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12 hours ago, Tiny Clanger said:

Initially I stuck a standard finder shoe on the tube using 'no more nails' permanent sticky pads , partly out of cowardice (about drilling holes) but mostly because I wasn't sure which spot would be ideal for the RACI . both for viewing and for storage : I wanted to leave the RACI on the tube when closed down. I tried it right up near the top,  hard up against the raised metal collar, at a spot which allowed the RACI to sit neatly between the focus tube and the RDF  when the 'scope was closed down.

The pads actually held the heavy 9x50 RACI for about a month before they started to let it wobble a bit, so I peeled them off, decided I couldn't improve on the placement, and removed the primary mirror assembly then extended the front and swathed the secondary in bubble wrap and a plastic bag to keep it safe from any damage. Drilled 2 holes, bolted the shoe on, all sorted . If I had a brain, I'd have done the drilling at the same time as flocking the inside of the tube , and only had to take the primary out once.  I'd actually prefer a 6x30 RACI , the 9x50 seems like overkill and is quite heavy, but the supply of smaller RACIs had dried up  , so the FLO astro essentials 9x50 was the best option available to me. I thought the weight of the RACI might require me to rebalance the 'scope , but it is close enough to the pivot to make little difference.

It's not as convenient an arrangement as having a RACI right by the eyepiece (as you might with a solid dob) , but all you need do is shift your head from the front to the middle of the tube. I'd hate to try using a straight through finder with the heritage, I'd need to lie on the lawn to see through it :evil4: 

Thanks, sounds useful. I have an unused 6x30 finderscope that came with my second hand 127 Mak that may work well.
I hear a lot about flocking - potentially the area opposite the focuser or around the secondary mirror support using a black marker pen for example. Interesting to know if it makes any practical improvement.  

Thanks  

Andrew

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21 minutes ago, PeterC65 said:

About a year ago I was in your position, looking for my first telescope with up to £500 to spend, thinking I wanted to visually observe the Moon and Planets, and maybe some Galaxies and Nebulae. I’m still a newbie to astronomy and have lots to learn, but here are my thoughts …

Always buy kit from a specialist supplier. They will stock better kit and provide good advice and after sales support. I’ve bought most of my kit from First Light Optics. They offer a wider range of kit than most, the website is good (easy to find things), and their prices are as low as it gets. Lots of people have been taking up astronomy since the pandemic (you and I for example) so kit can be on a lead time.

I did masses of research into scopes and mounts before buying, looking mostly at Sky-Watcher kit since it seems decent and good value. I considered their Newtonian reflectors from 130mm up to 250mm and particularly the 150mm, and I looked at all of the mount options, alt-azimuth, equatorial and Dobsonian, both manual and computer controlled. In the end I went for a Skymax 127 SynScan AZ GOTO (https://www.firstlightoptics.com/az-goto/skywatcher-skymax-127-synscan-az-goto.html).

I chose this scope because it offered high magnification in a small package with a reasonable aperture size, and this mount because it seemed easy to align and would find objects for me (I’m not that familiar with the heavens).

The Skymax 127 is good for observing the Moon and the Planets. I can see the whole of the Moon’s disc or zoom in (more on that later) to just a part of the edge in shadow. Great views! Of the Planets, I’ve observed Jupiter and Saturn mostly. I can pick out a couple of the dark bands across Jupiter and the moons, but not the Great Red Spot so far. I can see the rings of Saturn and its moons but not the Cassini division. I think I’ve observed Neptune and Uranus but they were just dots, slightly larger and more coloured than a star which is why I think they were these Planets. Mars and Venus haven’t been around at the right time so far.

To observe DSOs many people seem to think you need a different type of scope, with a wider aperture and shorter focal length so that you collect more light and see a wider field of view. But the Skymax should still be able to see DSOs. I have observed Andromeda. It should fill the field of view even with my 40mm eyepiece (more on that later) but I only see a fluffy white blob at its centre that, with some imagination, could be a spiral galaxy! I’ve observed Andromeda several times now, and it does get better each time (a truism of astronomy) but it’s still a fluffy white blob. Last night I was able to observe the Pleiades for the first time and could just make out the suggestion of a cloud hallo around the brightest stars. I’ve had no luck with nebulae so far, even using filters (more on that later).

