joe aguiar

My personal opinion is the 80ed is ok for quick grab and go but remember it's really the size and weight of a 4 inch size. A regular 80mm f7 is smaller and lighter then the sw 80ed. But saying that it's still ok. I agree with up above if moon and planets is what u want I like the images of a nice refractor. The sweet spot if you are semi serious or serious is the 5 inch size least to me. Dont get me wrong I have the 6se and 8se both are good for large portable scope but for planets it's hard to beat a nice refractor. Not to mention no need to worry bout collimate. Joejaguar

If your in north America there kitt speaks and several places that u can rent a cabin in Arizona or Texas area.as well as a rental program where u use a scope all to yourself, like 12 inch scts to 16 inch sct. U can rent the cabin and scope for whole weekend. Its probably not cheap. consider it a mini vacation. And it's some of darkest skies either grey or black zones. Personally tho I would just buy a scope and learn to use it etc. It doesn't have to be expensive 300 would get u a nice scope. Where I am there is a local astro club but it's more like 1 day a month. And if it's not clear then its cancelled. Not to mention if u have 20 to 30 people there u get like a look for like 30 secs. The planets r not always around too.and for those that dont drive probably wont work taking ttc there. Joejaguar

Ok take that 20mm ep look at the moon again but this time start with the ep all the way in then focus to where it gets smaller. Once u get as far as the focuser allow then slowly start taking the ep out of the focuser mm by mm while u keep looking through it. Untill u can seethe moon in focus even if that means the ep is not even in the focuser anymore and its 2 inches out in mid air. If it focuses then u need an extension by the distance where the ep was at. 2 or 3 inches long. Many scopes comes with 1 or 2 extensions maybe they lost it or forgot to give it to u. After that u gotta take it to someone who knows if its collamation. Alot times u hear people say about collimating a reflector but it's something new people should not do or know who. Its possible they saw the 6 bolts behind the mirror and turned them not knowing what it does and messed it up bad. If there no clubs near u you can also try a telescope store but they norm charge u 50 to collimate it. If u do that u only need to take the tube and ep u dont need to carry tripod Joejaguar

Just for the future this is nor a telescope per say buy it's a spotter scope. Joejaguar

ya i agree its too long to be one, its looks like a parabolic f5 which is fine joejaguar

Ebay and Amazon sell them too in a 10 or 12 PM Joejaguar

Well I never had anything that big. I had 2 16 inches. Obsession is supposed to be very good quality and more portable that most of the same size in a smaller package. But they are very expensive. Mine were mass produced kind but if u want quality and smallest package well u gotta pay for it. For me tho cant see me spending that much on a dob But good luck on purchase Joejaguar

u can do a 3x barlow just try not to duplicate powers if u can joejaguar

ya I would try that first if that doesn't work there are like 6 to 9 hexscrews under side the focuser which u can ajust but try neils suggestion first b4 adjusting the screws. hopfully u didn't bang it these entry level focusers are not great quality. On my 100 evostar apo I hit it by accident after only using it 1x and it didn't work after that no matter what screws I tightened, it was bascally garbage after that. So hopfully same thing didn't happen to u. joejaguar

That's norn for 1 inch smaller refractor to equal a inch bigger reflector. Take into account the slight light lose due co and a mirror doesnt reflect 100% of starlight it lose about 10 percent per bounce. Joejaguar

By the way what eyepieces did u use ? Most new people use them in wrong order maybe u were using the highest power? In daytime just use the o e market 20 or 25 only. Joejaguar

U can try using it in the daytime. Try a building chimney pole or tree but at least 100 meters away then turn the focus wheels up and down slowly untill u see an image Joejaguar

you can thread the regular 2 inch sct diagonal on it but its not a true 2" opening although it works its kinda like 1.75" so the meade celestron focal reducer will work. I hav not used the 6.3 on it but I have a 2" sct diagonal and 2" 32mm SWA meade 4000 joejaguar

I agree if u liked the c5 then u will love the c6. It's pretty much right in between the 5 and 8, but alot smaller than 8. The 6 can go on a plane. The extra inch compared to the 5 does help in light grasp. It's perfect lightweight and largish at 6 lbs bare add rdf and 1.25 diagonal and it's still only 7 lbs. I think perfect scope. Joejaguar

