Roog

I shall do this, thanks, it will be interesting to see what I get back

I take your point @Pompey Monkey I will weigh my Astro gear once I have bought some Astrophotography gear in the mean time I did weight my Dob on its trolley it came out at 50kg! Needed to check for my back door lift capacity. :0) no I wasn’t thinking of a person stash of data more a collective built up by a group with similar interests, like this very fine forum.

Oddly I assumed that this might be something that loads of astro geeks might have done?

Does anyone know of a published/accessible schedule showing weights of astro gear please? I ask because lots of manufacturers just seem to quote the shipped weights which often come out much higher than I would expect.

I have a similar challenge as I am looking for a scope to take with me camping and space weight capacity is limited. I recall seeing a nice looking Altair scope of about 100mm aperture.

Nice option thank you both, I will give this serious consideration

Its all good if a little bewildering, thank you everyone. It would be really nice to get a high quality 4" refractor, but I notice the price rises very quickly once you get North of 80mm including the increased size and weight for a portable camping scope. I will keep an eye on the used ads and torture my self trying to choose! Thank you

Interesting, I have not heard this one before, is this generally accepted and if so why does this come about? Do lenses transmit more light than mirrors for a given aperture or is there another characteristic in action here ?

Of course you make a very valid point and for me it’s hard to define, I used to take my guitar in its case and a small practice amp with me on our camping trips buy that has been displaced by our two dogs and all of their stuff! Ideally a 300 x 200 x 900mm case plus tripod, but in practice it will be what space is left for my “non essentials” so that will be as small as possible

Thank you everyone, so many responses I’m going to struggle to respond to each of you individually. I take the point that I could transport my Dob in the motor home, but I think my wife might have something to say about it joining us! And getting it in and out through the narrow door with quite a drop would be a worry. I guess my anxiety is that having used a 10” Dob for visual I might be very disappointed by a much lesser aperture for visual, ultimately I should seek to find a compromise and in the absence of personal experience it is a little of your wealth of knowledge I seek. I have been watching videos of enthusiastic 150mm Newtonian owners managing to carry out AP effectively with this gear, but I have to confess it does look quite challenging as a travel rig. I think perhaps I need to prioritise future use for AP and accept that visual astronomy will be significantly compromised. I might be naive but I have a vision of a 80mm ED refractor in a case as a manageable travel scope.

Hi I have been exploring the skys from my back yard for nearly a year using my 10" Dobsonian and I think its great, but i have also been taking my 20 x 80 binoculars with me on my camping trips, (I have a very modest and old motorhome) and I have began to wonder if a portable scope might be more rewarding. So looking through the ads for refractors I began to wonder whether I could kill two birds with one stone and get a physically smaller scope which I could use for direct viewing that might be suitable as a gateway into astrophotography in the future? accepting that I would need to get a suitable guided mount, laptop, software, camera, etc etc. Sorry if this is a dumb question but is this possible or sensible? or am I asking too much from one scope? I am wondering whether a 150mm Newtonian might be a more sensible choice for dual use? I was looking to refactors in an attempt to keep the bulk down for travelling. I would appreciate your guidance, Cheers

It did seem a little alien to me to have a heater in a scope where keeping every thing cool seemed to be the order of the day, but based on my limited experience the trade off of keeping things clear vs possible heat ripple and distortion of the secondary seems to be in favour of the heater so far. I must figure out how much power i am dissipating in the heater too, based on my desk top experiments out of the scope it is very likely to be much less than the full rated output of the heater, may be 1/5 or 1/4 of full?

Nice one @tomato, I stumbled upon a similar DIY idea, I have been using a 'tool holder' magnetic strip like the one in the link below, with lead sheet glued to the back. I have added a thin polyethene layer on the magnet face to minimise scratching of the telescope tube, it can be slid up and down the tube to improve balance. I don't like to add too much weight to the scope so I normally work with just one and add a second only if I attach my SLR . https://www.screwfix.com/p/smith-locke-magnetic-tool-holder-black-380mm/6951j I have added with

It can up as well.

Of course you make a very good point @Louis D the simplest solutions are the best and a ramp was my first thought, but my inner geek fancied a motorised lift, in fact I would have asked for one that made a quarter of a turn clockwise at the same time as lowering just to ease the telescope exit from the platform, but I sensed I'd made the brief complicated enough already, MkiV version perhaps? I expect 'Brian' being the engineer that he is did check what the requirements would be to make a compliant lift such as the one pictured in your post, I recall he did ring me to ask "how safe do you want this telescope accessory to be?" I decided that I would own the risk. I'll do a toe count at the end of the year.