Refractor help needed:(

[Stardust]

A Celestron OMNI 120 on a CG4 mount sold tonight on ebay for £250, that would have been a good buy. A used 127 MAk will also be good value for the solar system.

[Moonshane]

blimey - I paid that for a new one a couple of years ago when the price dipped for some unknown reason to £269 new!

[Stardust]

Looks like you could sell it for hardly any loss now. Is it a good scope? heard some good reviews.

[Moonshane]

long gone I'm afraid. apart from the wider field and slightly tighter star images, my 6" f11 newt wipes the floor with it so I sold it.

that said, it is a very very good scope and gave really nice images, particularly of double stars and open clusters. If you want an achro of this size then it's a very good one. I made a wooden tripod though as near the zenith I found the CG4 too low.

[ollypenrice]

I'm a refractor fan and don't entirely agree with David but his experience is so similar to mine as to be more of an agreement than a disagreement!

However, when you read about the wonders of refractors from biased diehards like me you need to remember that we are talking about very (absurdly?) expensive ones. There are good ones getting cheaper all the time but the virtues of the refractor will not put them on a footing with larger reflectors till you are spending a lot of cash.

Olly

[dweller25]

I'm a refractor fan and don't entirely agree with David but his experience is so similar to mine as to be more of an agreement than a disagreement!Olly

Which bit are we not quite agreeing on ????

PS - when I originally compared the 8" Newt to the 5" APO my conclusion was that the 8" showed more planetary detail.....

BUT - the point I was trying to make to the OP is that a 8" Newt is a very worthy option to a much more expensive refractor.

[ollypenrice]

I think you are quite right to make this point and I entirelly agree.

In terms of mild disagreement what I find is that I can usually see more in our TEC140 on the planets than in anythng alse. Or I think I can, which might arguably be the same thing! Just ocassionally the 10 inch Meade does beat it and the big Dob shows the most colour on Jupiter's banding. But if I were going out to observe a planet the TEC would be my first choice. That said, there isn't much in it. (The SCT is in excellent collimation, a most expert optician having recently confirmed this, so it is not that making the difference.)

Olly

[Davidv]

Hi Seth, if you're considering a refractor try and see it in the flesh at a reputable telescope shop. You may be surprised at how big a 4 inch refractor is once it's sat on top of an equatorial mount and a tall tripod. (It needs to be tall else you will be scrabbling about near ground level trying to look through the finder when you're pointing near the zenith). You then need to consider where you will store it and how far you will have to carry it to set it up. It will also weigh a fair bit and will probably need to be separated into portable chunks unless you are Hercules. On the other hand an 8 inch dob should store away more easily and be easy to set up.

Good luck. Hope you get something you're happy with.

Dave

[Seth]

Thanks guys in the end I got a 127mm maksutov pretty cheap