Experience with larger telescopes on the Mesu200?

[Wieben 98]

Hello all,

The performance of the Mesu200 is unquestionable excellent, and I'm very happy with the performance I get from mine with a 10" Quattro riding on top. It performs very well handling a pixelresolution of 0.94" (camera resolution not the RMS which is much better of course).

Planning for a future permanent setup under excellent seeing, I wonder if there are any users who has experience regarding the upper limit of the Mesu200 for photographic use.

It's tempting to try with a large newton astrograph, but wonder how it would handle a weight close to 60 kg and 0.5" pixel resolution. Common sense tells me to aim for less and not go beyond 40 Kg/1600 mm focal length.

Any thoughts?

Br

Heine

[billdan 20]

Hi,

I replaced my 8in Newt with a Skywatcher 14 inch f4.65 over Xmas. Its early days but so far everything performs as it did with the 8 inch on board. My guiding is around 0.4 arscecs and increases to 0.7 in bad seeing. 

The scope and accessories weighs 30Kg and I have 30kg of counterweights to compensate.

Time will tell whether I keep it like this or go back to a smaller scope, mainly because a large aperture increases the effects of the seeing and it doesn't handle the wind very well.

Cheers

Bill

[tony210 174]

Hi - I use a 12 inch RCT on my Mesu -heavy for me at 25kg+( two man job to mount it but its very ungainly) and FL 1.7m with reducer but guiding is fine-Tony

[Wieben 98]

Hello Bill and Tony,

Thanks for sharing experiences with the larger scopes on the mesu. 

It's reassuring to see the Mesu is up for the job.

Bill, I understand that 14" with the dew cap is not happy with wind gusts. Maybe adding heating on the secondary, removing the dew cap and leaving the truss open would make the guiding less sensitive to wind.

I'm considering the Hubble Optics HNA (maybe they can build a 16") or the 14" truss newton from Altair Astro (if I can get an offer and an estimation of the weight).

Br

Heine

[billdan 20]

Hi Heine,

Thanks for your advise about removing the dew shield etc, I will be buying  the Kendrick secondary dew heater designed for this 80mm secondary mirror and I'll try the scope without the shroud as well. My concern with removing the shroud is light leakage when doing flats. I will try it first and see how the flats go.

The HNA from Hubble Optics  looks very promising going by their website, and  the 14in F4 astrograph from Altair looks well constructed and designed for mounting on an EQ mount. 

Cheers

Bill