Alien_Photons

Dave. Did you find out the name of the previous owner? I am sure he would be happy it's been cleaned up and in use by someone like himself with an eye for a good telescope. You might send the seller a picture of it cleaned up. Stories like this fill me with both sadness and joy.

I am in the west cost or Ireland at the moment. Last night was pretty clear with a good view of Saturn in an eight inch dob just after sun set. The real treat is the transparency however the sun light tracks around the north to the east during the night which is normal for our latitude. I caught a fireball at about 23:00 and it was to my eyes orange which is jot the normal white green I usually see. So I wondered would the light from sunset over the north illuminate the trail of a meteor at the high alitude of the trail. I was trying to figure out why it appreard orange and I couldn't think of any other reason. All the other meteors later that evening with a stunning backdrop of the milkyway were white as expected. The night skies are stunning this far west.

Nothing to show. There is already an eight inch dob at my destination!!

An astronomer with to many eyepieces has the same problem as someone with to many clothes. They spend so much time thinking about what to wear they end up missing half the party. I have two and a power mate.

Nothing wrong with looking at clouds in a new scope. It needs a check out.

Mount a bar between the top of the rings and then mount the finder to that whereever it works best. I have been doing this for years and its works well for other things also. Had a guider on it a laser pointer bracket it even became a handle.

I bought a snood. Which doubles or triples or what ever you want to do with it into many things.

Keep it as it is. In the long run it will add value given its originality. When I think refractors my mind always sees them as white. Even though I am very found of a WO in red that I have. Maybe some red rings and a bigger saddle. It already has some red on the tube. Pimping not upgrades right.

Seems to go like this. Mount it Where you can. Where you guide rings are mounted. Mount on your dual plate. Get an off axis guider Get an in camera guide chip. SBIG. I used an SBIG years ago as much because I couldn't work out the best place/issues for my guide scope. That was a revelation.

Even with the backlash removed you can still get end float and other things going on. Loading the mount with the weight on the east side can remove the end float whilst loading the mount on the west will remove the backlash. You can adjust the worm gear for end float and gear mesh. This will then high light that the bearings are not the best either in the axels or the worms. So with some tunning the mount can perform to a point but it does have issues. Learning to tune your mount is the way to go and it might take a while to sort things out but in the end it puts you in control. Remember that most of this tunning can be done during the day.

I couldn't or wouldn't justify the cost for years. Then I realised that forty years of looking through telescopes at the skies made it a simple choice to buy a very good quality telescope. I haven't regreted it.

The short answer is no. Who made the lens, how well it's been made and assembled tends to make more difference. Just as important is the focuser which needs to allow you get the best from the lens. It should make finding and keeping focus easy. Stick to the respected and trusted brands, don't worry about it but remember nothing is perfect. Edit. I bought a Takahashi as much because they provide a five year warranty on the optics (trust) and anyone that owned one always said how good they are (respect).

Read up on the things you would like to observe. Find out about their size and surface brightness. Work out by observing how bright your skies are this depends on were you live. These two bits of information will help you settle on a field of view and magnification. Start up a spreadsheet with the properties of your scope and eyepieces. Get the sheet to calculate the FOV and magnification and you should be able to work out what YOU need for your skies and targets. You can do this also for a scope you might want in the future. Then you can decide on some of the other properties of the eyepieces in relation to price. You might for example choose one very good eyepiece and invest less in others. Remember this choice might not be the best choice for your next telescope. Find out how well it works with your scope by posting questions in the forums you might find someone has the same scope and eyepiece. Matching scopes and eyepieces is not always straightforward. Also consider second hand this might take you longer to pick up what you need but might let you invest in that one special eyepiece. This might be the eyepiece you keep for a long time if you choose well. Good luck.

I share your excitement but the best investment you can make is in time with the telescope under the skies. Given you already have 25mm 10mm 6mm and 2x 2.5x barlows. There isnt much room for anything else other than pehaps a 32mm. So I would say cool off a bit. You have plenty already. Keep the cash and put it towards your new scope in a couple of years time. By then you will have both used and enjoyed the scope and eyepieces you have and be in a much better position to know what to do.

There is another issue associated with soft focus and that's the collimation. Don't forget to check it. I used a 7mm with mine and would tweak the collimation quite often. Then I discovered storing the mak in the same orrientation as I most often used it helped it keep its collimation. They were also know to have a turned edge so I stopped mine down by about 8mm this also helped I also flocked it. At least all of these little things add up when at high power. It gave great views of the moon and planets. For the record I had a semi skimmed bottle top.