Dr Strange

Light pollution in Los Angeles isn't reduced all that much but the lack of traffic is fantastic! Both in terms of headlights on my street (when I observe from the driveway) and in terms of traffic overall on the freeways and roads. It is like it was in the 1980's...

The Esprit's are excellent scopes. I had the 100 and loved it. It will be impossible to find a scope in that aperture with Schott and FPL-53 glass that is well figured and mated as well as coming with all the accessories you need to image in the price range of the 120. The only other scope that would come close would be the Takahashi TSA-120 at double the price or the Tele Vue NP127is which is three times the price. And both of those would mean several hundred more pounds to get all the accessories you need to image with it. My only concern would be the HEQ5. It should be fine for shorter exposures but if you are trying to to narrow band or long duration exposures (over about 90 seconds) you may run into challenges. Wind could also be a factor. You may want to think about adding a Skywatcher EQ6-R to the purchase just to make sure you are not under mounted. One of the surprising but really nice features of the 6-R is the handle. People don't realize how much this helps ergonomically when trying to move and mount/dismount the mount head.

Some things to keep in mind... AP is different than visual. For visual aperture is king. For AP it is the mount. AP is a very complex part of the hobby and can be very expensive. There are also a lot of moving parts that need to be accounted for so simple is better. Thus in general for someone starting out a short focal length good quality refractor is the best option. A high f/stop SCT on an alt/az mount is not a good choice. I would suggest a 80mm refractor like the William Optics Zenithstar 81 APO on a Celestron Advanced VX mount is a good place to start. I used an Advanced VX to start with. With a 80-102mm refractor is worked well for its price point. You can expect up to 90 seconds unguided with the mount. Realistically 30-60 seconds. I would wait to guide until after mastering the basics. Trying to do too much too fast is a recipe for disaster. And so on. A DSLR is a good camera to start with. Something like a Canon or Nikon. They are relatively inexpensive all things considered. And the mount plus camera plus image acquisition can be done using a very affordable software called Backyard EOS or Backyard Nikon.

AP is different than visual. For visual aperture is king. For AP it is the mount. AP is a very complex part of the hobby and can be very expensive. There are also a lot of moving parts that need to be accounted for so simple is better. Thus in general for someone starting out a short focal length good quality refractor is the best option. A 80mm refractor like the William Optics Zenithstar 81 APO on a Celestron Advanced VX mount is a good place to start. I used an Advanced VX to start with. With a 80-102mm refractor is worked well for its price point. You can expect up to 90 seconds unguided with the mount. Realistically 30-60 seconds. I would wait to guide until after mastering the basics. Trying to do too much too fast is a recipe for disaster. As a counter point I also used it with a 127mm carbon fiber Explore Scientific FCD1 APO refractor on the AVX. This combination was fantastic for visual and I used this setup a lot. I also got a lot of firsts with it. However for AP it wasn't as fantastic. It was possible but very much not recommended. Any little bit of wind was a problem. Any vibrations were a problem. Guiding was a problem. And so on.

For things that I cannot get or cannot get in a reasonable time I have used First Light Optics (FLO). They are absolutely second to none in terms of service, support, and product availability. I would highly recommend them.

The 152mm Dob is a very good option for visual work. However as noted, it really doesn't work for any imaging. The reason being that it is a completely manual telescope. Also as noted if you are handy you can build a motorized equatorial platform or you can buy one. They are quite expensive though. Another option would be to buy the Skywatcher AZ-GTi, the EQ wedge for it, and use your 70mm refractor for imaging. This will be a less expensive option than buying a platform if you cannot or do not want to make it.

Yes. If you check your TSA certificate it is actually an implied contract that you agree to when you buy the scope. Included in there is a paragraph that says if you buy/own a TSA-120 you are required to buy a M210 or 180 to compliment it. Sorry mate. You don't want to end up having to pay a Solicitor to try and litigate it. It is just cheaper and easier to bite the bullet and buy the Mewlon...

