Louis D

As the old US cereal ad might have said to the 127 'If you eat your Wheaties^TM, you'll grow up big and strong like the CC 8"'. 😁

I would also consider the Explore FirstLight 10" Dobsonian due to the large trunnions and rotatable tube.  Another option is the Explore Scientific - Generation II - 10-inch Truss Tube Dobsonian Telescope for $50 more than the Zhumell.  If storage space or transport space is an issue, the truss design can't be beat.

1 hour ago, New Young Star said:

yes I have found that the Orion is like you said grey, still really nice.

Try this trick on Orion.  After you have it centered at a low power to really concentrate the light into a small, bright region, shine a bright light onto a white sheet of paper and stare at it to sensitize the color sensing cones in your eyes.  Now extinguish the light and quickly look back at Orion.  You may see a hint of green before your cones fade away and the rods take over again.

Hold the eyepiece up to a brightly lit window.  Now bring your up to it until the flipped up eye cup touches your eye socket.  You should be able to see a bright circle surrounded by blackness.  You may need to move the eyepiece in or out relative to your eye to avoid blackouts and maximize the view.  That is the proper distance to use that particular eyepiece.  Now point the scope at a distant object and rack the focuser all the way out and lift the eyepiece up out of the holder while looking through it.  The distant object should start to come into focus.  The distance at which it comes to focus gives you some idea of how long an extension tube you'll need to reach focus.  Hopefully, the scope came with one as @johninderby suggests.  If not, you'll need to buy one of the appropriate length.

I'm guessing they did this so you can attach a DSLR to the scope, but it means they had to use an oversized secondary mirror which leads to reduced contrast.

I think the quoted focal lengths are assuming the use of a 1.25" visual back and diagonal.  The fact that they supply it with two inch accessories doesn't change that.  I'll agree it's probably misleading.

3 hours ago, Second Time Around said:

I'm looking forward to testing the Celestron against my Baader zoom.

That should be interesting.  I've only looked through BHZs at star parties.  While decent, I thought that the eye relief was a bit tight with eyeglasses.  I always unscrew and remove the eye cup on the Celestron when observing with it to maximize eye relief.  I don't know if the same work-around is possible with the BHZ.

Here's my write-up about the Starguiders and the Meade HD-60s.

I would recommend buying from SGL's sponsor, FLO.  They offer 10% discount on 2, 15% off on 4, and 20% off on 7.  It will help keep this site running during these troublesome times.

1 minute ago, johninderby said:

Ues it has a standard SCT thread on the back. 

Nice, the Synta 127 Maks require a step-up ring to fit SCT accessories.

Can it be fitted with a 2" SCT visual back?

4 hours ago, PaulTACG said:

Cheers Louis, 

Am I right in thinking you're suggesting not mounting the finder scope fully in the dovetail clamp bit? 

That's one possibility if there's some play in the fit.  The other is the clamp has one or two screws anchoring it to the main scope tube.  Loosening those two may allow for realignment left/right by twisting and shimming up/down at the front and back and then carefully tightening it down again.  These dovetail clamps are not always aligned very well at the factory.

1 minute ago, johninderby said:

Except for the Skymax 127. 🙄

It's still a good deal when you pick up the OTA used for $200 and tell yourself it's really a 118 Mak.

15 minutes ago, Cornelius Varley said:

The mounts look to be identical but aren't. Similar in appearance but totally different elsewhere.

The Skywatcher Star Discovery mount (different mount) does allow this as does the SW AZ GTI.

Thanks, I couldn't find them.  I would recommend to the OP either the Skymax 127 AZ-GTi or the Skywatcher Star Discovery Pro 127 Wifi Maksutov Telescope due to that feature.

Will you be observing from your backyard or will you have to haul it somewhere in a car to observe?

They look to be identical mounts sourced from the same Chinese manufacturer Synta.  The only question I would ask would be can you declutch the axes, move the scope manually, and reclutch the axes without losing alignment?  Some of these mounts require you to use the motors to move the scope to maintain alignment.  Since I don't see any way to declutch the axes, I'm going to guess no.

3 minutes ago, Beardy30 said:

What is OTAs please 

Optical Tube Assembly, the main telescope optical part.

