SW EvoStar ED Pro Series for visual only

[A McEwan]

As I've owned several of all these EDs....

They're all great.

The only concern is light grasp and expectations.

The 80mm is very nice. It excels as a portable or quick-trip telescope, and has the oomph to do low power wide field right up to planetary at 200x, all with virtually zero false colour and great optical quality.

The 100mm is very nice too. It excels as a portable or quick-trip telescope, and has the oomph to do low power wide field right up to planetary at 200x, all with virtually zero false colour and great optical quality. It will show a bit more detail and would be closer to a "do-it-all" scope, and is lightweight still. AT f9 the wide-field is limited slightly, but I could still fit in M31, M110 and M32 into the filed of view of a 22mm Vixen LVW.

The 120mm is very nice. It is not a portable or quick-trip telescope, but still has the oomph to do low power wide field right up to planetary at 300x, all with virtually zero false colour and great optical quality. This would be the "do-it-all" refractor, but the mounting requirement is a lot heavier. An HEQ-5, SkyTee-II or other modern mount with that weight limit will be fine as it's not too long or awkward - it's just heavier. Best view ever of the Pleieades with this scope and a 30mm Pentax XW. Scored. Into. My. Visual. Memory.

For most of these scopes I upgraded the focuser, but it wasn't always necessary. I just loved having a Moonlite on it so I didn't have to worry.

Ant

Edited February 5, 2021 by A McEwan

[SiriusB]

Hello Duncan,

                         " This is an expensive hobby, that's for sure. "~ It certainly can be!, but it doesn't have to be.

Have you used a telescope before? Just wondering about the wisdom of spending a substantial sum of money at the off if this is all new to you?

As to the ED80, it can be a good visual only scope, but as someone else noted it depend on your expectations.

I own probably one of the oldest ED80's in the country 😎,only ever used  it for visual~ bought in 2004/5 i think, after a rave review by Ed Ting in 'Sky & Telescope' (2003?) of the Orion Telescopes version.(Sorry,I can no longer find this review on the interweb to link.)

As soon as i knew Skywatcher were offering it i rushed out & bought one.😳

From a dark site it's pretty good,but most of it's life has been spent 'pushing the limits' of what's observable from suburban skies.

High contast scope, but only 80mm. Probably not most peoples idea of visual Astronomy, but i feel it's  honed my observing skills.

Would i like a larger ED scope? Sure, would I reccommend you get a larger scope? Sure.

I will never sell this scope.

My advice would be ask more questions, do more research before you part with £.

In happyier times i'm sure SGL members in your locale would be happy to let you view through their scopes to help you decide, but looks like that's unlikely to be possible for some time yet.🙁

Seems a fair few of experienced observers on SGL favour a quality 100-120mm ED/apo for visual observing. Worth noting & maybe asking them 'why'?

Kind Regards.

                       

[SamAndrew]

One thing to keep in mind is the EQ6 is very heavy and not something you will get out for a 15 minute gap in the clouds. The AZEQ5 is much lighter and can be picked up with on the tripod with the counter weight attached, or I'd go for one of the similarly priced ioptron mounts.

[duncanjameshill]

56 minutes ago, SiriusB said:

Have you used a telescope before? Just wondering about the wisdom of spending a substantial sum of money at the off if this is all new to you?    

Hi and thanks for your feedback 👍. I started out with a pair of Helios 20x80 binoculars with a tripod and then a SW Classic 200P Dob. The dob  had great reviews for a beginner scope and it definitely taught me about expections - honestly, I thought I was going to get super HD multicolour views of whatever I choose to look at. You can guess how that went. But, not getting that made me more interested in finding out what I could see. I did a lot more research into expected planetary views and as such I felt like a child at Christmas when I first saw Saturn's rings. I spent most of my limited viewing time looking at Saturn and the moon, mainly because I didn't really know what else was out there. And still don't really, but I'm keen to find out what I can find. It's been about 4 years since I had the Helios' and I'm definitely in this for the long haul. 

Ha, bit of a life story there sorry 😂.

[duncanjameshill]

1 hour ago, SiriusB said:

 

I will never sell this scope.

I looked at maybe an 6" SCT or Mak as it seems they are good all rounders.  But, almost everyone who has said they have a SW ED-Pro has said they will keep it forever. That seems like a good recommendation.

[duncanjameshill]

50 minutes ago, SamAndrew said:

One thing to keep in mind is the EQ6 is very heavy and not something you will get out for a 15 minute gap in the clouds. The AZEQ5 is much lighter and can be picked up with on the tripod with the counter weight attached, or I'd go for one of the similarly priced ioptron mounts.

I'm hoping to keep the mount fixed to a pier so I don't have to grapple with it. 👍

[A McEwan]

10 hours ago, duncanjameshill said:

I'm hoping to keep the mount fixed to a pier so I don't have to grapple with it. 👍

If that's the case, and you won't be carrying the mount and scope around to set it up and take it down, go for the ED120. At f7.5 it has everything from widefield to high-power capability. "Big" refractors give views that are very special. Your experience with the Helios 8" Dob will have shown you what you can expect in terms of medium aperture light grasp, but when looking through a 5" refractor you'll see an increase in Contrast, if not in actual detail that can be resolved. The enhanced contrast "can" make it appear that there is more detail visible, and it's also worth mentioning that usually, for all intents and purposes, the refractor will always be perfectly collimated, whereas a Dobsonian (Newtonian) will always need to be adjusted to perfection to give its best, and will also take longer to cool down to ambient temperature to remove tube currents that de-stabilise the view. 

Ant