To be honest, I’ve been a little disappointed by what I’ve been able to observe so far and I’d strongly recommend you read this article before you buy anything, to properly set your expectations about what you might see. Most media images of space objects are from the Hubble Space Telescope and the astrophotography images posted by hobbyists bear no relation to what you can observe visually. If it hadn’t been for the pandemic, I’d have joined a club and looked through some scopes before buying one, and I think doing that would have been a big help with hindsight.

The SynScan AZ GOTO mount works well once you’ve properly figured out how to use it and I’m glad I chose it. I use Stellarium to plan an observing session and to check what I’m supposed to be seeing then the mount will find things accurately enough to put them in the finderscope and from there I can centre them in the main scope. It’s taken me a while to get the setup right. Now I have holes drilled in the patio so that I can reposition the tripod legs accurately and start a new observing session from the mount’s parked position without first having to align it. Equatorial mounts seem to me to be harder to align as you need to find the Pole Star, and Dobsonian mounts need to be ‘nudged’ to keep objects in view (bear in mind that even the slightest touch of the scope or the mount will set it vibrating for a few seconds). With the SynScan AZ GOTO the mount tracks the object and I can then just concentrate on observing it. It’s possible to computerise equatorial and Dobsonian mounts but they then look like a science project with motors, cables and controllers everywhere. The SynScan AZ GOTO is all self-contained but it does have a scope weight limit of about 5kg.

One thing I hadn’t considered before I bought the scope is that observing is not just seeing, it requires real and prolonged concentration. You need to be sat down looking at an object through the eyepiece for several minutes. Astronomy isn’t about whizzing through a bunch of different objects, looking at each one only briefly! I use a kick stool as my observing seat and have posted about that here. It’s really important to have the eyepiece at a comfortable position with respect to your seating position and to do that with the Skymax 127 I cant over the diagonal and eyepiece so that I’m looking into the eyepiece roughly horizontal. This needs adjusting almost every time I reposition the scope (see later comments about barrel clamping). I just don’t know how this can be possible with a Newtonian scope where the eyepiece is often in some odd and none adjustable position. So I’m very glad I bought a Mak where the eyepiece is always in roughly the same place and can be easily repositioned via the diagonal (the same would be true of a refractor scope).

I have fallen for this big time. I’ve now spent twice what I spent on the scope on additional bits and pieces in the hope that they will improve optical performance or usability! I’ve bought a Baader Zoom eyepiece which is better that the 10mm that came with the scope and the zoom makes it easy to get just the right amount of Moon in view. I’ve bought a Celestron 40mm Omni eyepiece which gives me the widest field of view I can get from the Skymax 127 and has been good for observing the likes of Andromeda. I’ve also bought a range of filters, Skyglow to get rid of light pollution (not been able to try this yet), Neutral Density which is good for dimming a bright Moon, Blue which picks out the dark bands of Jupiter, Red for Mars – when it appears, and a UHC filter to help find those elusive Nebulae (this helped pick out the Pleiades cloud halos). Then to improve usability I’ve bought a rechargeable battery pack so I don’t need to use disposable batteries, a helical focuser as the one on the Skymax 127 is very sensitive, a filter wheel to easily switch between all those filters, and various barrel clamping upgrades mainly to allow easy canting of the diagonal. This has been way over the top but each thing has made a slight difference, but only slight!

The shifting eyepiece is not an issue on an alt/az mount, ( which includes dobsonians) , because the orientation doesn't change as it does when an eq mount rotates. When I had an inherited celestron 114 astromaster on a wobbly eq mount (NB : avoid like the plague !) , the method was to loosen the rings and rotate the 'scope barrel within them, then re tighten the rings . Very inconvenient.

Nudging a dob is a skill you acquire, and for wide field use at medium magnifications you don't need to be very precise. Yes,  it can be frustrating at high magnifications , 200x is my personal 150 heritage dob nudging limit, but if I need that sort of magnification,  I'll use the mak , and 200x is often the most the seeing can take round here anyway. My refractors are wide field 'scopes, used on a manual TS AZ6 alt az head, with no slo mo controls , and they need adjusting/nudging too, but it's not a problem, and they  give me lovely, pin point, coloured stars after little to no 'scope cooling time. Each type of 'scope has it's strengths and its weaknesses, now I've spent time with dob and mak and 'frac I'm starting to appreciate them as tools for specific jobs. Which is why it's so hard to help new folk who want a 'scope which does it all