I find that seeing the barrel of the EP takes me out of the immersion and suspension of reality during observing. I used to use Ethos. In the last two weeks I found that I was using the Nagler's I have more than the Ethos. They are lighter, still mean I have to move my little bean head to see the barrel, and get that wide field experience I enjoy. So I sold off all my Ethos and switched completely to Naglers with a 24mm Panoptic in the mix and my biggest EP being the Holy Hand Grenade/ improvised club that is the 31 Nagler. With the 31 Nagler and a OIII filter I am able to get the entire Veil complex in my Tele Vue NP101is and it is amazing. The 31 however is huge and as noted I can use it as a improvised club if I need to beat off a wild animal or Football hooligan. Even with the narrow FOV of the Mewlon I find the TV's work really well. A good (and much less expensive) alternative is the Bresser/Explore Scientific 82 or 100 degree EP's. I owned the entire line of ES 82's except the 31. They were great. I updated to the TV's because at certain points of the year vendor's in the US would sell the EP's at cost which was a great discount. TV gave fee EP's, telescopes, etc to vendors who sold a certain amount of EP's in a given timeframe. Some vendors would sell them at cost because the value of the free stuff significantly outweighed the loss of profit by selling them at cost. I don't know if they do that anymore...

I give credit to the Footballers they make gobs of money and have to be really athletic with good endurance. It is a tough game to play. Otherwise they are a bunch of floppers. Rugby is a hooligan sport played by gentlemen. Football is a gentleman's sport played by hooligans. Ouch! on your friend! That sucks! A good trick for cooling of these scopes is to use a desk fan and a sheet. Cover the front opening with the sheet. Point the fan at the opening from about 300cm away blowing into the opening. That accelerates cooling significantly. The sheet keeps the dust out. What I like to do is to use my TSA for the fist half of my observing. Going after the wide field/big stuff. Within that time the Mewlon cools. After I complete the wide field/big stuff I swap out the Mewlon and go after planets and the small stuff or to go deep on the big stuff. Works really well.

