I have the green light!

[Ags]

My partner has suggested I do a major scope upgrade on my upcoming birthday. I guess the budget is not fixed and depends largely on my negotiation skills, but we have talked about EUR1000+ items before.

I think I chose well with the 4SE - it has performed brilliantly for its size and obviously my goal will be to up the aperture. The other goal is to get something that stops me from trawling web astro shops night after night! (Dream on...)

The three main scopes I am looking at are the C8, Skymax 150 and Intes Mk67. I'm tending towards the maks as they seem to have the edge on planets which are my main targets, and their aperture is perhaps better suited to the seeing I get in a very urban environment. I prefer the focusser on the Skymax 150 (I hear the Mk67 has insufficient travel) and I really like the carry handle the Mk67 comes with - ideal for a nervous butterfingers like me. The Mk67 is lighter than the Skymax.

As for mounts, I am looking at the CG5, EQ5 Pro and the IOptron Minitower. I'd prefer the CG5 over the EQ5 as it has more carrying capacity, but apparently it is a noisy unit - an issue with neighbours living upstairs from me. The IOptron would be perfect from a purely visual point of view, but I dream of dabbling a little in AP, and the internet is awash with IOptron horror stories - they seem to have a quality control issue.

The final piece of the puzzle is a refractor for widefield views. The ST120 has the best light gathering punch but it may not be a good choice for an AP dabbler! But I do feel that an aperture of less than 100mm is pointless visually from my location. An optically superior alternative widefield instrument would be a 150P DS (obviously, not a 'frac). Or maybe I should just pick up the cheapest 80mm doublet I can find - I say 100mm is the minimum, but I get some use from my 40mm binoculars...

[david o]

Congrats and good luck with the negotiating

Or even a Skymax 180?

Got one of these on a (manual) CG-5 mount. More than up to it for visual use, but not sure that the CG-5 GT would track sufficiently well for AP at the focal lengths of these beasties. I would have thought that you'd be into NEQ6 territory?

For the 'frac, how about one of the ED80 doublets? Amongst the imagers on SGL it's a common set-up, mounted on an HEQ5/(N)EQ6, so there'll be a wealth of advice available.

HTH

[Ags]

I've compared the Mk67 side-by-side with the skymax 180, and the latter is about double the size - getting to a size I'm not comfortable managing. I have no idea how I would heft the 180 on and off a mount. Also the Skymax 150 can show up to approximately 1.2 degrees of sky so it is fairly versatile. Bu I can't say I'm not tempted by the 180! I think if I wanted more aperture, I would go for the C8.

An ED doublet makes a lot of sense, but the cheaper ones are around F7.5 which would be a challenge for my lightweight mount.

[Ags]

I've found this F5.5 90mm achro with dual speed focusser:

Robtics | Robtics Luxe 90 mm F 5,5 achromaat met dual speed foc

In theory it would be fine for narrowband pics or even monochrome pics in (say) green light that are colorized with the red and blue data. It's 400 euros cheaper than the cheapest 80mm doublet.

[Ags]

Is the Intes Mk67 focusser really that bad?

Intes Maksutov MK67 - Ganymedes Webwinkel

It felt quite smoothm but there wasn't much travel. I just love the carry handle.

(shameless bump)