balticsensor

TEST 1 Late February. Snows have been melting for several days. Heavy humidity and poor transparency. Seeing poor. Light pollution (population 500 000). Nearly full Moon. Nevertheless, I couldn't resist trying my new kit. So I aimed at M42. First, the diagonal tests. Sky-Watcher 2" stock against Baader 2" BBHS Sitall mirror. Under these conditions, I did not perceive any gain in limiting visual magnitude. However, there was an obvious difference in star appearance. To me it was significant. I cannot say whether it's astigmatism or scattering, but I made a rough recreation in Photoshop

I went for it. After falling in love with my William Optics 40mm 70° eyepiece, I decided that I wanted two more complimentary widefield eyepieces. I went for the 17.5 mm and 9 mm Baader Morpheus eyepieces. And the best diagonal I could find to go with them - the Baader BBHS Sitall mirror diagonal. Now it's all cloudy in my location (of course), but I will share my impressions about this beautiful kit as soon as I get some clear skies!

Thanks! I guess I wasted a lot of breath. You know how the excitement goes...

Amazing post! Thank You very much for the effort! I was planning to buy the Skymax 180 as my 2nd scope and compliment to my Evostar 120 achromat - lots of accessories that I could carry over from the refractor to the Maksutov - but now I just don't know. The primary thing that bothers me is the diameter of the secondary spot, 37mm. I was planning to use my 2" William Optics 40mm 72° eyepiece for the widest field, however, it's field stop is 46mm; I'm afraid it's going to vignette severely. That leaves me with my 32mm Televue Plossl; but I'm afraid that just won't cut it - 36' TFOV is nowher