Well since I played Rugby both at Uni and after until becoming too injured to continue I am pretty ugly and not very bright (the good looking smart ones play Cricket or Football) so I qualify for that Idiot tag. Hence the title of this thread. I plan to do several other "Idiot" threads on my other equipment as well since it has been my experience that some of the information I had to work hard at finding would be beneficial to others coming after me. Unless of course it is just a case where I am an idiot and you lot have already gotten these things down pat in which case I will laugh at my own stupidity and get on with things. Note: I originally posted this on the US site cloudynights.com but thought it might be helpful here too. When I was doing my research on the Takahashi Mewlon family of scopes I wasn't able to find very much out there that was related to what I wanted to find out. These scopes tend to be pretty rare in the wild and thus there isn't all that much out there. From my research I found out there are only 40 Mewlon 210's made per year. Of those 40, 20 go to the USA and the rest go to other countries. The things I was looking for were: What accessories worked with the scopes What focusers would be compatible What rings or mounting plates could be used How the views were compared to other scopes I had used What was the size of the scopes How much did they weigh How long does it take to cool them How hard are they to collimate And so on. Since I am now the owner of a Mewlon 210 and a Mewlon 250 I want to use this thread to document my own findings and experiences with the scopes as well as constructive information and experiences both good and bad so that hopefully someone like me coming along behind me doesn't have to go through the learning curve I did. I have done side by side comparisons between an 8"/203mm, 11"/279mm, and 14"/356mm Celestron EdgeHD SCT's and the Mewlon 210 and 250 so I will be mentioning what I found in that comparison. First up some quick data: Mewlon Family Specifications: Mewlon 210 210mm/8.27in aperture f/11.5 32% CO 2,415mm focal length 13.4 limiting magnitude 18mm image circle 210mm back focus Primary mirror 220mm elliptical Pyrex aluminized multi coating Secondary mirror 65mm spherical Pyrex aluminzied multi coating 244mm/9.6in diameter 700mm/27.56in length 9 kg/19.8 lbs 7x50 finder 6.3 degree FOV Mewlon 250 CRS (current production model) f/10 250mm/9.84in aperture 28% CO 2,500mm focal length 13.8 limiting magnitude 21mm image circle 210mm back focus Primary mirror 260mm elliptical Pyrex aluminized multi coating Secondary mirror 72mm spherical Pyrex aluminized multi coating 280mm/11in diameter 850mm/33.47in length 15 kg/33 lbs 7x50 finder 6.3 degree FOV with recticle illuminator NOTE: Takahashi masked off the outer 10 mm of the primary mirror in order to eliminate the coma problem that was noted in the original Dall-Kirkham design. Mewlon Family system charts: https://www.takahashi-europe.com/en/mewlon.systemcharts.php One thing I find frustrating about any Takahashi telescope is the various bits and bobs you need to make the <REMOVED> thing work! So much so that I dumped my FSQ-85. Trying to get it to work with my CCD was an exercise in almost a s**ual fetish where I felt like Merv the Perv, wanted to wash my hands afterwards, and never discuss it in polite company. It was also expensive to do. In comparison the Tele Vue bits were only $140 USD and that was for all the spacers they made. Half of which I don't need but it was cheaper to order the complete kit. Remember I am Irish so cheap, like the budgie. Speaking of which did you know how copper wire was invented? Two Irishmen fighting over a penny! Mewlon 210 Owners Manual: https://www.astronomy-electronics-centre.com.au/instruction_manuals/Mewlon 210.pdf Mewlon 250 Owners Manual: https://www.astronomy-electronics-centre.com.au/instruction_manuals/Mewlon 250.pdf The reason why I went with the Mewlon series of scopes is because I wanted the very best Reflector scope I could find that was in a similar footprint of a SCT. Don't get me wrong. I loved my SCT's they were fantastic performers and did everything advertised. I was fortunate to have very good mirror samples on mine. However I also observe from Southern California which means that temperatures can swing from day to night. Not as much as other locations but still enough that I was waiting on cool down for my scopes even using the Deep Space Products TEMPest fans, something I highly recommend since they cut cooling time by about 1/2 and keep the scope at thermal equilibrium while being able to observe too. I like the EdgeHD scopes for visual use because they can be fitted with the TEMPest fans and they provide refractor like views to the edge of the field. A real plus. My observing sessions tend to be very short due to life happening. During the week about 1 or so hours (unless I lose track of time because I am so into observing at which She Who Must Be Obeyed gets quite cross because I am a zombie the next day) and about 4-6 hours from a dark sky/during the weekends. So I wanted something that would give me the refractor like views of the Edge series of SCT, the ability to go deep like the Edge, and have the best mirrors in the form factor of the SCT that were commercially available with a relatively short lead time. TEC and Intes Mak's and the like are another example of excellent mirror quality but can only be found now on the used market and then rarely. The Mewlon 210 was the ideal scope for this. It is light enough to go to the field easily, its mirror quality was top notch, its mechanical quality was acceptable (more in a moment), and it cooled to the point where I wasn't seeing wooly stars (I HATE wooly stars) in half the time of my SCT even with the Deep Space Products TEMPest fans (I highly recommend these for your Edge SCT). I found I liked the 210 so much that I decided that I was willing to spend the substantially extra amount of money to down size from the EdgeHD 11" with excellent mirrors I had to the 10" Mewlon 250. Fortunately my local shop was very helpful giving me a very generous trade in value for the Edge so I could (barely) afford the 250. Unless you are for sure wanting to have the very best out there