Tommorrow is my b'day and with the huuuuge Coronado sale on now I decided to upgrade my Coronado 60mm solarmax 11 with bf10 to the 90mm solarmax 3 with bf15. This should be a big difference going to 90mm from 60 and saving about $1000 us is about $1300 then plus the taxes I save is closer to $1500 which is alot. I remember when I started in this hobby a 90mm Coronado would have been $8000 to $9000. Back then I'll probably sell the 60 when spring comes and most people start to think of the sun. Joejaguar

yep I never had an attic altho thers empty space up there but then had to support a new floor wals insulate drywall and tore half of the peak to make it a livable room then a door to go out to a deck etc. remember didn't drive back then so couldn't get away so this had to be were I had to obseve from, and in backyard view wasn't good since all the houses are tall including mine joejaguar

heres what I did when I started , I still live in a white zone so its the worst one and you are liminted on what you will see in the zone. started with 6' reflector in backyard but very limited views since all houses around me inc mine are 2 stories high for the first several months. -then opened up my attic on 3rd floor renoed it to use it then made an opening to the flat roof and build a 14x14ft deck that worked really well. the view was now 360 degreed since now iam above all houses. then upgraded to 10 inch scope. -later I wanted darker skies so I booked one weekend a month a camp site . Back then didn't drive so had to take ttc to go buss to a 2nd go buss then a taxi final way to the closest provincial park to camp. this took 3 hrs and I went alone since I didn't know anyone else that wanted to go camping. wasn't to cheap either since iam paying for site go busses taxi food camping gear and theres still no garrenty it would be clear. was also very heavy carrying everything for camping and a scope mount weights food etc. this is nly available from may to nov and it was only a orange zone but better then white. -later when we drove theres a park 1.5 hr away where people in the astro community go again its only may to nov its open. it again is orange skies. doing it on weekdays cant be done since in summer it gets dark by 1030pm then to obseve for 2 hrs then to drive home 1.5 hrs then to sleep to wake up at 6am didn't work unless it was a fri or sat. so we did this only 2x a month. -after few years we went up to coattge country every 2 weekends and 2 other 2 weekend stay home so its a balance in life. This was in a blue sky so very good skys. this hobby can make u do many thing to get to dark skies but once u do u wont want to obseve in crappy skies anymore. you can buy a half acre in a good dark zone u want and if u wait maybe u can find one for like $10k. it wont be water front or anything u just need a small spot that's your and clear with no lights.You may be able to put up a small shed like 8x8ft or 10x10ft (but gotta look at the building code).I rather do this this then stop by some field next to no where. joejaguar

Any height u want really as long as u can still balance it Joejaguar

weird i did reply hrs ago from my phone but now i can see it didnt save ok so my sw heratage mirror is held in place to the rim of the scope and it being held by 1 nut so make sure this nut is tight. other than that is just 1 screw that holds the mirror and 3 collimation screws if u dont see a nut tight against the rim holding the rod then maybe the nut went missing. was this new or used scope? joe

The square isn't so hard to see but it's not easy either. But also the square is pretty big in the sky maybe your trying to find a small or smallish square. Try again this time try looking for a very large square. Could also be if any light source is in your way this will dim futher the dim constellations. If u looking at a map in the sky it maybe 3x the size, of course the map or chart cant be to scale as appears to us or that would need to be on 2x2ft pages. It something I got used to long ago and it helped. So if something is like 3 inches from a star on my map since the constellations will be bigger in sky I dont aim for the same 3 inches away but more 6 to 9 inches to compensate Hope that kinda helps Joejaguar

Ok I'm gonna check it out asap get u an answer in next hr or so I found the box even tho I already packed it I'll open it up and tell u Joejaguar

ohh damn now I see I didn't see the date only it was the top of the list so that's y I replied ohh well joe

what about using a 8" post going from a 5" to 8" would be a big improvmemnt I don't think any tripods are water proff at all. You can easily have one 20 years old that looks really good if you take inside evertime, but if it needs to be outside 24/7/52 weeks a yr you must do things as people above have mentioned or after 3 to 5 years it mat be dead. if you do water protection u may get it to 10 yrs. altho to me the tripod is light compared to the mount and weights joejaguar

problem is since u only told us the diameter (114) we don't know what focal length u r talking about. so lets say all 4.5" (114mm) should all do max 228x power. so a short medium or long 114mm scope would all use different eps to get to the max powers ie: at 500mm fl 6mm with barlow is 166x power at 1000mm fl (like the original guy here talking about) 6mm with barlow is 333x power too much power so since we don't know your fl we cant figure if 6mm with barlow is too much not enough or ok joejaguar

Depends on the camera tripod. It should be a medium weight one. I have tried it on a Amazon $30 model and it's not stable enough. U probably need 80 $99 tripod and I would recommend one with slow motion controls. The mak being really long will have a smaller fov so slow motion controls helps. But this may even cost more on the tripod. What about a az3 dont they have that package or az4? These wont be too much more heavier but stable could be just as important Joejaguar