Louis D

Here's mine in Texas: We had high, thin clouds and a full moon last night, and temps in the low 40s. I'd have gone out, but I had had an exhausting day at work yesterday.

Because I'd have to disconnect the DSC cables and then realign the altitude DSC arm with its peg on the base which isn't as simply as you'd think while dropping the tube assembly on the base. The whole thing is under 50 pounds, so no worse than carrying softener salt bags.

Astronomics (CN sponsor) just got the 24mm ES-68s back in stock. Hurry if you want one.

If memory serves me correctly, the 24mm ES-68s were often in short supply long before the lock downs put everything in short supply, so be prepared for a long wait.

So no off axis coma then?

So, are there dedicated correctors for classical Cassegrains?

Do Newtonian coma correctors work in classical Cassegrains?

You've probably already read Bill Paolini's 24mm-26mm eyepiece comparison article during your research, but it in case you haven't, it's worth a read.

I just keep my Synta 127 Maks in padded camera bags or wrapped in bubble wrap and placed in a gym bag.

When you have reached focus with your most inward focusing eyepiece, measure the distance the focuser tube has left to travel inward. You'll need ~35mm of inward travel to reach focus with the ES as I said above. My Dob's low profile focuser has only about 20mm of inward focuser travel left with most of my eyepieces, so it wouldn't work for me. I'm assuming that since your scope claims to be optimized for photography, it has at least 55mm of back focus available for T-ring attachment of DSLRs: Also the tube length has been slightly shortened to optimize performance for prime-focus photography

Yes, you can use any coma corrector with any telescope and any eyepiece. However, if you had an f/4 or faster Dob, I would definitely recommend the Paracorr II.

I use the GSO/Revelation coma corrector with a 25mm spacer between the optics section and the eyepiece holder. As long as all your eyepiece focus within about 5mm of the eyepiece shoulder, I've not found a need to tune the distance for each eyepiece. For me, eliminating 95% of the coma is good enough. It does require about 11mm of in focus, so it is similar to the Paracorr II. The ES HR corrector requires about 35mm of in focus, so not all scopes are able to achieve focus with it. Most reviews of it are positive aside from the very find threads to tune correction.

About 50% of nights are clear enough to do some sort of observing around this part of Texas. However, the seeing conditions may not be the best due to dust having been blown in by a recent front, or having high winds due to severe pressure gradients between high and low pressure systems. I'd say about 20% to 25% of nights are decently usable (including those with the moon shining brightly) taking these issues into consideration. This doesn't even take into consideration the mosquitos ruining most summer nights. 😁

Try contacting Martin Pond on CN (need to be logged in to link). He's been retasking lenses for DIY eyepieces for years, documenting his efforts there, and could probably give you some good ideas.

How well does it perform at f/5.9? Have you had a chance to compare it to more premium ~40mm 2" eyepieces?

Try putting a discarded lid of some sort under each tripod foot. I've found lids from orange juice bottles flipped over work great. I just don't know if they sell OJ over there in similar bottles. You can even put a bit of Sorbothane in the center (under the tripod foot) to absorb vibrations to make your own vibration suppression pads. The bright orange ones are easier to find in the dark.

Seconded. I've switched over to green laser sights with Telrad/Quikfinder backup if the laser fails (battery and switch issues plague them). Just don't be stupid about using them around aircraft.

The effect will be more muted, depending on the hardness of your soil. I observe from a small concrete pad.

Get some anti-vibration pads. I made my own from Sorbothane from ebay. Especially with a rigid metal tripod and mount, they knocked vibrations down from 3 seconds to 1/2 second for me. A wooden tripod is another good alternative.

Do they have 20mm of usable eye relief as needed by the OP? The TV specs page show them to have 17mm of design eye relief, and the eye lens appears to be recessed a bit, so I would expect no more than 12mm of usable eye relief. I know I can't easily see the entire field of my 26mm Sirius Plossls while wearing eyeglasses. I've measured mine to have 11mm of usable eye relief. I do have a pair of them for binoviewer usage, but rarely use them because they're so darned uncomfortable with eyeglasses. I much prefer the 23mm Aspherics with the eyecups removed.

Have you tried a water butt stand to put the Dob base on to raise it up a bit?

Not if you have to wear eyeglasses at that exit pupil as I do. Without eyeglasses, they look totally aberrated to me. The 24mm APM UFFs are too big for me to fit my nose between them, or else I'd probably recommend them to eyeglass wearers. Remember, the OP specifically said:

I really like my 23mm Vite 62 Aspherics in my binoviewers. Once you pull off the eyecups, you've got nearly 20mm of usable eye relief. They're not perfect at f/6, but they're really good at f/12 and above with barlows or slow scopes. They're super light, small, and comfortable. There's nothing premium in this size and weight range aside from some Zeiss aspheric surgical microscope eyepieces. At about £10 apiece on ebay, they're certainly worth a try. Here's comparison images at f/6 of some of my roughly 24mm eyepieces:

To quote @Don Pensack on CN: In 2012, the owner of Scope City, Parks, and Lumicon closed ScopeCity and sold Lumicon and shut down Parks. The Parks inventory was scrapped (a shame) and the new owner of Lumicon sold to the current owner in 2016. It is likely Parks and Scope City are gone forever, like Optical Craftsman, etc. The Parks and Scope City websites are still seen because the obsolete architecture they run on is held in one server that also runs other old sites. They can't shut down the Scope City or Parks Optical sites without shutting down the still-operating sites on the same server. The ironic reason is that no one knows the programming or structure of the sites any more to go in and shut down individual sites. Eventually, the older sites still running will update to new website structures and the server will be shut down.

Do you mean wide true field of view or wide apparent field of view? In the 1.25" size, a 32mm Plossl will be only moderately wider than the 25mm.