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Explore Scientifics 12" dob

earth titan

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earth titan

earth titan

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Great news about the optics,let's hope there all the same

It was really good news. Despite the conditions (it was far from ideal - with cloud and haze), the fact the scope went from indoors to outdoors and was used straight away and the collimation, I was surprised (and relieved) to get such a good view.

The angle of the focuser is odd. A chair will be required for effective observing.

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earth titan

earth titan

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This is good new, Tom. How does the dob work in terms of stray light control and internal reflection considering it's a very naked tube? :)

Seems fine, although difficult to tell last night as the only object I was able to observe was so bright.
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michael.h.f.wilkinson

michael.h.f.wilkinson

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Great to hear the performance is good. I could live with chipped paint, and having to tap some threads (my M6 taps are still in their usual place), and good optics, but I could not live with perfect paint, perfect threads, and bad optics. After all, scopes are for looking through, not at. Ideally, it should all be shipshape, of course.

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lemonysam

lemonysam

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That sounds promising, the QC issues are annoying but shouldn't be too difficult for ES to address (if the desire's there) but if the fundamental functionality wasn't sound it would be dead in the water.

Looking forward to your photos, I'm wondering how the Az adjustment works, is there a little platform hidden on the bottom of the second box? It seems like quite a small footprint compared to some other scopes, I hope the stability's good.

Cheers,

Sam

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earth titan

earth titan

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Well I had a chance to try the scope out last night, although briefly, under some clear skies.

I've now got set up and collimation time down to 5 minutes, which includes hauling it out from the storage area and it is both light and portable. Such a difference from the old lightbridges I owned.

Not a perfect evening for it, as:

  • I'd been tucking the Gelmorangie away with a neighbour......
  • Wife was a bit squiffy as well, so she insisted on wandering round the house turning all the lights on and opening curtains
  • It was in the back garden - not a dark sky
  • There seemed to be a lot of humidity

As mentioned in a previous post, the finder is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. Telrad on its way....

Scope action in alt and az are both good when working on DSOs at low magnification.

Managed to find M51, M81, M82 (including supernova - still there I think), M65, M66 and a few other fuzzes.

I think the scope is a winner.

Must make a shroud for it !

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Reeny

Reeny

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I notice they have 10% off at the moment.

Only £680-ish instead of £750.

This would be an ideal bit of kit to pack away in our motor home.

I could be tempted if the skies were clear enough to see anything with my current gear at the moment.

High pressure is forecast for Tuesday in the UK.

Roll on the clear skies.

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earth titan

earth titan

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A few more updates.

Telrad now fitted. No dropping or stability issues - even with a big bit of glassware in place.

Plumbing foam added to struts - makes it much nicer to handle on cold nights and prevents them getting scratched.

post-6511-0-39504700-1396804039_thumb.jp

As promised, a few pictures of the mirrors to show how they are held in place:

post-6511-0-37179900-1396803952_thumb.jp

post-6511-0-27063800-1396803976_thumb.jp

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BinocularSky

BinocularSky

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Nice. How would go about fitting another, say, optical finder? Seems there's only one plate for one finder?

I fitted the optical finder to the plate (there are holes in it that match a SW shoe), and used double-sided tape, with cable-tie "belt & braces" to fit the Telrad base to the secondary cage. The secondary cage is ali, so it would be easy to drill it for a more permanent solution.

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russ.will

russ.will

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Not for a while. I sold it because the GOTO was anything but and it was too stiff and jerky for satisfactory manual operation. It was also heavy and bulky for what it was and wouldn't fit in a Golf with the family and camping gear.

Indeed, I've since sold the 1/10th Wave OOUK VX8L I replaced it with, as I just couldn't live with the reduction in aperture. To be fair, that was a bit of an impulse purchase that cropped up at the right time but it was enough to demonstrate the differences between a really good mirror and one that is good enough but much bigger. Given that I lost about £25 on it, it was worth it for the lesson alone.

Russell

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emadmoussa

emadmoussa

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I hear you. I had to sell most of my kit to raise a deposit...and now finding hard living without my gear. Anyhoo, I might follow your footsteps guys and in a month or two :)

Ah, at least one more to prove the complications a go-to system creates. Nothing beats manual scopes for visual.

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russ.will

russ.will

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To be fair, I didn't have to sell it, but I've got a self imposed limit of three scopes. With one of the fracs on the EQ mount and a 12" Dob lying around, the VX8L wasn't going to get used. The AR127L may follow, because it mostly gets used for solar and I suspect the superior colour correction of the ED80 may usurp that.

Russell

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