Deadlake

Great shots! The extra aperture of the 130GTX makes a difference or was transparency better? Presume just afocal, no reducer used with the 130 GTX photos?

The other trick to bear in mind is that a scopes performance will change with temperature, performance can vary with temperature something that an optical bench measurement does not capture. In addition the early TOA’s would pinch the lens with a fast temperature change until Takahashi resolved the lens cell design issue.

Has anyone tried SkEye app to polar align an EQ mount using plate solving. This gets around the main bug bear of using smart phone based apps in their internal compasses which get interfered with by the mounts metal materials. I do not own an android phone and if I did constant cloud would stop me from evaluating it. https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/778670-skeye-cam-beta-release-for-android/#entry11357003 Thanks

So why is a TOA considered one of the best AG's out there if all you need is aperture?

After it's acclimated and been hoisted onto the mount. 😁 The Founder Optics scopes also have the same profile, same Cooke design as TOA.

Yes, but: The Crux mounts have self learning PE electronics. The Rainbow RST-135E has an encoder, i.e. it calculates where it thinks it is versus where it has moved and corrects based on the error. The above have the same accuracy as each other which is better then a RST-135 on its own, unless you are using self guiding, which I suspect a lot of setups are doing harmonic or not.

I find when magnification gets up to near 400-500x if seeing allows its the mount that takes over. In this case I like to use a goto mount to move the scope over the moon, then only focusing will create wobbles in the view.

I’m looking to find a dob like mount for a 12” BS Newt. BS 12" (length 110 cm) weight 18 kg. The only requirement is digital circles for push to support a Nexus DSC. Any ideas for a dob based mount? Has anyone used Astrogoods? https://www.astrogoods.com/mounts.singularity.collapsible.shtml

For their Owl series minimum Strehl is 0.95, seems to be rubbing off on the rest of the range. Makes you question value of premium APO manufacturers…

Harmonic is not just not a type of motor but also a brand. So when Pegasus says Harmonic they mean from Harmonic Company based in Germany or Switzerland which is a good as same motors used in Rainbow and Crux. Source Pegasus engineer on CN thread.

There are other objects I want to view which require different scopes. But given the cloud cover impossible to justify a purchase to my self. I know that even if the weather turns good it will be months before any scope turns up.... No real answer, just buy second hand scopes so not so much money invested in astro gear???

Crux are also based in China but source the harmonic drive from the same company as Rainbow. Interesting to see how this plays out. Rainbow Astro is an off shoot of the main company which produces robots for manufacturing so have years of experience as well...

If this is a BBHS 2" mirror diagonal I've been waiting all year. As well as a 20 mm XWA.....

The main makers use the same harmonic drive which are used in robotics. Economies of scale already exist for this part so I cannot see a decrease in cost. More interested in how software will be developed to deal with different periodic error they have.

My mistake in this quote I thought you mean’t there was an additional baffle: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/744418-apm-110º-35-47-compared-to-ethos-sx-110º-37-47/page-2#entry10723203

Stellarvue do a clone of the APM range which I found out after I purchased have baffles on the bottom casing that stop’s stray light. This reportedly helps when viewing the planets. You would need to order from the US as no EU vendors.

I have this EP and it’s very comfortable to use and wonderfully sharp. Great for framing either the moon or Jovian system.

Green is a tougher test, but I'd be tempted to find out the poly Strehl of my LZOS at some point...

http://stellarzac.fr/t1000.html

Does anyone know the back focus range for this scope? E.g. for an fsq-85 it is in the range of 160-180 mm.

If I had a permanent mount then I'd use my SXP2 all the time, the star book is better then the Nexus, no vibration transmitted to the scope/EP etc... It's the setup time of the AZ100 which beats the SXP2 above. For viewing planets the EQ is the better mount. The AZ100 has more sweep ability then SXP2, i.e I can get to the other side of the sky faster...

Is it me or when the ✈️ where grounded in 2001 or in lock down the seeing was better?

I find with the poor seeing this year if I use a tracking mount I can focus on the those good moments of seeing. Also at high magnification less wobble when floating around over the moon. A good test would be how much more you can see with an AZ100 with and without tracking enabled. I'll leave that up to others to discuss in the future....

I agree John, when I don't need tracking or when I don't have time for setup the AltZ is the quickest setup approach. AltZ are generally lighter, however the Vixen mount I have is considerably lighter then the Chinese mounts in the same class and there are other Harmonic drive mounts that lighter still. If you are tracking fast moving objects like planets then EQ mounts all the way.

Scopetech Zero Weight -> 1.7 kg Payload capacity -> 7 kg