What is it with gear and temptation?

[Moonshane]

finally caved in and bought my rich field scope. not quite up to the standard of the pronto but it's a bit cheaper.

it's a Konusmotor 500 114mm f4.3 newt. for the princely sum of £23 delivered I think it's not a big risk

it will be great as a little dob for holidays where space is tight (I plan to make a teeny truss suitcase type thing) and if all else fails, my school astro club has a(nother) new scope to play with

[Optical Dob]

Thats a dinky little scope and a good price. How do you manage to spot all these bargains 

[Moonshane]

My bargain has arrived and it's great. Like a likkle baby. The mirrors are in decent condition and I immediately took it apart and starting modding it! I removed the primary and added a centre ring, then collimated it again after taking off the awful finder - I have a spare synta dovetail foot which I will add to allow the fitting of a rdf. The focuser whilst it has some plastic elements and is a 1.25" R&P, is surprisingly robust and well adjusted.

I took it out last night with a 32mm/25mm plossl and (literally) hand held it to gain some lovely views of M45 and the double cluster. At 15x magnification and 3.3 degree field the 32mm plossl provided the most effective way of using it like this. I did try Jupiter with my nagler zoom at 5mm (100x) but I was.....err....pushing the boundaries of hand holding I think.

Based on this test, I will happily spend some time making a small base for the scope so I can use it on holidays etc. In due course I'll also make it into a mini truss dob. Looking forward to it!