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Evostar 6" F8...Upgrade begins


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For me that advantages of this scope (or at least the 'intended' advantages) are the large aperture and the enhanced contrast of an obstructionless scope with a reasonable middle-of-the-road f-ratio.

I love refractor views and I have found that even complete beginners can appreciate the difference when they've looked through a refractor and a Newtonian side by side.

I'd like these to be considered "classic" but can understand that their relative youth on the marketplace probably prevents that for a while at least!

I'm certain that my Equinox is safe though - it will no doubt be much better for high power planetary viewing, or at least I'd imagine so...

Re the TS focuser, yes it looks pretty much identical. I did have a look on the TS website but actually over looked it somehow - very strange! However, I'm pretty sure the price difference wouldn't have been that substantial in the long run.

Pics and stuff maybe soon...

Ant :)

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Looking good Dave

When the OTA is white, with all those tube rings and other black hardware it's going to have a rather "Unitron-esque" look about it - very appealing :)

I was thinking the same John.

Great set up Dave. I have two finders on my 4" F15 and youd be surprised how often you use both.

I had a Basic Baader Crayford on my old ST120 and it was a belter it transformed the scope. The stock R&Ps are ok but a rotating crayford really helps

I really do think of the SW/Synta scopes as classic, when they came out they were way ahead of their time and made big refractors affordable.

Now careful with the spray can we dont want to see any runs:)

Phil

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So, in the sense that the Model T Ford was surely a classic, why not the Evostar/Helios/Meade/Celestron et al refractors?:)

Dave

Dave, you forgot Bresser! The original black beauties. Had mine for nearly ten years now & it's still my scope of choice. I have had others but have always come back to it.

I am planning on a crayford upgrade in the autumn.

Chris.

P.S. Excuse the old wooden chair. It was only temporary!

post-17016-133877618669_thumb.jpg

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Dave, you forgot Bresser! The original black beauties. Had mine for nearly ten years now & it's still my scope of choice. I have had others but have always come back to it.

I am planning on a crayford upgrade in the autumn.

Chris.

P.S. Excuse the old wooden chair. It was only temporary!

Massive scope on a massive mount. You have got to love that :)

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Hi Chris,

So sorry about the omission, and of course you are right!:)

Actually, I rate Bresser equipment highly in the "mass market" range like Skywatcher etc. My Lomo Mak sits on a Bresser Mon2 mount which is equivalent in size to EQ5/CG-5. It is very smooth, and came with polarfinder (illuminated), and it came with a Bresser 127L achromat OTA which Jahmanson bought from me a couple of years ago and like me, liked a lot.

So of course Bresser should be in the list:)...have I missed out any other brands? Konus was another that was a rebranded Helios/Skywatcher before the Evostar was properly launched I seem to remember?

Great to hear your Bresser has served you so well Chris..if you are tempted by the crayford upgrade, I can tell you it is REALLY worthwhile doing it!:)

cheers

Dave

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I've never seen a big Konus acheo, though I did have the 80mm f5.

Hope I'm not going off at too much of a tangent, but I'm thinking of colours for my 6". I was originally thinking white, but now I'm thinking cream or"off-whire", or possibly powder blue. Any other suggestions or links to interesting pics of nice colours?

Ant :)

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I've never seen a big Konus acheo, though I did have the 80mm f5....

I used to have a 6" F/8 Konus achro. It was the 1st scope I used the Chromacor with. It was a clone of the Bresser in Doley68's photo except it was yellow :)

Many years ago I used to own Bresser Uranus 102mm F/9.8 refractor on a Super Polaris which was a rebranded Vixen SP102M - super scope that was :)

Here is a pic of the Konus:

post-12764-133877618863_thumb.jpg

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How did that balance John, with no counter weights?

It balanced OK because the CG5 tripod legs are pretty wide apart, but once I added a counterweight to the other side, the motions of the mount became smoother :)

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Well, going back to the discussion about "classic status", I've just read Neil English's piece in Astronomy Now on the Cooke Refractors of yesteryear. These seem to be archetypal "classic refractors" of excellent quality that were mostly owned by "Gentleman Astronomers" of repute or monied individuals who could afford them at the time.

We now have these 6" achromats of slightly shorter focal length than the Cookes available to us at very reasonable cost, and yet... t5hey have the same sort of aperture, and have the advantages of modern coatings and more luxurious accoutrements (focusers particularly).

They're still achromatic though so in that regard they are of similar ilk. Does using a 6" achro take you back to the time of the Victorian Astronomers? Does the fact that the optical design predate the modern spate of apochromats put you back in "classic" territory?

Personally I think it does and I'm going to be happy to be there.... once it finally gets dark enough to use this thing here up north!

