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OTA to complement my 8inch LXD75

MartinH32

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John

John

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Hi all,

I have been using an 8inch Meade LXD75 on a HEQ5 goto mount and now I want a new OTA to compliment it - a refractor to do more planetary work. Open to suggestions but my budget is limited to around £200 (an xmas present from my wife) :(

thanks

My suggestion would be a Skywatcher / Synta 120mm F8.3 refractor OTA which will sit well on your mount and delivers good planetary detail. There's one for sale in the SGL "For Sale" section :D

John

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MartinH32

MartinH32

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As John says, that SW 120mm would seem like a good option, although I belive it is an Achromat, or a second-hand ED80 or ED102, would also serve you well.

Dave

The ED80 always seems very popular. At the risk of less light intake and smaller size, would this be a better scope?

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John

John

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As John says, that SW 120mm would seem like a good option, although I belive it is an Achromat, or a second-hand ED80 or ED102, would also serve you well.

Dave

The ED80 always seems very popular. At the risk of less light intake and smaller size, would this be a better scope?

Hmmm, that's not an easy one to answer. If you can tolerate some false colour on brighter objects then I think the 120mm acrho will show you more planetary detail. It also does very nicely on globular clusters and the brighter DSO's as well IHMO. The ED80 is very nice optically, no false colour and very sharp but at the end of the day it is an 80mm scope.

If the choice had been between an achro 100mm and the ED80 I would say go for the ED80 but 120mm collects a lot more light ..... if you can find an ED100 then go for that but they tend to be more in the region of £300.

I suspect you will get a range of different views on this though :(

John.

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Cloudwatcher

Cloudwatcher

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John is right of course,you will get a selection of differing views on a question like that.

I'm a refractor fan myself and if you want a new scope within a budget of £200 rather than a used item a couple that spring to mind are the TAL100RS and the Synta ST102. Both achro optics but to be honest I think the false colour issue with this type of scope is somewhat overplayed. It has never been a problem as far as I'm concerned but If you are worried it might spoil your view (which it won't) there is an alternative still within budget. The Skymax 102 is more compact than a refractor and will give good Luna and planetary views although the central obstruction will cause some light loss compared to a refractor of the same aperture.

Cheers

CW

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winfij

winfij

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The SkyWatcher 120 only has a focal length of 1000mm, not much more than the 812mm of your current 8".

Other than the increased contrast of the refractor over the newt, you'll not gain much image scale, but the light grasp will be far less, so you'll need more gain if imaging, resulting in more noise.

Even the contrast increase is a debatable point if imaging rather than observing visually - there is a lot of discord on the web about it.

If you're really looking for a scope to do more planetary work, I'd suggest maybe a Mak?

John

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winfij

winfij

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Good points John, welcome to SGL BTW :(

Thanks - I thought I'd already posted in the intros section, but obviously not! I've been lurking for a couple of weeks after seeing this forum mentioned over on UKAI.

The only problem with the Mak is getting a decent size and staying within budget...and some people just like refractors.... :D

Indeed, also both good points :D

John

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MartinH32

MartinH32

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The SkyWatcher 120 only has a focal length of 1000mm, not much more than the 812mm of your current 8".

Other than the increased contrast of the refractor over the newt, you'll not gain much image scale, but the light grasp will be far less, so you'll need more gain if imaging, resulting in more noise.

Even the contrast increase is a debatable point if imaging rather than observing visually - there is a lot of discord on the web about it.

If you're really looking for a scope to do more planetary work, I'd suggest maybe a Mak?

John

You may indeed suggest a Mak, but can I get one in budget, if so what do you suggest.

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Kaptain Klevtsov

Kaptain Klevtsov

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Well my budget has moved up to around the £300 mark :icon_jokercolor:

I have seen this:

http://www.astronomica.co.uk/OTAs.php?product=92&action=moreinfo&offset=0

which looks like a good bet. I have also seen a thread about it. Any opinions?

Wait until we see the results of the testing in that thread. So far, one OTA has been supplied and it was not up to the satandard that is expected and has gone back. It could be one poor one in the batch (a la SW ED80 review in PA magazine), or it could be that they are junk. The jury is out on this one, but a verdict is due shortly.

Kaptain klevtsov

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