Hello from Alfreton Derbyshire.

[Plissken]

Hello freindly people . I am new to this forum, just joined and I would like to ask a question.  I have a skymax127 with up gradedvixen and ovl Eyepieces and an up graded dialectic star diagonal and it gives me breathtaking views of the moon, even with the magnification pushed beyond the limit and I've took some nice pictures of it too.

I am looking for another scope because I realise the mak is a specialist scope for moon and planets.  Now money is a issue for me so I can't afford much as it's taken me months to pay for my mak set up. But I could just about stretch to the skywatcher 72ed if need be, but then I will have to buy a 2inch diagonal and 2 inch eye pieces? I'm I right?

Also i love the look of the evo 120, looks abeast of a scope, but I'm guessing it will give the same performance as the mak but 4ft longer in size. 

I would just like something with a bit bigger field of view for some galaxy and nebula.  Not to deep though because the skys around here aren't the darkest. I've looked at the startravel 120 but I've read good and bad things about them. 

My other tripod is the skywatcher az5 mount so the ota has to be side mounted. 

Sorry about the long message (question)

[Geoff Lister]

Hello, and welcome to SGL.

If you look at my signature, you will see that I, too, have the Skymax 127 Mak. This system probably gets more use than all of the others combined. I liked it so much that I bought a second one for use in my French holiday home. I use the Synscan handset for GoTo; it definitely helps find the fainter objects; and Uranus is a definite coloured disk, compared with adjacent stars. Most of the brighter galaxies and nebulae are easy to spot, provided they are not washed out by moonlight or street/house background lighting.

The StarTravel 120 does show chromatic aberration when viewing bright objects. I use it if I want a wider view, although the 127mm Mak, with a 32mm Plossl eyepiece, will give a reasonable "wide-ish" view. For visual use, the 120mm will capture roughly 4 times more light than a 72ED. For a wide view, consider a pair of 15x70 binoculars on a monopod.

Also worth considering is the Skywatcher Heritage 130P, with its extending tube and Dobsonian table-top mount. It has about the same light-gathering capability as the 127mm Mak., but with its shorter focal length, it gives over double the field-of-view with the same eyepieces.

I have used the OTA on my Skymax and SkyProdigy mounts for full GoTo. This is the OTA on my SkyProdigy mount.

Geoff

Edited March 10, 2020 by Geoff Lister
Added Heritage 130P info