Marc1964

No, standard Cooper! Could put one in and seat a really big dobson I suppose... 😁

Hi John, yes I was undecided as to whether the XS variant would be better because of the better quality glass, or whether the longer focal length would be more useful. I am tending to lean to the standard AR102S/600...

Hi From my back garden I have no less than two bright street lights in sight. One is just across the road to my left, and the other, whilst further away is in my line of sight sadly. View to the right is somewhat ruined by other houses and lights. Really can see very little. My car is a mini... Even getting my SW90/900 in is a trial, have to put rear seats down and lay across. It's not ideal 😂😂😂 I do have some fields about 10 minutes walk and a grab and go would definitely be a benefit!

Ha the box was a solution I considered, along with a strong crate of some sort...

OK after a fair bit of research, I found this: I have not seen much in the way of reviews. They seem to be a reputable brand and the optics, whilst not full ED seem to be pretty well received. Anyone got experience of this at all??? Cheers!

Hi Thanks for taking the time to reply. I have thought about the dobson, and considered Orion Starblast 4.5 which has attracted some good reviews etc. Only thing that has stopped me from going down this line is the need for a table to carry around! I do think they are a great design and they would meet a lot of my wants but... This design is not ruled out but if I have to carry something around to rest a scope on I would prefer it to be a tripod and mount...

Sadly yes! Suspect even used market will not be my friend here...

Hi you have started me down a rabbit hole and also made me rethink what I really want from my telescope. As a relative beginner, I want to learn the night sky and star hop. For that, the 127 mak is not the right tool at all. I need something with wider field of view. Hence the reason why your post got me thinking... Primarily I need a scope that is smaller physically than my SW 90/900. I do want to keep a larger aperture (90 or 100) for preference to maximise the light capture BUT I do appreciate that this may not be as important as I think at present. The fact that many far more experienced and knowledgeable people swear by their 80ED does influence my thinking here... I'm also thinking that the quality of the optics in a shorter focal length tube is also more important (my trade off against focal length). Again, I would prefer a 600mm focal length to a 500, but again that could be down to my residual feeling that I would like to do some planetary with this scope and therefore a longer focal length would be preferable. ED optics would be nice to have... So where does this leave me? I am thinking that something with a 90 mm aperture would be perfect, but mainly I see 80 or 100... Ideally focal length would be 500 - 600 mm. ED (or other better than standard grade glass) does push cost up, but not as much as I thought. That's my thinking now; I do feel that I have avoided making a potentially expensive mistake by not just jumping for the Mak which seemed at first glance to be the obvious answer.... More thinking and research required!

Hi John, many thanks for the response. Yes, I had read about the differences between the Bresser and the SW/Orion OTA Mak tubes and don't really understand why they would even inadvertently mislead the public! Never mind... Thanks for the tips on the tripod and mount, definitely looks like a good value combination, and probably lighter than what I currently have!

Hi, I'm new to this forum and newish to the hobby. I currently have a SW90 AZ with a tripod that I bought used for £60. I wanted to dip my toes in to see if I would really use a telescope or if it would just be a large paperweight! Well I have used it a fair amount and developing my knowledge slowly. One of the constraints I have is that I live on an estate with lots of street lights and I cannot see anything much from my garden. I therefore pack stuff up and drive for 20 minutes to Firle Beacon where I set up in the car park... Trouble is that the 900mm tube is quite large and heavy and I know that on occasions the thought of lugging big tube and tripod puts me off going, so I am considering getting a smaller scope to supplement. Initial thoughts were that what I tend to do most of is planetary viewing, but do have the ambition to start working on looking for M class objects, (nice view of M42 last night). In terms of kit I was thinking of getting an SW Skymax 127 maksutov or the Bresser 127 OTA with a suitable mount (which would need to be fairly inexpensive or potentially sourced used). I'm not certain that my existing tripod can be modified to accept a new mount. I've attached a photo... I'm not in a rush to buy, which is just as well seeing that there is so little kit available in the UK at the moment, and would welcome any advice from the forum. Part of me wonders whether the Mak route is the right way to go, or go for a more compact refractor. I'm uncertain as to whether a reflector would give me the compact scope I want....