Ultimate home telescope?

[meridian man]

30K thats peanuts in the HIFI hobby, you could spend that on 3 meters of speaker cable ! so for that ultimate scope it's not bad.

[Seafury]

Hi another classic for me a Unitron 166

Gordon

[JamesF]

Plane Wave on Paramount for me - something like this :

http://www.planewave...ge=1&id0=1&id=1

SCS Astro *still* have a Paramount in the shop. I don't think it's moved in two years. I'm beginning to wonder if it's structural...

James

[Saleratus]

My ultimate home scope is a 7" f/5.6 Starmaster Oak Classic with Zambuto mirror on a Tom O. Equatorial platform. It's light enough to take in and out of the house on a whim, and if it starts to rain, pulling it inside couldn't be easier. Equatorial platforms are completely intuitive and never get in the way of your direct manual use of the scope. I find that anything much larger starts to involve fuss and planning--and in dobs, f-ratios start to shrink which brings collimation responsibilities and reduced image definition.

Given the size, weight, and portability, I think this is optically and mechanically the best all round scope you could own, and is the kind of scope that gets used all the time. Unfortunately, it's out of production, but 2nd-hand ones can sometimes be found on the web.

I'd supplement this scope with a set of Delos Eps--Probably 3.5, 6, 10 & 17, plus a Panoptic 27. These Eps are great at almost everything and evenly matched in FOV and weight, so the experience of using them would be very fluid and Zen, with no balance issues.

[Saleratus]

Oh, and I'd supplement the setup above with a 13 Ethos, just for fun. There is a rather large gap between the 10 and 17 Deloses......

[JamesM]

For me I would certainly spend some of it on a decent sized dobsonian such as the following:

- 25" F5 Obsession Telescope

- Argo Navis digital setting circles

- ServoCAT Goto Drive system

- Super resolution 10K count encoders

- Feathertouch motorised focuser

- Jolly nice step ladder & a couple of televue eyepieces

All the above for about £10,000 leaving plenty to explore the possibility of getting an Istar 10" F12 R30 refractor on an astrophysics mount & tripod.

The biggest problem won't be spending that amount of money but where to put it all once its delivered :grin:

James

[David JM]

I would probably go for a £10 000 main 'scope and mount that could take at least two other 'scopes [£5 000 budget for both] as 'shotgun' so I could show even more people the sights of the night sky. Added to that a guide scope, some sort of spectroscopy kit [£5 000] and assorted gubbins.

Alternatively I would spend £10K on something for me and £20K on stuff to lend out to members of the astro soc I belong to. We have a lot of new members without much in the way of kit.

When can I expect your cheque?

[L8-Nite]

Hi another classic for me a Unitron 166

Gordon

There's one coming up for sale in the CN "classics forum", now might be the time ?

You don't see them for sale often, and when you do, they don't last long.

[GlassWalker]

Since I'd be working around light pollution too, I'd probably go for a simultaneous multiple wavelength narrowband imaging array. So that would be SII, H-alpha and OIII filters. Throw in a NII too. 4x cheap refractors, something like the ST120 of which I just got one of today. Would it be wrong to have a filer that costs more than the scope it will be connected to? The scope doesn't need to be colour corrected if I'm going narrowband. 4x fat cooled mono CCDs. One of those guide-less mounts ~£5k from various sources will do too. Actually make it two so I don't overload them. Two scopes on each should be more comfortable weight wise. And I'd get a random bunch of accessories. Barlows, reducers, a nice set of eyepieces for visual...

Side note: I'm kinda planning the cheap version of this at the moment. Think I can do a cheap array with DSLRs and camera lenses. I got the filters already, just need a NEQ6!

[L8-Nite]

A little something to pass the time whilst the white fluffy things are still a bane to us!

If, within reason (we'll say £30k) money was not a limiting factor what would your ultimate home setup be?

It must all be available to order now (no custom stuff) and be suitable for set up at home, so no dome observatory in the middle of nowhere lol

I really don't know enough to list my actual setup but I'd be really interested to see other people's dream scope setup, just incase I win the lottery

Considering we're passing time, I think I would have to "qualify" my choice.

For me, the ultimate home telescope should be a combination of three scopes to cover most aspects.

The three would be a Zeiss Refractor, Portaball Dob, and Questar Maksutov; with the appropriate eyepieces etc. to complete the package

All within budget.