If you've reached the limit of the adjustment wheels before bringing the dot on target, try loosening the mount foot and twisting it to bring it closer to parallel with the main scope's optical axis.  For the other axis, you can try shimming one end or the other of the mounting foot prior to tightening it to try to again bring it closer to parallel in that axis.

2 hours ago, Second Time Around said:

The eyepiece has arrived and I've just taken it out of quarantine.  It's forecast to be clear tomorrow night so I plan to try it out then.

If I like it I'll be getting an adaptor made as I mentioned earlier.  One disadvantage though is that it doesn't have a filter thread.

Not having the eye lens turning when zooming will be handy with a Dioptrx, especially as I plan to get a binoviewer before long.

 

Yeah, I forgot about the thread business.  To keep the barrel short for spotting scope usage, they engineered it to put the bottom elements right at the end of the lower barrel leaving no room for threads.  You could put them on the front of the diagonal.

On 30/03/2020 at 06:37, Second Time Around said:

I've found several step down rings of the right size but all will reduce the eye relief, that's already been reduced by the Dioptrx.

The eyepiece hasn't arrived yet, but if I decide to keep it I'll have an adaptor made that's simply a narrow ring with a 37mm inside diameter and a 43mm outside diameter.

However, that will probably have to wait until after the pandemic is over.

Did you get the zoom eyepiece yet?  Have you tried out a step-down ring on it for a Dioptrx?

I get almost the exact same artifact using widest field 2" eyepieces with my 127mm Mak.  The artifact first manifests itself as the star crosses the edge of the rear aperture/baffle tube (27mm diameter) and grows bigger as the bright star is brought closer to the 46mm diameter field stop.  I'm sure it's a narrow angle reflection off of some blackened internal surface in the rear baffle tube.  As such, it would probably take a knife-edge baffle somewhere to reduce it.

Since your rear baffle is larger at 37mm, the effect is probably not visible without the focal reducer unless you were to use a larger format sensor.  Try looking through the focal reducer with a 32mm Plossl to see if you can replicate the effect visually.  That would eliminate the camera as the cause.  See if you can see it visually with a 2" eyepiece having a 40mm to 46mm field stop with a 2" visual back and no focal reducer, or just hold the eyepiece up to the open back of the tube if you don't have one.  That would eliminate the focal reducer as the cause.

Would the view through a Herschel wedge and 90mm APO be superior to an 8" Dob with Baader Solarfilm?  I have the latter setup, but recently acquired a 90mm APO and am now considering getting a Herschel wedge for it.  I'll have to try six vintage new old stock notch interference color filters from Optica b/c I bought several years ago to see if they improve solar observing:

1 hour ago, bomberbaz said:

Also this is also a 100 quid more expensive than the lunt alternative.

It appears to be the same price or less as the 2" Lunt when cross shipping back to the US from the UK (no VAT, duties, or sales tax but large shipping cost).  The 2" Lunt is $299+tax and the 1.25" Lunt is $229+tax (and backordered) in the US while they are £339.00 and £149.90, respectively, in the UK.  The Altair is only £238.33 shipped to the US, which works out to $294 at today's exchange rate.  If it didn't weigh 5.5 pounds, I might be tempted to get one.

That scope looks breathtakingly steampunk in that first video. 😍  You can never have too many knobs, pulleys, chains, tubes, gears, and brass on a vintage scope.

1 hour ago, Butterfingers said:

Thank you very much for your advice. I bought some bresser special Saturn 20x60 porros, ill refer back to this when I’m in a position to invest in something more advanced.

20x is going to be difficult to handhold.  I can just barely make 15x binos work handheld.  To do so, I sit in a reclining lawn chair and hold the binos by the objective ends and plant the eyepieces into my eye sockets to keep them steady.

9 hours ago, JeremyS said:

Made some additions to my high power eyepiece case.

Bottom row, L to R. Complete set* of Vixen HR's: 1.6, 2.0, 2.4 and 3.4 mm. Then the Televue Nagler Zoom 3 to 6 mm.

*unless Vixen decide to issue some more at longer FL 🙂

Might want to add the 4mm Tak TOE.  It's supposed to be phenomenal as well.