Louis D

Believe me, no American would mistake it for a big car. It appears to be even smaller than a Mini Cooper S, which is considered tiny by US standards. It's not imported into the US, though.

Alright, to be fair, I could order a BHZ from FLO for about $225 (plus shipping would be $248). Again, no import tariff or sales tax. In that respect, the ASZ is $131 more (before shipping) when importing from Europe. That's still less than the $162 differential ordering in the UK. I have no idea why both zooms are so much more expensive when ordered from US dealers. Perhaps that extra 25% tariff on imports from a certain country? Funny, it doesn't get imposed on direct imports by individuals.

If the 76mm version had a parabolic mirror, it would help it quite a bit. You'd just be left with strong coma, which is much less intrusive with Plossls than spherical aberration. You aren't just losing an inch of aperture, you're also losing parabolization.

BHZ = $309 with sales tax added making it closer to $334 plus shipping ASZ = $429 in the US with sales tax added on making it closer to $460 plus shipping ASZ = $356 direct from APM Germany after converting from Euros to USD, plus no sales tax due to international purchase. International shipping will be somewhat higher, but not $100+ higher. No import tariffs on purchases under $800, either.

Assuming the 100 refers to 100mm, 100mm/25.4mm/inch=3.94 inches. I'd call that 4", not 3", unless you insist on using truncation instead of rounding.

The focuser has obviously changed over the last 9 years from the original flat tube to R&P connection: The telescope is equipped with a Crayford focuser: when the focusing wheel is rotated, a relatively thin axis rotates, which is pressed against a flat groove on the movable eyepiece tube vs. 2" RAP dual speed focuser, ball bearing and tooth drive adjustment I have the Long Perng 72ED under the Astro-Tech branding with the flat tube focuser setup from that era. I can attest it badly slips under heavy loads near zenith regardless of the tension settings.

I just hope they add realign on current object to refine the pointing in some future software update. Over and over again I hear about folks not being able to get the initial alignment precise enough to put objects dead center in the eyepiece. Initial alignment should be just that, an initial starting point to get you started, and from which to refine it during the night.

One of the 76mm models with an f/4 spherical primary? Just troll the thrift shops and such and you can find them for under $20 used. Someone had one they had brought to a star party. Being setup on a table made it next to impossible to sight along the tube, so I shot from the hip to aim it. As you say, I was able to get Jupiter eventually in the center. You could definitely make out the Galilean moons and at least an equatorial band. However, the outer field was an aberrated mess thanks to SA. It does work, but not very well. I guess that's what happens when you try to hit a price point.

In the US at least, only $46 separates the BHZ from APM Super Zoom, so I would err toward the latter if you can wait for it to come back in stock and if the price differential is similar there in the UK.

V-shaped stars are generally related to lateral chromatic aberration where different colors focus at different distances from the center. Try a really bright star and see if that V shape becomes a rainbow. It could also be that all colors focus together, but the star image is distorted at the edge into a coma shaped image on either side of best focus and somewhat even at best focus. Is that eyepiece coma? I'm not sure what the proper term for it is.

Interesting. I would have thought the 17.5mm Morpheus was astigmatism free at f/7. My 14mm shows a bit at f/6, but the 9mm appears astigmatism free to the edge, just like my 10mm Delos. Are you sure you weren't seeing defocused stars due to the field curvature of your refractor? Make sure to refocus for the edge to see if it sharpens the stars out there into pinpoints. If they switch between radial and tangential lines on either side of best focus at the edge instead of oblate circles, that truly is astigmatism.

He's active over on CN using the same ID if you're really that interested in contacting him. John Huntley is exclusively active over there now as well. As for me, I enjoy the more civil discourse here on SGL; although I'll admit I've sometimes done my part to push the boundaries. 😁

I generally keep a 35mm to 50mm extension tube on hand for helping with close focusing. I've found it really helps with Maks in particular. You'd think they can close focus with the whole moving mirror thing, but they can't.

I recall the person had the bulb upright in a stand you'd normally screw into the ceiling, and had the cover snugged to the tripod legs with ties of some sort to keep it from touching the bulb under the center of the tripod. I've also heard of using an aquarium heater to avoiding melting issues.

Well, I definitely recall seeing it when I took it out of my air conditioned house at about 76° F into the 98° F evening, so about 22° F or about a 12° C difference. Bright stars were spikes. At first I thought it was pinched optics until it warmed up after about 30 minutes. Stars were nice pinpoints after that. I've not dealt with rapidly dropping temps while observing here. The seeing is usually terrible under those conditions, so I don't bother.

I had been looking for a 120/125mm FPL-53 doublet when a TS-Optics 90mm FPL-53 triplet showed up used for a decent price. I realized it would be much more manageable in size, so I went for it and have been very happy with my decision. The only downside is that it can take 30 minutes to equilibrate if its more the a few degrees cooler or warmer outside than in my house where I store it.

That sounds like a Synta made scope with that 3 screw attachment method. If you measure the circumference and divide by π (~3.14), you should get the outer tube diameter. The inner diameter will be a few millimeters less. At that point, you can start to search for a Synta focuser adapter (or Synta native focuser) in the correct size.

Or a big Dob with a premium mirror.

I just bungee cord my assembled Dob upright to one side of my Astro van (inside, of course 😄) and pack around it.

I've also heard of folks keeping a low wattage incandescent bulb under the cover of the scope, at the bottom, to drive out condensation. You still might have spiders or other bugs making a home in it, though.

Astro-Tech is Astronomics's (in Norman, OK, USA and CN's sponsor) house brand, just like StelllaLyra/StellaMira are FLO's house brands. The actual manufacturers tend to be GSO, Long Perng, Sharpstar, KUO, etc. Synta seems to be coalescing their business around their house brand Sky-Watcher and their purchased brand Celestron rather than continue selling through Western house brands. JOC is doing the same with their Explore Scientific and Bresser brands. You'll still see some of their stuff under other brands, but it is becoming rarer each year. I don't know what Sunny Ningbo is doing brand-wise since they lost custody of the Meade brand to Orion USA.

Just needed to apply a bit of Doctor Who's transdimensional engineering to make the inside bigger than the outside, that's all. 😉

They are so amazingly bad, they show up in thrift shops around here for $20 or less all the time. They're hard to put on a target, and due to the spherical primary, only the central 50% of the field is usable.

This has been quite the interesting thread. 😉