Skywatcher 250 or 300 flextube

[djpaul]

Hi 

At the moment I have 2 refractor telescopes. 

A skywatcher 120ed  and William optics zenithstar 73.

I'm now considering either a skywatcher 250 or 300 flextube dobsonian for deep sky observation. 

Points I'm interested in are

Setup time ?

Cooling time?

Portability ( transportation in car)

And overall quality of the scopes.?

Regards Paul 

 

Edited October 23, 2019 by djpaul

[John]

Having 12 inches of aperture did move me into a different area of observing when I made that change I felt. 10 inches was very nice but somehow a foot of aperture opens up the deep sky to the extent that you feel that you can really get in amongst the NGC's and also have the capacity make the M's much more interesting.

Very unscientific I know but my 12 inch dob has shown me some of the best sights that I've seen in this hobby

I've looked through Flextubes but I've not owned one so I'll let others comment in detail about the pros and cons of that particular route to aperture. The ones I've used seemed pretty competant to me though.

 

 

[joe aguiar]

12 inch is bit better

In my case I had 10 and 12sct so the extra 2 helps after that it just becomes too big.

As far as a dob I had 2 different 16 inches both gathered alot light but proofed too large if u dont have them perm setup

So I say 12 is very good size

Joejaguar 

 

[garryblueboy]

300 all the way Paul I’ve had both and the 300 is portable 

[Ceramus]

The 300p Flextube GoTo has given me hours of great viewing of DSO,both bright an faint. On a wheeled platform it's very easy to move about. I reckon the slightly lower weight of the 250p isn't an advantage considering the loss of light gathering power, perhaps only the cheaper price.

[billyharris72]

Hi Paul. I have the 300mm version of this (bought secondhand from Mr niall) and have been very pleased with it. I'd answer your questions as follows (as always, YMMV).

Setup time for me is about 5 mins. I take the scope out in two pieces, put the tube on the mount and that's it.  It can be taken out in one, but its heavy and better as a 2 person lift. You'd want to allow another 5-10 minutes for collimation, but do this after cool down.

Cooling time will depend on what you want to observe. For planetary or double stars (you have a 120ED, so the use cases where the Newt would give any advantage are limited) you'd want to leave it a good hour, but for use at the lowest powers on fuzzies or wide-ish field half that would be fine - there's nothing stopping you using it right away, but this isn't really a "quick peek" or a grab and go instrument anyway.

Portability. Pretty bad unless you have a decent sized car and don't plan on moving the scope far from the car. Though a trolley (or observing partner) could make this easier. I never move the thing more than about 20 metres from where it lives in the conservatory, nor would I relish doing so. It barely fits in my Toyota Yaris, but a larger car would handle it okay.

Overall quality. Good - in fact really good. With an ES 34mm ep stars are pinpoint over about the central 2/3 - the rest shows moderate coma consistent with a 12 inch parabolic mirror; this could be cleaned up with a coma corrector (or you could put what you're viewing in the centre of the field!). Seems to cope with higher mags well, though with the low position of the planets I've not had occasion to push it. Overall, I've been surprised by just how good the scope is optically. Mechanically I've no quibbles either. The focuser is okay, provided you don't mind single speed, and everything is rigid enough. You'll need to collimate the primary each time (no getting round that with a 12' Newt) but the secondary is stable even given the flex tube set up.

Overall, I'm very pleased with mine. Hope this is a help.

Billy.

[JimB]

I have been toying with the idea of getting one of these too. I'm glad to know it will definitely fit in my Yaris.

[John]

Our Yaris has a facility where the rear seats slide forwards to create a much larger boot area. With this feature I guess that a Flextube  12 would just about fit in.