Unbalanced Tube

[Caldwell 14]

I have just, as suggested in several reviews up-graded my Nexstar 102 stl to 2". What I was not aware of is that the diagonal at 2 inch weighs roughly the same as a family car and with the added eyepiece tips my scope into the air at the slightest knock...most annoying, what are my options? To be honest it does not even seem visually to make any difference to my field of view.

[Capricorn]

2" diagonals and eyepieces are huge.

To be honest I cannot think why a 2" would be significantly better on a 102mm scope. Seems a bit over the top.

What is the focal length of the eyepiee and the field of it?

Since the field of view you see is (EP FoV)/Mag you may not get a significant change then if you used a decent wide field eyepiece.

[Voliton]

I would agree with Capricorn. Did you get a 2" focuser? Usually a change to 2" is only needed for wide field prime focus AP, not visual. Visually, your field of view is determined by the Eye piece Try using a 70 or 80 degree EP.

You might look at the Baader Hyperion clicklock zoom ( 8-24mm ) Ep A little over a LB weight but one EP does it all. Wide FOV and long eye relief.

Regards, Gary

[Merlin66]

You could try one of those TESCO velcro wrist weights wrapped around the front of the tube to get better balance???

[Chris H]

Adding a 2" diagonal to your scope will not give you a larger field of view, it will however enable you to use low power 2" eyepieces and if you go for some thing with a 60, 68, 70, 82 or even 100 degree field of view you will certainly see a difference over the standard 50 degree FOV ep's that come with the scope. HOWEVER by doing this you are adding more and more weight (2" ep's tend to be big and quite heavy) to the scope and mount which by the sound of it is already struggling to keep the scope steady.

If you want a larger field of view and a steady scope the best thing to do would be to revert back to the 1.25" diagonal and buy some 1.25" ep's with wide field of view. What you buy totally depends on your budget but just as an example I used to use a 19mm Panoptic in my Heritage 130p, it was small and compact but delivered a 68 degree field of view and a 1.9 degree true field of view. I used this as my low power ep.

[John]

As has been said, all the 2" diagonal does is give you the option to use 2" eyepieces, which will give you a wider field of view than the 1.25" equivalents can. More metal and glass will weigh more I'm afraid, as do 2" eyepieces of course.