p base. I can't imagine it would be that much bigger than the original 130p base. Besides, you'll probably move it to an alt-az mount on a tripod someday so you don't have to use it on a table top.

Due to the relative cheapness of extension tubes versus eyepieces, I would err toward sanding the extension tube. I haven't read of anyone else having insertion issues with that particular eyepiece. Have you tried removing the compression ring and using just the thumbscrew to tighten it down?

Either get a new extension tube or sand down the interior of the extension tube you already have.

The 24mm and 30mm APM UFF work well at those focal lengths for folks who need long eye relief at a similar weight and size to the Morpheus. I haven't found any eyepieces with 18mm to 20mm of comfortable eye relief and at least 75 degrees of AFOV in the 20mm to 32mm range. I would instantly buy a 24mm to 26mm ES-92, for instance, if one were made. I bought the 26mm Meade MWA hoping it would work. It does turn out to have 78 degrees of easy to view field with 18mm of eye relief and an actual focal length of 25mm. However, it has some residual SAEP (kidney beaning) even using that amount of field, so not exactly a Morpheus.

Only $30 separates them in the US right now with the XWs on sale for $269 and the Morpheus at $239. The TV Delos are way more expensive at $352. I paid $229 each in 1998 for my 14mm and 5.2mm Pentax XLs. That works out to about $372 today, so the XWs are lower in price than ever if you consider them the logical extension of the XLs.

You might want to see if there's a 43mm diameter replacement eye cup out there that's taller than stock one but shorter than the combined extension/cup height.

Several folks recently bought those 70x300 to 70x400 telescopes that are everywhere on ebay and Amazon. I bought one a year ago to convert into a super-finder on the cheap. I knew what to expect and even I was surprised a bit by it. It's hard to tell folks that it just doesn't make for a very good telescope. A low power spotting scope, maybe. Sadly, the price on them has jumped from $25 last February to between $70 and $90 now. For some reason, there's no shortage of them. Below, I sum up their pros and cons: Positives: A decently figured 70mm glass achromat objective A decent plastic lens cell A decent metal tube that disassembles easily for modifications A decent lens hood Puts up decent images at low powers Negatives: Terrible table to tripod 50% metal aperture mask directly behind objective, but it is removable 50% metal aperture mask in focuser tube that can't be accessed 0.965" Huygens eyepieces that actually aren't all that bad Really oddball long barlow (didn't actually try it to see if it works) Not really capable of what most folks are looking for in a telescope due to short focal length and small aperture

Great idea. One more: Put it in an ad or commercial and set it up backward:

Still dangerous if the mirrors are sending the return beam back out the front and you look down the tube to see what's going on only to look straight into the return beam. I always wave my hand over the front of a Newt's tube to locate the outbound beam before looking down it. Even the visible light can be eye damaging. Just make a habit of never looking down the front of a laser pointer even if it appears to be off, never using it around others, never bringing them to star parties, never leaving them lying around the house with batteries loaded, etc. I tend to be ultraconservative with them and have not had any issues.

The question becomes, why are there so few affordable options out there in the astro marketplace?