Louis D

There's a very recent thread on CN comparing the Paradigm/Starguiders to the TMB/UWA Planetaries. The Meade HD-60s also snuck into the discussion.

That definitely does not look like Whitesboro, TX. 😉

Central Texas.

Ya think? 🤣

When traveling by car, I try to keep my telescope equipment in padded duffel bags in case the car is broken into in the parking lot. Pelican and flight cases positively scream "STEAL ME!". My camera equipment comes into the hotel room each night because I keep it in dedicated camera bags for easy on-the-go access. That, and I have to recharge batteries and make backups each night. Come to think of it, if you want a rigid case, I would get a hard-sided cooler, bubble wrap your scope, and put it in the cooler and the cooler in your car. It will be well protected and won't be an obvious theft target.

So, did you ditch Svbony helical focuser in favor of the Crayford focuser over the last month? Was the helical focuser not to your liking? How much does either extend your focal length? I've found the Orion/Celestron/Bresser 127 Mak focuser to be fine enough for me, and pretty much backlash free, that I've never felt a desire to add a Crayford focuser to either of the two versions I've used. I tried a 1.25" to 2" helical focuser on my Dob 20 years ago and never took a liking to it. Much too slow to see when the image popped into best focus. It needed a more aggressive thread pitch.

My biggest problem with plossls in fast, undriven scopes is that the image is super sharp for only a moment before the object passes back out of the center and into the not so well corrected area. That, and you have to nudge things much more often due to the narrower field of view. Premium, well corrected wide field eyepieces keep things sharp for a much longer dwell time between nudges. If you're using a driven scope, then plossls work pretty well for small objects.

Like dielectric mirror coatings, it's a solution consumers didn't know they needed until companies started marketing them to us as essential.

I've read of observers using narrow field eyepieces to observe dim objects such as the Horsehead nebula located near bright stars. It helps to block the stray starlight from ever entering the field of view to improve contrast.

Well that rules me out. There's multiple reasons I've never been in a customer facing job, and lack of patience would be high among them. 😁

There's also the Caldwell catalog which was compiled by Sir Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore for amateur astronomers to highlight many showpiece objects not listed in the Messier catalog.

I take mine off each time I'm done and bring it in the house with the scope. If I leave it on the scope while bringing it inside, I tend to whack the finder on the door frame because it sticks out so far and I forget it's there. Luckily, it's plastic-spring loaded, so it just pops off unharmed. I'm still on the original button cell from 20 years ago when I bought it, so it lasts a long time if you just flip it on and off long enough to get the scope on target.

Do you like the silver or black focuser and dew shield adapter rings better? It probably comes down to price shipped with all taxes and duties figured in. Does either company individually inspect each scope for quality control purposes or do they just ship out whatever comes in from China? Stellarview in the US now hand figures the optics in telescopes delivered from China to give some value add and differentiation. They no longer sell telescopes as delivered from China. I think there was just too much variability in the quality of the figures.

If you can keep it inside, especially in a climate controlled house as we have here in Texas, that would be ideal. Humidity can cause degradation of the mirror coatings, corrosion in the electronics, rust on the fasteners, and expansion of wood products. Of course, if you live in a desert climate as in Arizona, outside storage is a much safer bet. There's it's just a matter of keeping critters out of it and ensuring temperatures don't get too hot. Winters in cold climates can wreak their own havoc on telescopes stored outdoors, but I have less experience in this area.

No, but from my reading elsewhere, the NAV-HW have more eye relief than the Ethos, but even then, not enough for folks with deep set eyes wearing eyeglasses. Those without eyeglasses find them easier to take in the view than with the Ethos thanks to the more generous eye relief, however.

This is why I bought my 15" Dob. Not for hunting faint fuzzies, but for gaining higher resolution and contrast at higher powers. Planets start to show real detail, globulars start to resolve into pinpoints of light, bright nebula start to resolve into filaments, etc.

Most cheap "aluminum" cases are actually textured plastic that are easily punctured. Real aluminum flight cases are way more expensive. If you want a rigid case, I would get a Pelican-style, blow-molded plastic case. They're much more rugged.

No optics to be looked through, so not sure how to classify it. 🙄

You're just baiting me, aren't you? 🤔

Most RACI simply don't have enough eye relief to use with eyeglasses, so I've been making my own with a cheap 70mm f/4.3 "toy" scope, some PVC plumbing parts, a cheap 2" dielectric diagonal I had sitting around, and a widest field 2" eyepiece yet to be settled upon. It will work out to about an 8x70 to 10x70 finder with about an 8 to 9 degree true field of view. Severe field curvature is the major issue right now. I don't have a spare TSFLAT2 to use in it at the moment. I recently injured my neck in a fall to the point that it is incredibly painful to use a unit power finder or straight through finder now, so I've been aiming strictly with the green laser sight lately. Now that is an incredibly intuitive aiming device. I know y'all in the UK are incredibly opposed to them. It also hurts just to look down into a diagonal when bending at the neck, so I have to back up and bend more at the waist. Hopefully it heals up over the next few weeks/months. I'd go to physical therapy, but they're all closed due to social distancing.

Ugh. They're unit power finders. They have 1x, not 0x, power. The magnify everything by 1x. If they were 0x magnifiers, then they would demagnify or compress everything to a point like a massive focal reducer and be of little use. Sorry @John, it's just a pet peeve of mine when these are referred to as zero power finders. 🤓

Exactly. At a given exit pupil, the image will be basically the same as in a larger scope, just less magnified and less detailed. That has its advantages when viewing large objects as you noted.

The scope and mount head would probably fit in a decent sized backpack. The tripod would fit in an appropriately sized tripod or light stand bag for photography. I bought a Gator brand of the latter at B&H Photo in NYC for my daughter's tripod and mount head, so you probably could find an equivalent at a photography superstore in the UK. For her 127 Mak, I just got her a sturdy gym bag for $15 and wrapped the scope in layers of bubble wrap inside the main compartment. All the outside pockets were handy for holding the various accessories, also bubble wrapped.

For £200, get a visual only scope like a Dob and take afocal snapshots of solar system objects through an eyepiece with a cellphone camera held up to it. Also, find a dark sky location and put your camera on a tripod and take about 15 to 30 second exposures at wide angles to start getting an idea of DSO astrophotography for cheap.

Celestron is formerly a US telescope designer and manufacturer of telescopes. I don't know if any design and manufacturing takes place in the US after being bought by Synta. I have no knowledge of the history of Skywatcher. I'm guessing it's the European house brand of Synta.