I owning both a 150 heritage and a 127 mak,  I've tried, and failed, to see DSOs in the mak which I could see in the dob. More aperture really makes a difference, it's why I'd like a bigger dob !  Widefield is particularly good for some targets too , for example here's my view of the Pleiades with my widest eyepiece (24mm 82 degree) , the inner ring is the mak view, the outer is that of the dob : The advantage is, the dob can 'zoom' in from the magnificent wide view by using a different eyepiece, but you cannot physically widen the view of the mak.

astronomy_tools_fov.png.c159b93b0768ff518710fd5de56c636a.png

A 40mm Celestron plossl (I own one ) is not going to give you a wider field of view than a 32mm plossl (which I also have) , the 40mm gives less magnification, but the field of view is smaller, the 32mm gives a little more magnification but a slightly wider fov., this is a physical limitation of optics in a 1.25" barrel eyepiece. Wider fov eyepieces have ranges which top out at lower focal lengths for this reason , for example the explore scientific 62 degree eyepieces go up to a 24mm, whilst their 82mm fov longest 1.25" eyepiece is a 14mm, and there are only 2" eyepieces in their 100 degree range .

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@PeterC65 Thank you for putting in the time to write such a detailed post. The Skymax 127 is currently on my shortlist, along with a sky watcher 200 Dob, so was interesting you mentioned that one. Need to read up further on the SynScan a bit more as want to make setup and viewing as simple as possible - not keen on drilling holes etc. 

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11 minutes ago, Murray06 said:

@PeterC65 Thank you for putting in the time to write such a detailed post. The Skymax 127 is currently on my shortlist, along with a sky watcher 200 Dob, so was interesting you mentioned that one. Need to read up further on the SynScan a bit more as want to make setup and viewing as simple as possible - not keen on drilling holes etc. 

If you have the SW200P dob on your shortlist, this one should be as well:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bresser-telescopes/bresser-messier-8-dobsonian-telescope.html

No personal experience but folk generally comment that is better for a small price increase. For starters, it has tube-rings - meaning it's easily transferred onto a different mount, should you wish to in future. The focuser appears better quality too.

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Just now, Murray06 said:

@Tiny ClangerHow long has has it taken to acquire all of your knowledge? I’ll be honest, I haven’t a clue what you are talking about half the time, but that’s part of my journey 😀

Heh, what makes you think I know what I'm talking about any of the time ?  :evil4:

I'm a geek, there, I admit it. Long time photographer, which helps with some of the ideas around the optics, and interested in space since I was a small child, but I've only been involved in hands-on astronomy since lockdown #1 stopped me getting out in the countryside. I really enjoy learning new things , so have read around a lot .

If there's anything you would like explaining, just ask, I might not be able to help , but I can probably point you towards a resource which can.

Heather

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3 minutes ago, wulfrun said:

If you have the SW200P dob on your shortlist, this one should be as well:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bresser-telescopes/bresser-messier-8-dobsonian-telescope.html

No personal experience but folk generally comment that is better for a small price increase. For starters, it has tube-rings - meaning it's easily transferred onto a different mount, should you wish to in future. The focuser appears better quality too.

I saw that one too, only reason I was put off was the expected delivery date of Feb. 
im slowly realising I will never make a perfect choice, only that I need to make sure I don’t make a bad choice. 

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1 minute ago, Murray06 said:

I saw that one too, only reason I was put off was the expected delivery date of Feb. 
im slowly realising I will never make a perfect choice, only that I need to make sure I don’t make a bad choice. 

One thing you'll find everyone says and is true: no single scope can do it all. Like most things in life, there are compromises to be made and a lot of folk end up with more than one scope just because of it. Saying that, a SW200P (or similar) would only be a bad choice of first visual-only scope if you have nowhere to store it, can't move it around etc.

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1 minute ago, Murray06 said:

I saw that one too, only reason I was put off was the expected delivery date of Feb. 
im slowly realising I will never make a perfect choice, only that I need to make sure I don’t make a bad choice. 