Bought the paint today (Ivory) so am all set to start the ... customisation.... once my holidays start in a weeks time.

Ant :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

There's been a lot of "stuff" about big F8's recently, what with Nightfisher and Ant and myself acquiring scopes recently and clearly a lot of interest in how a big frac can be had at very reasonable prices these days.

More than once people have asked for a picture to show the actual size, ie with a person next to it, so at the risk of cracking the lens, I got my daughter to take a quick pic of me with my Evostar F8 this morning:eek:..

With apologies for a) the attire - I'd just come back from a 10mile bike ride:blob7: and :) My slobby slippers which I'd thrown on to pop outside:p.

It's a fair sized beast and with an extension pillar would be around a foot or more higher.. for scale, I'm exactly 6 feet tall.

A proper looking scope which when I was 13 I would have died for and never believed I would ever own;)

cheers

Dave

post-16698-133877626435_thumb.jpg

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Great looking scope Dave :)

When I had my Konus 6" F/8 I had the long Skywatcher dovetail bar (as you have I think) and found that the scope vibrated just a bit too much. I moved to a shorter bar (around 8" I recall) and that reduced vibration noticeably. A solid CNC bar would be even better I reckon - I've just put one of those (an AE one) on my 10" newt and it's really good - rock steady.

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I think you're right John, that's the ADM upgrade I've been thinking of..it's a modified saddle onto the mount, which has two securing bolts like on the EQ6, and a matching dovetail which is heavy duty and doesn't get marked by the saddle bolts...not cheap though..

Can I ask what sort of cost your AE dovetail would be?

cheers

Dave

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....Can I ask what sort of cost your AE dovetail would be?....

Mine was an Astroboot one - just £15 although it was marked in a few places.

The AE price is rather higher I'm afraid :):

Astro Engineering AC502 Solid replacement dovetail plate for Meade LXD55 & LXD75

They are a big step up from the Synta item though.

Even the the shorter version of the Skywatcher bar is an improvement though - I think the longer the bar, the more chance there is for twisting - it's a long, heavy OTA after all.

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I'm going to be using the shorter Synta bar to start with but may use the William Optics mounting plate as I have two here. That should be stable enough. Ideally I'd like some nice CNC style rings but I can't find any anywhere (and I don't want to splash too much £££ out on them).

Ant

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very interesting regarding the dove tails, i just fitted the long syntra one to my tal thinking it would be better, might change it back to the short one after reading this

Nice pic dave, puts the f8 into perspective, im still hoping to go f8 150 custom on a pier/obsy when i move

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You handsome brute Dave, last time I saw legs like that they were on a......:):D

Looks the biz that does.

I found the long dt bar just too springy as well with my 4" F15 and also when I tested the skylight f15. I swapped for a homemade solid 8" bar and it made a great deal of difference. Vibrations settled down alot quicker.

Ideally the Losmandy or CGE is better but you would have to fit an adapter to your eq5. I have a CGE dt bar which I use when running the f15 on my observatory CGE mount

phil

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I don't know if it's because your such a strapping lad a 6' Dave or that the 150mm doesn't actually look that bad size wise????? Either way I am feeling myself drawn to to the appeal of them. Going off what I have read in your thread and others the 6" EVO's are a bargain to be had despite the stigma of CA. I'm still dubious to if I would want one on an EQ5 but they are sold on them so they can't be that bad on them? I got out under the stars with my 120mm the other night and was impressed to see that I could easily split δ Cygni which looking at stellarium I considered it would be impossible given my setup and actually found when not looking a blindingly bright stars that CA is no real issue. I would imagine the 6" makes mince meat of such doubles. Bet the views throught the Evo 150 and a 13 T6 will be impressive :) Are you going to PSP Dave ?

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Yep, the 150 + 13mmT6 will be impressive. As will the 150 + ES9mm100-degree! :)

CA increases with magnification so it may well be that if you only use the scope for DSO's, clusters etc that you never notice it! For higher powers, well, CA filters were invented for a reason.

Go on... you know you want to... :(

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just how bad would one of these f8`s be on a new EQ5 i would like to get one but its mounting the big thing

I had a 150mm F/8 on a CG5 mount (2" steel tube legs) with the 16" pillar extension. The mount was driven on both axis and I had vibration supression pads under the tripod tips. I found it acceptable for visual use but only just to be honest.

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I had a 150mm F/8 on a CG5 mount (2" steel tube legs) with the 16" pillar extension. The mount was driven on both axis and I had vibration supression pads under the tripod tips. I found it acceptable for visual use but only just to be honest.

Thanks john, thats just what i had been thinking, well it will be a pier or not at all

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