and have the disposable income (for me it was the trade in on my Edge plus the fact that I have no other hobbies, was willing to bring my lunch to work and save money that way, and convince She Who Must Be Obeyed that it was a good way to keep me out of the local pub's) for it, I would recommend the 210 or even the 180 over the 250. The 250 really needs good seeing conditions to really bring out its full potential. A note on collimation. The Mellon's hold their collimation really well. So far I haven't had to collimate either. However being the My understanding of the collimation process for a M210 per a conversation with Takahashi America: 1. Get a 2' X 2' white sheet of cardboard or poster board 2. Use a ruler or T Square to mark the center of the paper 3. Drill a 3/8" hole in the center of the paper 4. Mount the OTA on a mount or in a position where you can comfortably look in the tube 5. Shine a light so you can see inside the tube 6. Sit or stand so the secondary is at eye level 7. Move so you are approximately 4' away from the tube (50" is specified) 8. Look in the tube so you can see the spider vanes and their reflection in the primary 9. If you are at the right level you will also see the black donut that is the baffle tube 10. Move backward and forward until the secondary, main secondary nut and baffle tube merge 11. Once step 10 is done get the card stock and look through the hole as you did in step 10 12. You should see 3 vanes if collimation is good 13 If you see six vanes adjust by 1/8 turn the collimation nuts with a 2.5mm hex key until you see three vanes. 14. Wreck the collimation further, curse and make rude hand gestures at the scope, CN, me, Takahashi, and anyone else that comes to mind. 15. Finally give up in utter frustration 16. Buy a Hotech Deluxe CT Collimator 17. Repeat steps 14 and 15 with Hotech Collimator and move to step 18 18. Put the scope on a shelf to wait for good seeing and several hours to fiddle with it using Polaris and a high power EP Honestly just skip to #18 The nuts on the M210/250 are very tight and can/will squeak on you when you turn them. They need very little turning to make big adjustments so be advised of that when you play with it. In the case of my own M210 it has held collimation very very well in spite of my doing my level best to ruin it by driving recklessly at high speeds into turns and over bumps as well as unpaved roads so the good news is once you have done this and gotten it dialed in you likely will not have to do it very often. The Takahashi Collimation Scope DOES NOT work on the Mewlon 210 because of a lack of a center spot. Supposedly there is one on the 250. I have the CRS and after just checking to confirm, there isn't one on mine. There might be one on the older models or more recent models but there isn't on mine ergo no Collimation Scope for me. Collimation is not hard with these so save the money since you will have to finish collimation on a star anyway so why bother? There is a Feathertouch focuser for the Mewlon 210 and 250. What you want is: FTF2008 2.0" focuser with 0.8" drawtube A20-261 adapter to attach it There is enough back focus to use most eyepieces wit this setup. I have this on my 250 because I *HATE* the electronic focuser. More on this in a minute. The Mewlon 210/250 has enough back focus for me to use a Tele Vue Binoviewer with Baader T2 1.25" setup, 1.25x Glass Path Corrector, and the stock fitting on the Mewlon. Here is an image of the Mewlon 210 with the BV and other kit: Mewlon 210 baader 2 inch prism diag TV BV 1.25 GPC One of the things I cannot stand about the Mewlon family is the lack of RACI finderscope. I find it a royal PITA to bend myself into positions to use the finder. Fortunately there is a very nice solution to this. It is made by Telescope Service aka Telescope Express in Germany. Here is the link to it. It is a right angle polar scope adapter: https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p5224_PFZSLOS-90--diagonal-for-your-Losmandy-Astrotrac-Polar-Finderscope.html And here are photos of it on my 210: Mewlon 210 with finder close up Mewlon 210 with finder 1 Make sure to tell the folks at TE that it is for a Mewlon so they can dremmel out the fitting since this is designed by them for a polar scope. This works well on PS's too. I use a Losmandy Universal D Plate on all of my scopes now. The one I use on the 210 and 250 is the large one at 13"/33cm long. I like it because it has inch/cm marks on it in 1/2 inch increments making finding the same spot for balance much easier. The Mewlon 250 requires scope rings. They are not included in the $9,500 USD price of the 250. They will cost you an additional $500ish dollars. From memory $580. Then you have to spend another $250ish dollars on the special Takahashi Mounting Plate. While I was at peace with the Mewlon 250 cost and my local store was very accommodating with me providing me an excellent value on the trade in for my excellent mirror EdgeHD 11" SCT I am still very much Irish and spending the equivalent to a nice APO refractor so I could have the pleasure of using special Takahashi rings and mount plate just wasn't in the cards. Fortunately Parallax is substantially cheaper. For $260 they are making custom rings for me. And the D plate is about another $80. The outer diameter of the Mewlon 250 is 280cm so there is a possibility that the Orion or Skywatcher 10"/2o0mm imaging Newtonian Astrograph rings will also work. The Mewlon 210 has mirror shift. I am not sure it would be possible to engineer it out for a price point that made it acceptable. However the mirror shift is substantially less than any of the SCT's I have worked with. So if mirror shift is a problem for you then the 210 is likely not the scope for you. But then neither are any other SCT's. Mine has very little but it is there. I strongly do not recommend Bobs Knobs for these scopes. From an authoritative source they actually can cause collimation to slip and thus make it necessary to collimate more often. Coma was minimal and in only the outer 5-10% of edge of the total field of view using Ethos eyepieces in the 17mm and below range in the 210 when the 210 was properly cooled and had (still does) very good collimation. I am sensitive to coma and