There is another option in that size which is pretty new to the market but has some good reports already - https://www.firstlightoptics.com/stellalyra-telescopes/stellalyra-8-f6-dobsonian.html

Many more seasoned astronomers than me recommend 8 inch dob as the best starter scope 

 

 

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7 minutes ago, Murray06 said:

I was put off was the expected delivery date of Feb

Kit is often on long delivery dates at the moment. I waited nearly five months for the Skymax 127 and I'm still waiting for a Baader Zoom Barlow that I ordered in July (it's due in November). Don't order something inferior just to get it sooner would be my advice. Chances are you will be waiting weeks for a clear sky anyway!

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41 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

A 40mm Celestron plossl (I own one ) is not going to give you a wider field of view than a 32mm plossl (which I also have) , the 40mm gives less magnification, but the field of view is smaller, the 32mm gives a little more magnification but a slightly wider fov.

That is very true of course, but if I may add one extra point. The benefit of a 40mm vs a 32mm in a mak is that it gives a slightly bigger exit pupil which will help particularly when using narrowband filters such as a UHC or OIII on nebulae. It just helps keep the brightness up to the maximum possible, Maks, by dint of their long focal ratios don’t allow very big exit pupils eg in the 127mm Mak the would give 3.4mm vs 2.7mm, enough to be worthwhile trying.

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3 minutes ago, wulfrun said:

If you have the SW200P dob on your shortlist, this one should be as well:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bresser-telescopes/bresser-messier-8-dobsonian-telescope.html

No personal experience but folk generally comment that is better for a small price increase. For starters, it has tube-rings - meaning it's easily transferred onto a different mount, should you wish to in future. The focuser appears better quality too.

Oh yes, that's the one I would buy tomorrow if

a) I had the money and

b) there was any stock of it available anywhere for months .

Tube rings good, well designed mount better, focuser very nice (I have the same one on my Bresser 102s refractor) , the tube reputedly needs no flocking upgrade, and the exterior is a handsome looking white  (shallow I know,  but if it's got to live in the corner of a room ... ) and the clincher for me ... it's  quite a bit lighter in weight than the competition . I'm still unsure if (being fundamentally lazy) if I would be bothered carrying a 200mm dob outside very often, and what's the point of a better 'scope you don't use , but the lower weight makes the Bresser my choice.

Bad points : the finder is rubbish (same as the one that came with my 102s) , the finder shoe is non-standard (same as ... etc) so to substitute it you have to install a new shoe ( the Baader standard clamp #2457000 works nicely I've found) Yep, costs a bit more than the equivalents , but the quality seems worth it.

It's a big lump of stuff for a beginner to contemplate though ... and just not available , possibly until next year ...

Heather

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45 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

The shifting eyepiece is not an issue on an alt/az mount

My concern is that with a Newtonian having the eyepiece at the top end of the tube its height from the ground varies a lot as the altitude changes, whereas the height above ground of the eyepiece on a Mak (or a refractor) varies only a little with altitude, and there is no way to adjust the angle of the eyepiece in the way you can by canting over the diagonal on the Mak.

50 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

I owning both a 150 heritage and a 127 mak,  I've tried, and failed, to see DSOs in the mak which I could see in the dob.

That's interesting to know. My view of the Pleiades was field limited (I couldn't see all of it) but I don't see why that should prevent me observing gas clouds, just not on quite the scale that I might like.

52 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

A 40mm Celestron plossl (I own one ) is not going to give you a wider field of view than a 32mm plossl (which I also have) , the 40mm gives less magnification, but the field of view is smaller, the 32mm gives a little more magnification but a slightly wider fov., this is a physical limitation of optics in a 1.25" barrel eyepiece. Wider fov eyepieces have ranges which top out at lower focal lengths for this reason , for example the explore scientific 62 degree eyepieces go up to a 24mm, whilst their 82mm fov longest 1.25" eyepiece is a 14mm, and there are only 2" eyepieces in their 100 degree range .

I bought the 40mm Celestron Plossl rather than a shorter focal length eyepiece in order to get a larger exit pupil size which seems to be the recommendation when using a UHC filter (to maximise the amount of light your eye can access). A 32mm 50 degree Plossl or a wider angle 24mm (such as the Baader Hyperion) maxes out the field of view of the Skymax 127 (limited by the 1.25" barrel size) but both of these have considerably smaller exit pupil sizes. I like the Celestron, but I do have to keep my head very steady as I think the exit pupil isn't much smaller than my eye pupil.

