Whats your `grab and go` scope?

[bob4026]

Hi all,

Umm-ing and ahh-ing about a scope for taking away on hols/work trips and wondered what you guys use/recommend?

Of course I might not bother and just take the Binos, but if something pops up I can't resist then you never know!

 

Cheers & ATB

Bob

[Moonshane]

Mine is a 80mm f6 apo refractor. Nice wide fields,  white light solar and good magnification for planets.

[laudropb]

For holidays I use an 80mm spotting scope. Bird watching during day and stars at night. I also take my Bins of course.

[Ruud]

My binoculars are my grab and go optics! I can take them anywhere and they double for nature study as well.

Since I put my 4" refractor on an alt az mount I take it out much more frequently than before, but it certainly isn't a thing I'd take along on a holiday. With eyepieces and all it's an approximate 12 kg load.

I have a small Mak, the Celestron C70, complete with a couple of lightweight 1.25" eyepieces. It actually is a spotting scope and has a built in erecting prism. This is my sit-in-the-box scope. Last time I used it was three years ago. It never made it to my signature.

[Mak the Night]

I'm thinking of getting a light alt-az mount/tripod for my 102mm Mak. Does that count?

[moriniboy]

This is my grab n go, a 70mm Televue Ranger and Manfrotto tripod.

Used to take a TAL 8 x 50 finder but being hand held sometimes it was a bit frustrating

[skysculptor]

An St80 for wide field veiews and a c90 for planets and moon I guess the St80 is more versatile but it's pants on solar system stuff!

[John]

My "grab and go" is a 102mm ED F/6.5 refractor. Nice and versatile from a 3.8 degree field to 220x. It weighs around 9lbs.

 

 

[cjdawson]

I've been eyeing up a heritage 100 as a grab an go scope.  Don't have it, but it's defiantly  in the back of my mind calling to me.

[Drop Of Sun]

I use a Tele Vue 60. Things I like are that it is so tiny, 60mm is a nice aperture for grab and go solar white light (with a dinky 1.25mm Herschel wedge), the helical focuser is decent and keeps it compact, and being black it's very subtle. A lady on hols thought that I was using a camera

Obviously Damien Peach is unlikely to use it in preference to an SCT but I still enjoy viewing planets with it and I have had some lovely wide low power views with it, a highlight was the whole of the Veil nebula.

[avtaram]

My 'grab and go' for taking on holiday is a 90 Mak on a photographic tripod and a 24mm Hyperion plus the Baader Zoom. I also take my 10x42 binoculars

For 'grab and go' at home I have the 127 Mak on an AZ3 and again the 24mm Hyperion plus Baader Zoom.

Avtar

[L8-Nite]

Depending on weather or not I'm driving (we have a van),  I'll take either our 3.5" Mak or the 6omm Refractor. If we are flying, the Mak will fit in my carry on case with the tripod in checked baggage.  

[Dave In Vermont]

It depends on where I'm off to. But I have a choice of three beasts: My ST80 on either an older Orion-USA AZ4 (repaired - useless unless you fix these), or a simple photo-type tripod. My new 15 X 70mm Celestron Skymaster bino's. Or my 1996 8-20 X 50mm zoom bino's made by Vivitar (before both 'zoom' and 'Vivitar' were dirty words, mine are very good).

If it's my ST80, I just carry a Vixen LV 8 - 24mm zoom EP. This is a very nice piece of glass!

Dave

[baggywrinkle]

I have a SW Mak127 on their GOTO mount, I can also use my Altair Astro ED70 on that mount too.

The mount has to stay in one piece but the legs do collapse down.

[JG777]

For air travel the Pentax 10x50 and camera tripod, for everything else the Equinox 80 mm on Berlebach tripod and Sabre mount. I take the Baader zoom which covers most things reasonably well and cuts down on the kit. 

[Stu]

If heading abroad, I've used a number of different apo refractors, most of which have performed very nicely either on a photo head or Giro-WR mount.

Tak FS-60C - very compact, lovely optics for visual, obviously a little limited on aperture but great if you need to travel light. Wonderful widefield views

William Optics ZS SD66mm - again, a lovely, tiny scope which is surprisingly capable under dark skies. A little more CA than the Tak but still nice.

Tak FC-76DC - probably my favourite and one I may try again in future. 76mm is a nice aperture, enough to show some detail on planets and wonderful widefield views. The optics really are very sharp. I had the version which splits into two, making it easy to take on a flight. Still lightweight too.

Televue 76 - lovely scope, optically not quite up with the Tak but still very capable. Main problem for travel is that it's heavier than the others, probably about the limit of what you would want to take.

When travelling to dark sites, I often take a zoom eyepiece for high power, but unless looking at planets I find that relatively low power views are all I use, up to x60 ish I guess. 

Stu

 

[Alan64]

Whilst this 60mm f/15 is my current "grab 'n' go"...

...I do not grab it and go quite as often, as I should perhaps?

 

This, an 80mm f/6, I would prefer rather...

...but on a heretofore unacquired Vixen Porta, either the Mini or the II.

[Charic]

My 200P is my only grab & go, always setup, just placed into position and ready to use at low power until cooled to ambient, whereby the higher powers become more useable, however, totally non practical for taking on holiday.

Binoculars will always accompany me on any short or long trips.

[rob0971]

Mine for use at home is a 12" Revelation dob! Not so much grab & go, more drag out of the garage!

[ghostdance]

My GaG is the same as Avtar: a 90 Mak. Small, light, cheap and nice on the  Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus and the Trapezium...my  go-to GaG bins are my Vixen SG 2.1 - where I drift off into the constellations...

One day I'll move to a 127 Mak but hey ho, still good to go.

[jabeoo1]

I use an Edmund Astroscan

[LukeSkywatcher]

My grab n' go scope is a Celestron 70mm Travelscope on a Horizon 8115 tripod. Here it is set up for solar observing with a Hershel wedge and an 8-24mm Hyperion zoom: Ive taken this little beauty to the Canary Islands with me in its own backpack, as well as using it at home during the night and day. The whole set up...probably weights 4 Kg.

 

[orion25]

I have a special place in my heart for my Orion StarMax 127 MakCass (Lil' Mak). Easy to break down and set up (OTA about 8 lbs or 3.6 kilos). I don't even use the counterweight most of the time. Here is shot of one of my night concerts with the Lil' Mak:

 

[Helite]

My trusty ST-80, can't speak highly enough of that cheap little scope, think it comes second only to my TAL 100.

 

[DeepSkyMan]

My grab and go will at some point in the next week or so be set of 15x85 TS Marine Bins on a UA T-Mount,. I got fed up waiting for sufficiently decent skies to appear, to make it worthwhile aetting up the EQ mount.  Off course, just need some decent clear skies (even just half a sky would do), to make use of them.  Can't wait for our next astronomical society dark skies weekend in February :-)