can't stand it when I look in a scope. Thus why I am such a APO refractor fan. And why I have the Mewlon's. They have the least amount of coma I have seen in a reflecting scope. My old UC15 at f/4.2 had it badly to my eyes (I could see it easily but others sometimes did not as they were less sensitive to it) so I had to use a Paracorr with it at all times or else I would get very frustrated since I hate seagull stars. The other thing that drives me to distraction is wooly fuzzy flairing stars. Something I would get in my EdgeHD scopes if they were not cooled well enough. Again why I am such a refractor guy. And something that is reduced to near zero much quicker in the Mewlon's than the closed cell SCT's. I usually pair my 210 up with my TSA 120 when I am at dark sites and structure my 4-6 hour observing session around objects that each scope excels on. I have found the 210 punches way above its weight class delivering refractor like views to the edge of the field when cooled in a detail level similar to a 9.25"/236mm SCT. Especially on planets. I used to not be a big fan of Jupiter. It was my 5th favorite planet after Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Mars. Until I got a look at it with the 210 in good stable air. It was amazing the detail and the colors I could see. Plus the GRS. I had only seen the GRS in my Obsession UC15. And the same applied to the moon. I would usually spend only a few 10's of minutes at most on the moon. Until I started using the 210. Now I can find myself loosing track of time and spending hours on it without realizing it. Globular clusters are quite nice with individual stars easily resolvable. Same with small planetary nebulae and the appropriate filters. Really really nice to look at. This is pretty much what the 250 delivers. However there is 2"/51cm of more aperture. That is a good amount of aperture increase even with the "wow" factor being defined by many as 3"/76mm in order to get that "wow" factor visually in a reflector. Another key point of the 250 is that with the $500 USD reducer that brings the scope down to f/8, imaging is much easier because of the active cooling and electronic focuser. If you are an imager then this may make the 250 an easier decision though you will need/want a EQ6-R mount of bigger to do so. Visually (since I am not yet good enough to be imaging at 2,500mm focal length) there was a very noticeable increase in brightness in the small objects I look at as well as the planets/moon. Is this worth the $6,500 extra the 250 costs? Only you know the answer to that for your given circumstances. To me it was, but I was able to get a very good deal on my EdgeHD 11 that brought that $9,500 cost down quite a bit and I have no other hobbies. More on my likes and dislikes about the 250. I liked the fans. I am mostly ambivalent with a touch of hatred towards the motorized focuser. So I am moving off from the I positively *HATE* the thing at this point. It focused acceptably though I had to go inside and outside of focus to tell if things were focused properly. Something I am not used to with my "regular" focusers. It still frustrates me that the focuser is a major single point of failure that could render the scope useless. That is just bad engineering in my book. What was especially frustrating last night was that I had the unit plugged into a 110-120v plug on my 12v battery pack and the plug kept coming loose from the controller. Also with all the cables (power for the mount, the hand controller for the mount, and the controller for the scope) things got a bit tangled which was a frustration point. For sure I will be putting the 9v battery in there if I use the bloody thing. I found that if I had the plug come loose then plugged it back in the scope would unfocus itself by a decent bit. No idea why it does this. Anyone know? I did put the above mentioned Feathertouch focuser on it so I can abandon the motorized focuser completely. It is a joy. And a more detailed observing report using the 250. Note the 210 is similar just not a bright and some less detail. I am in a barely red mostly white LP zone which sucks for me but it is what it is. The only EP I used was the 17mm Ethos which gave me 147x magnification on targets. Speaking of which the targets in order were: SAO 113271 Betelgeuse NGC 1976 Orion Nebula NGC 224 Andromeda galaxy Uranus NGC 752 Open cluster in Andromeda NGC 457 Dragonfly cluster Betelgeuse - Bright, big, a bit soft, and a bit woolly. And diffraction spikes which don't bother me. It was shortly after the fans were on so the scope was no where near TE and that's fine. It was better than what I would get in my SCT's out of the box and even about 15-20 minutes in with TEMPest fans. Orion Nebula - Also a bit soft but clear nebulosity and the A-C stars clearly visible. Again too close to startup to provide a good view. Sadly when I used my TEC 140 later on in this evenings session (it was first light for it and the scope has since been sold because the TOA 130 did better plus is air spaced since in the last couple years I have seen 7 different cases of oil settling/leaking in oil spaced scopes which scares me since both Roland Christian of Astro-Physics and Yuri Petronin of TEC are of an age where they are closer to the end of their respective journeys than the beginning so repair will be a question) I got the A-D stars with hints of E & F. I do love my refractors. And with it being open cluster season it is really a better time for them. Andromeda galaxy - It was there. There was some hints of structure which was nice. Uranus - Wow! A bright light blue ball! That was nice! And even through it was poor seeing I believe I could have pushed up to 250x with a 10mm Ethos and caught a good bit of detail. I didn't but I fully expect this scope to shine on the Moon and other planets. Update: It does. Open cluster in Andromeda - Good number of stars in the field but couldn't get the whole cluster in the FOV. Saw some faint stuff in there. Caught what looked like a mag 8 and 9 or so double star in the cluster. Likely not a true double but they were close enough together for me to call it as such. Dragonfly cluster - One of my personal favorites. Nice to see it again. And lastly the front of both scopes:

Love it!

See when you are good looking, bright, and well liked you play Cricket or Football. When you are ugly, brutish, not very bright, and not well liked like I am you play Rugby. I would encourage you or anyone else to definitely make the trip to Wilson if it is in the cards. It really is mind blowing!

I used to play rugby at Uni (Lock) but if I had it to do over again with all the injuries I have I would have joined the chess club instead! Because of those injuries a Dob just isn't in the cards for me though I tried it twice. Once with an Obsession UC15 and the other time with a Teeter 12.5 Journey. I am actually the plank holder on the 12.5 Journey. I was the test case and first person to have one. Both were wonderful scopes but just not in the cards for me. Too painful to work with unfortunately. Nevada and Arizona are amazing. I was there with my son less than a month ago for baseball (like Rounders but as popular as Cricket) spring training and brought a scope with me. Simply amazing observing from dark skies. I have to go to Las Vegas for work once per year and it is the same. If you can swing it I would highly recommend it as a trip. There are local clubs that you can connect with that will likely be able to lend you a scope. In addition Lowell Observatory is open to the public and you can look through some great scopes. Even in Los Angeles Mt. Wilson has reservations for visitors where you can look through the 152cm and 254cm telescopes for half a night or a full night. There is still light pollution at Mt. Wilson but the air is so stable that it makes up for it. If anyone makes it out to Los Angeles in the warmer months the club I belong to has nights were visitors are welcome and we have a site in a Bortle 3 sky to work with so let me know and I will arrange something.

Oh and the weather here has been total rubbish. Rainy and/or cloudy going on 2+ weeks.

Cheers guys. My family is from Ireland and I still have family there (Dublin and Killarney). I was over somewhat regularly and I have two young nephews who are interested in the hobby so it is good to have a place like this to hang out too.

Cheers guys. My family is from Ireland and I still have family there (Dublin and Killarney). I was over somewhat regularly and I have two young nephews who are interested in the hobby so it is good to have a place like this to hang out too.