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15 minutes ago, PeterC65 said:

My concern is that with a Newtonian having the eyepiece at the top end of the tube its height from the ground varies a lot as the altitude changes, whereas the height above ground of the eyepiece on a Mak (or a refractor) varies only a little with altitude, and there is no way to adjust the angle of the eyepiece in the way you can by canting over the diagonal on the Mak.

True for a Mak, since it's a folded-optics design and physically short. A newtonian versus refractor though, not quite true. Roughly speaking, they are both the same size (length) for a given focal length. The "swing" of the EP position is similar but opposite directions.

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30 minutes ago, Stu said:

That is very true of course, but if I may add one extra point. The benefit of a 40mm vs a 32mm in a mak is that it gives a slightly bigger exit pupil which will help particularly when using narrowband filters such as a UHC or OIII on nebulae. It just helps keep the brightness up to the maximum possible, Maks, by dint of their long focal ratios don’t allow very big exit pupils eg in the 127mm Mak the would give 3.4mm vs 2.7mm, enough to be worthwhile trying.

That's why I bought mine !

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30 minutes ago, PeterC65 said:

My concern is that with a Newtonian having the eyepiece at the top end of the tube its height from the ground varies a lot as the altitude changes, whereas the height above ground of the eyepiece on a Mak (or a refractor) varies only a little with altitude, and there is no way to adjust the angle of the eyepiece in the way you can by canting over the diagonal on the Mak.

 

I just did some measurements , 150 dob vs 127 mak. eyepiece travel between 20 degrees and vertical , Obviously exactly where the dovetail is clamped (i.e. the pivot position) will make a difference,  and I didn't adjust the diagonal from the 'in line' vertical  position I use it at,  but the numbers are that between 20 degrees and 90 (vertical),  the centre of the top of my dob focuser  moves through a vertical height of 13cm , while the same procedure for the mak (with diagonal ) moved ...a vertical 18mm !

I didn't believe the numbers either, so repeated my measurements and got the same result. No ,  I'm not going to try to explain it. something to do with the low pivot point on the dob tube I suspect, it's bought back memories of grappling with Kepler's Second Law as an undergrad , and I'm not straining my brain with geometry again, it's not my idea of fun, and I don't need to pass an exam now !

Another practical difference between the dob and mak I find is that high alt objects are very comfortable and easy to view through the dob's top of tube eyepiece, while the mak on a tall tripod at my eye level can view objects which are skimming the garden fence . As faint fuzzies are best seen when high in the sky, and the planets are often (annoyingly) to be found quite low, that's another way in which the two 'scopes fulfil differing tasks .

1 hour ago, PeterC65 said:

I bought the 40mm Celestron Plossl rather than a shorter focal length eyepiece in order to get a larger exit pupil size which seems to be the recommendation when using a UHC filter (to maximise the amount of light your eye can access). A 32mm 50 degree Plossl or a wider angle 24mm (such as the Baader Hyperion) maxes out the field of view of the Skymax 127 (limited by the 1.25" barrel size) but both of these have considerably smaller exit pupil sizes. I like the Celestron, but I do have to keep my head very steady as I think the exit pupil isn't much smaller than my eye pupil.

I  typed a detailed reply because but you initially said "I’ve bought a Celestron 40mm Omni eyepiece which gives me the widest field of view I can get from the Skymax 127 " !

Exit pupil is another whole can of worms, I've done the maths for each of my 'scopes and eyepieces, the 40mm plossl gives 3.4mm exit pupil in the mak,(which is nearly f12 in theory) but that eyepiece would be a wasteful 8mm (bigger than my eye's pupil !)  in the dob at f5  The dob gives a 3.4mm exit pupil with a 17mm eyepiece , which is close to the sweet spot of brightness/magnification for viewing faint fuzzies for my eyes and my  skies .

The difficulty you have with the 40mm plossl might well be not the exit pupil , (the usual quoted wide open diameter of our eye's pupils is 7mm , so 3.4mm from the celestron shouldn't be a problem ) but more likely that the eyepiece has a rather long eye relief of around 30mm, so you have to 'hover' over it maintaining that distance and at the centre of that tall narrow tube.

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1 hour ago, Tiny Clanger said:

I just did some measurements , 150 dob vs 127 mak. eyepiece travel between 20 degrees and vertical , Obviously exactly where the dovetail is clamped (i.e. the pivot position) will make a difference,  and I didn't adjust the diagonal from the 'in line' vertical  position I use it at,  but the numbers are that between 20 degrees and 90 (vertical),  the centre of the top of my dob focuser  moves through a vertical height of 13cm , while the same procedure for the mak (with diagonal ) moved ...a vertical 18mm !

