First Scope

[Blackbrazen]

I'm very lucky to have the use of a lovely 30cm Cassegrain reflector and 76mm Borg refractor on a German equatorial mount in an observatory at the school where I teach, so for my own first scope, I wanted something as postable as possible whilst with the best quality optics possible for the best price...I know, I don't want much!

I visited my local astronomy shop, Kokusai Kohki in Kyoto and I absolutely fell in love with this little Sightron 66/400ED. I've never seen another scope by Sightron...they make rifle scopes I believe, but the quality of the optics is just lovely and it only weighs 1.6kg. I got a Vixen diagonal prism and a 5mm eyepiece, as it's primarily for lunar viewing. A lovely little scope and just what I was looking for. Best thing was, it was reduced by £90 down to the equivalent of £230. I'll stick it on a photographic tripod just now, but any good recommendations for the most portable tripod/mount?

[Marc1980]

Do you have a budget? or are you planning on getting anything bigger in the future? Do you want to direct the scope manually or have some kind of motorised function?

[Blackbrazen]

Well Marc, I think I want to keep this as basically a Grab & Go scope, so I was thinking about starting out with something like a Vixen Porta II and then in future, if I wanted to upgrade, I could always move onto a GP2 or equivalent. Does anyone know if both those mounts fit the same tripod mount? Ideally, I'd like to go for one tripod and then be able to change the mount...

The Mini-Porta is also an option. It seems very nice for Grab & Go equipment. I've only really been thinking of Vixen equipment as I live in Japan, so it's the most widely available, but are there any other options worth considering?

[Matt2011]

Try the GSO Deluxe Mount which is an Alt Azimuth mount from Orionoptics.co.uk which is perfect and its like the Vixen Porta II mount and its the perfect Grab and Go Mount!

[Blackbrazen]

Does anyone know if this scope is in fact an Astro-Tech 66ED? On the barrel it is branded as a Sightron, but as far as I can tell, it is identical to the Astro-Tech. Is this just a re-branding for the Japanese market?

[E621Keith]

It looks like a Long Perng (ROC) product.

They are the OEM for some Astrotech (US) and Revelation (UK) products. Japan probably have a different importer hence the different brand name

[laser_jock99]

Lovely little scope - does look a lot like a Revelation scope (with different colour anodising).

Would a small scope like this work on the Astrotrac mounts?

http://www.astrotrac.com/

[Blackbrazen]

Yes, I was thinking about the Astrotrack. It's light enough to work well on that. I managed to get hold of the Astro-Tech manual for their 66ED and this is identical in every respect. It's a lovely little scope. Nice flat field too, so good for photography.