Hello- I am from the USA. Specifically Los Angeles California. I have been involved in the hobby since 2012. I am a horrible gear head. I have churned through just about every permutation of scopes, mounts, and EP's out there from Achro's to APO's to Newts, to DK's, to SCTs, to Maks, pretty much all the Celestron, Skywatcher, Losmandy, Paramount, and Astro Physics mounts, and the Celestron, Explore Scientific/Bresser, Tele Vue, and Meade EP's until I finally settled on the setup I have now. I have found it is what works for me and beyond getting a NVD (possibly in BV configuration if I like it and it doesn't cause flashbacks to the bad old days) and maybe a Mach2 (I NEVER should have sold my Mach1) I am at the end of my gear head journey. In my current lineup from smallest to largest are: Scopes: Lunt 80mm Ha PTSS, Astro-Physics 92mm Stowaway, Tele Vue NP101is, Takahashi TSA-120, Takahashi TOA-130, Takahashi Mewlon 210, Takahashi Mewlon 250 Mounts: Skywatcher AZ-GTi, DiscMounts DM6, Astro-Physics 1100 EP's: Tele Vue 24mm Panoptic, 16mm Nagler, 11mm Nagler, 9mm Nagler, 3-6mm Click Zoom Nagler, TV Bino viewers (I have 2x 24mm Panoptics, 2x 16mm Naglers, 2x 11mm Naglers with the Baader T2 system and a 1.25x GPC which gives me 19.2mm, 12.8mm and 8.8mm respectively) EAA: ZWO ASI 553 AP: SBIG Aluma 694 with guider and 8 slot FW loaded with Chroma LRGB, HA, OIII, and SII. I have NO other hobbies, I eat A LOT of sack lunches, and I tell my wife it keeps me out of the pubs so all of my disposable income goes to this. Each scope has a purpose. The TSA and 210 are for dark sky trips and outreach. The TOA and 250 are in the observatory as is the 101. The 92 is my grab and go. And the Lunt is self explanatory. I am very sensitive to CA so that is why I have the APO's I do. Of all the APO's I have owned including a TEC 140 and AP 155 EDFS the Tak's have the best color correction to my eyes and provide the most pleasing views. Ditto on the reflector end of things. I am 70% visual and 30% imaging with the imaging end of things being more for the technical challenge as opposed to making pretty pictures. My current project is making a completely self contained wireless imaging rig where there will be only one power cable coming off the scope. Ditto for the mount. That would mean two wires total off the imaging scope and mount since I will use a plate on the top for the focuser control and power source for the CCD and focuser motor. There would still be power cords for the CCD and auto focuser and a cable from the auto focuser control box to the focuser motor but the plan is to use custom length cables for that with everything centralized to the scope itself. I am also very much equipment agnostic. I don't care who makes it so long as it fits my needs and budget. Lastly I am a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador and, prior to the pandemic, did about 2-3 outreach events a month.

Not quite true. There are people who are tetrachromats who can see colour in small telescopes. It is most common in females though it can occur in males as well. However most males are color blind who have the gene. My brother in law is color blind but my wife can see color in my 120mm APO. As can my son. He is one of the rare males who can. Really grinds my gears since neither my wife or my son enjoy the hobby! Here is an interesting article on the subject: https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-humans-with-super-human-vision That said for us mere mortals unfortunately in smaller scopes it is unlikely unless it is a very bright object like a carbon star or the like. However in larger scopes, upwards of 55cm+ reflector's it is possible on brighter DSO under dark skies and good seeing conditions.

A good height adjustable chair is a must. It isn't for your rear it is for your eyes. You will see more if you are comfortably seated. For Newts you really need an alt/az or rotating rings. My personal preference having tried both is an alt/az but you may find you like rotating rings. Otherwise the EP gets put in all kinds of uncomfortable positions. I am a big fan of the Skywatcher AZ-EQx series. I have owned both the 5 and the 6. But then I am also under heavy LP and need GOTO if I want to see more than a handful of objects during a session. It is my eventual goal to get good enough at star hopping to not need a GOTO but that is far away after retirement assuming my health holds up. For a refractor then it can go either way, EQ or alt/az. But in your case you need to extend the tripod legs when doing visual and you can keep them short when doing imaging.

Horse and Rider aka Mizar is an easy and fun one. Polaris is a bit more challenging depending on the scope. Albireo is a showcase for sure. The Astronomical League has a nice list too: http://www.astromax.org/aa02602.htm