The difference in height above ground of the eyepiece between horizontal and vertical altitude will depend on the distance from the eyepiece to the altitude axis. In the case of a long Newtonian, and as @wulfrun mentions even a refractor, this distance is much more than with a short Mak. I mostly have the eyepiece canted over at 90 degrees so that it sticks out sideways (in the opposite direction from the finderscope). That makes the eyepiece orientation more like a Dobsonian I think and means that I'm always looking into the eyepiece horizontally. Given the short range of vertical displacement of the eyepiece I can set the tripod height so that it's always comfortable to observe while seated.

2 hours ago, Tiny Clanger said:

The difficulty you have with the 40mm plossl might well be not the exit pupil , (the usual quoted wide open diameter of our eye's pupils is 7mm , so 3.4mm from the celestron shouldn't be a problem ) but more likely that the eyepiece has a rather long eye relief of around 30mm, so you have to 'hover' over it maintaining that distance and at the centre of that tall narrow tube.

Ah yes! That sounds about right. It takes a bit of getting use to.

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Thanks again for all the help. After doing some more reading I like the idea of a higher aperture so have narrowed it down to below;

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bresser-telescopes/bresser-messier-8-dobsonian-telescope.html

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dobsonians/skywatcher-skyliner-200p-dobsonian.html

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/stellalyra-telescopes/stellalyra-8-f6-dobsonian.html

I really like the prospect of a GoTo, but think that will be further down the line  

 

 

 

 

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16 minutes ago, Murray06 said:

Thanks again for all the help. After doing some more reading I like the idea of a higher aperture so have narrowed it down to below;

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bresser-telescopes/bresser-messier-8-dobsonian-telescope.html

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dobsonians/skywatcher-skyliner-200p-dobsonian.html

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/stellalyra-telescopes/stellalyra-8-f6-dobsonian.html

I really like the prospect of a GoTo, but think that will be further down the line  

 

 

 

 

The comparative advantages of those 3 are the same as for the 3 manufacturer's 150mm versions as I outlined before, my only reservation about any of them would be , do be absolutely clear about the size and the weight of the things before you decide.

If you might want some electronic trickery in the future, there's this interesting new add on for the StellaL :

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astronomy-mount-upgrade-kits/asterion-push-to-kit-for-gso-deluxe-dobsonians.html

 

 

Edited by Tiny Clanger
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16 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

The comparative advantages of those 3 are the same as for the 3 manufacturer's 150mm versions as I outlined before, my only reservation about any of them would be , do be absolutely clear about the size and the weight of the things before you decide.

If you might want some electronic trickery in the future, there's this interesting new add on for the StellaL :

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astronomy-mount-upgrade-kits/asterion-push-to-kit-for-gso-deluxe-dobsonians.html

 

 

I spotted that and naturally tempted but tis indeed a slippery slope this hobby. 
this also looks interesting- 

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/equatorial-astronomy-mounts/asterion-ecliptica-light-tracking-platform-for-dobsonian-telescopes.html

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The old adage of the best scope is the one you use the most is oft used but so true. I suffered aperture fever early on in my journey into astronomy (not that long ago) and went big to 10 inch Dobs. It was too much - not so much the weight but the bulk and ultimately didn’t get used enough. The Heritage 150 was intended to be a convenient grab and go /travel option for me and it is certainly good for that  but has became my most used general instrument - it really is that good. I have now added an 8 inch StellaLyra to my line up but it regains to be seen if that gets used as much as the 150, or if the extra 2 inches warrant it - I’ve often read that going 4 inches up is where the differences start to really show (The maths involved in light grasp and limiting mag etc. Is interesting theory) but there’s no doubt to my non-expert eyes that I see slightly more stars resolved in M15 with the 8 vs the 6. There’s something appealing though about an easy to carry compact scope such as 150 or small Mak that still shows you some great sights. The SL 8 inch Dobs is a very well built scope and has a quality feel to it though, and as pointed out has some interesting new add ons available for it..I’ve found that half the fun of this hobby is the experimenting and learning about different optical designs and seeing what works - there’s a reason most hobbyist astronomers have more than one scope in the end !

Edited by Astro_Dad
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