sojourneyer

I was notified formally by Agena Astro yesterday that they have ceased to support their site. Here it the message to me. Thanks for reaching out to us.. It is my understanding that the Astronomy Portal site is no longer supported, and will soon be discontinued. We apologize for the technical difficulties and inconvenience. We do have our Articles/Guides section that has a link at the top of our website. https://agenaastro.com/articles/guides Adios and fond farewell AC.

Never sucked eye pieces but I have a lot of my pieces that suck I now use them as shot glasses

But you need the atmosphere to be very good for viewing. Heavens where I am sometimes I can not get any clear views of Jupiter above 120X with a 127 mak whereas my 90 mak will allow me to go as high as 150X on the same day. Also there is a weight difference of 9.7 lbs (mak) vs 6lbs for the SCT (both 127mm). You have much more limited viewing opportunities with the Mak plus you can not use a focal reducer for it I believe. If you put a focal reducer/corrector on the SCT the scope becomes much more useful for DSOs.

The AZ3 mount would be at the bottom of my list for a mount IMHO

Personally, I would seek out a used 127 Skymax and a used Celestron starsense DX mount with cradle. The mount has slow motion controls and with the cradle you put your cell phone on the cradle open the star sense app on your mobile and you are off to the races. You do not have to worry about batteries, power Units, adapter, extension cords, lengthy set up time, etc. No firm ware updates needed, no faulty motor issues. look on you tube to see how it works. HERE IS AN OPTION TO CONSIDER: actually you can get. 127 SCT that comes with the entire Starsense set up. Mount, tripod, slo mo under $500 US on Amazon there is a special $100 off until the end of Dec . That is a bargain. The unit is called Starsense DX 5”. with an SCT YOU has less cool down time , larger FOV, and it is lighter. You might consider this entire option The OTA is the Celestron C5. Highly rated with star bright XLT coatings. As an aside I have recommended this scope to 5 people who have purchased and love them . One had a 127 Mak as well and preferred the SCT over the Mak and sold the latter.

I much prefer my Maks on the Starsense Explorer mount than my Nexstar mounts ( GT, SLT and SE). The old software and set up really serve no practical purpose for visual over the SSE mount.

I have had 8 or9 Maks in the past few years ranging in all four sizes , 09/102/105/127. The brands were Bushnell, Svbony, Orion, Celestron and Skywatcher. Of these my sharpest viewing was with the 90 Starwatcher Skymax followed by the 90 Bushnell (aka Celestron C90) The worst was Svbony105. The optics from my Celestron scopes always seemed better than the Orions. I owned all three versions of the Orions. Skywatcher is a good bet but be careful about its dovetail. Some are regular vixen dovetails and the other is an inverted dovetail .

I have had my Celestron 127 Mak and Celestron 6SE on the Starsense DX mount with no issues at all.

I have a new moniker for it ———. TwiSky

Steve, Sorry to confuse you. I only had the tripod partially spread out to fit it in the entrance way. When the legs are fully extended the unit seems very sturdy and rigid. My test using a 6SE last night confirmed this. I am very happy with the combination. I was going to purchase a backup Twilight 1 tripod but now feel no need for this. Shaving 10 lbs off makes it truly a nice grab and go set-up. Merry Christmas all.

I had my 6SE on it last night, and there were no problems at all. Vibration was not bad in the least. The other two scopes I plan to use on it are an 80ED f/7 and a 90mm f/5.5 Achromat. What surprised me was that the tripod held up well. I knew that the mount would be fine but was worried about the tripod. Using the lighter tripod took about 10 lbs off the weight of the mount and tripod of a traditional Twilight 1. The Twilight Skywatcher seemed pretty rigid. I bought it used 3rd hand. The original owner built a mount base identical to the TW 1 original base with the exception that the bottom of the base is flat and accepts 3/8" bolts. I do not know how he did it. It looks OEM. With my two bases I can use the mount with almost any tripod. That was my Christmas present to myself for this year.

Mount is Twilight 1 modified to accept 3/8" tripods and tripod is Skywatcher Star Adventure (same mount as used on the GTi, GTe and Z5 units. All up weight is 4kgs or approx 8.5 lbs It also has a flat head Svbony dovetail clamp. MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

A couple of interesting points about this scope 1 - it has two screws to clamp the scope onto the mount 2- unusual eyepieces that go from 1.25 to 1.4 inches 3- on the top left hand side is a video. Click it. It shows how the finder shoe is two in one... finder and phone. that is really cool. Wonder about the back end weight pressure on the mount and it tipping over when near zenith. This is the white scope. See link below 5- I do not think it is really an ED but their photo does not show much CA. 6 - they have an f/10 and f/6.5 90 mm versions. Cost on Amazon now is $180 for the white longer one and $179 for the black one https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C8TJZHST/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_2?smid=A2UARN6G87QBHF&th=1

Looking at Amazon Warehouse I came across this brand of telescope. It appears to be similar to the Starsense Explorer but half the price. The mount is the Orion Versago E https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C8HNLDMB/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_2?smid=A21UM5P2ATBO5W&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C8TJZHST/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=A2UARN6G87QBHF&psc=1 It says " 2 ED(Extra-low Dispersion) glass elements, chromatic aberration corrected for accurate color reproduction. " Also unusual eyepieces