Lunar / Planetary scope - Classical Cassegrain or 4" ED

[dweller25]

26 minutes ago, raadoo said:

As one of the lucky few to have such a wide range of small cats, and me someone looking to up my lunar game … which would you choose as your only lunar scope? The Mak127, C5, CC6 or Mewlon 180?

The Mewlon 180

[HollyHound]

1 hour ago, raadoo said:

As one of the lucky few to have such a wide range of small cats, and me someone looking to up my lunar game … which would you choose as your only lunar scope? The Mak127, C5, CC6 or Mewlon 180?

In order of “best lunar view”… ascending order 🤔

C5 - Softest view, dews up fairly easily, however it makes a fantastic, compact DSO scope (especially with a .63x reducer)

Mak127 - Super contrasty and (as has been said by others) quite “refractor like”. Portable and built like a tank, but also dews up and takes a while to cool.

CC6 - Notch more contrast and detail. Excellent focuser and doesn’t dew up. Slight smear on bright planets (due to four vane secondary spider). 

Mewlon 180 - Mega contrast and detail. Doesn’t dew up. Superb optical finder/handle. Very lightweight for its aperture. Takes at least an hour to really cool properly, although quite usable from 30/40mins onward. Less smear due to three vane spider. Slight loss of detail near FoV edge.

As I tend to use the Mewlon in a dual combination with the FC-100DZ refractor, this obviates the cooling issue somewhat, as I use that whilst waiting and then switch for detail.

For me, the Mewlon would be my one “cat” for lunar, although If I could only have one scope, it would be the DZ 😃

Best bang for buck though as a lunar (and planetary) scope, has has to be the CC6 though (it’s a 1/4 of the price!). If I ever had to sell the Mewlon, I would replace it with one of these 👍

Edited July 18, 2022 by HollyHound

[HollyHound]

1 hour ago, dweller25 said:

The Mewlon 180

Can’t disagree with this 🤣

[raadoo]

9 hours ago, HollyHound said:

In order of “best lunar view”… ascending order 🤔

C5 - Softest view, dews up fairly easily, however it makes a fantastic, compact DSO scope (especially with a .63x reducer)

Mak127 - Super contrasty and (as has been said by others) quite “refractor like”. Portable and built like a tank, but also dews up and takes a while to cool.

CC6 - Notch more contrast and detail. Excellent focuser and doesn’t dew up. Slight smear on bright planets (due to four vane secondary spider). 

Mewlon 180 - Mega contrast and detail. Doesn’t dew up. Superb optical finder/handle. Very lightweight for its aperture. Takes at least an hour to really cool properly, although quite usable from 30/40mins onward. Less smear due to three vane spider. Slight loss of detail near FoV edge.

As I tend to use the Mewlon in a dual combination with the FC-100DZ refractor, this obviates the cooling issue somewhat, as I use that whilst waiting and then switch for detail.

For me, the Mewlon would be my one “cat” for lunar, although If I could only have one scope, it would be the DZ 😃

Best bang for buck though as a lunar (and planetary) scope, has has to be the CC6 though (it’s a 1/4 of the price!). If I ever had to sell the Mewlon, I would replace it with one of these 👍

No surprises, then, in which scope bests which other scope.

Interestingly, I've been eyeing the DZ myself, but as I'm primarily an imager, I'm attracted to by its flourite magic, lightweight build and impressive spot diagrams in a mono imaging setup (which would bypass the issue of it being a doublet). I'm sure, just like its DC and DF brethren, it does a wonderful job in a visual lunar context and therefore is no surprise to me to see you compare it with the µ180.

I actually have a Mak127 and while the general consensus is that it's a fine scope, my experience with it has been less than positive; for visual (planetary and lunar) it does a good job, I'll give it that, but imaging with it has left me unimpressed. It's got contrast, sure, but even when you're in focus (using the old last turn counterclockwise trick to mitigate mirror flop) the image is a right soup. Before you all jump on me about seeing conditions, I've had it out at least 40 times in the past year and half, on nights of good and bad seeing and it's always been soup-ville. Usual cooldown is about 2h and I always use my Astrozap heated dew shield to keep the meniscus from dewing up. I even retrofitted a crayford focused alongside the primary focuser to try and really nail down the focus. Still unimpressed. It does do the mak thing of holding collimation like nobody's businesss, however.

The CC6 is definitely best bang for the buck - right up there with the SW 130PDS and the Sharpstar76 - and if it were around when I got my Mak127 (or had I known what i know now), I'd have gone for it as my first lunar/planetary scope in a heartbeat.

Well, I guess here comes the long wait of saving up for a Mewlon. First world problems, eh!

Thanks @HollyHound & @dweller25 for your input!

[neil phillips]

Would love to see a lunar shootout between the Mewlon 180. And Stella lyra 8" CC. 

Now that would be very informative. Rather than just supposition. Always liked the look of the Mewlon. But Flos Stella lyra cc is really rather top notch. Hard to beat in my opinion. At the 7. and 8" Size. A better comparison to the 180 Mewlon. As the 8" CC is 7.3 in aperture. 

Edited July 19, 2022 by neil phillips

[HollyHound]

53 minutes ago, neil phillips said:

Would love to see a lunar shootout between the Mewlon 180. And Stella lyra 8" CC. 

Now that would be very informative. Rather than just supposition. Always liked the look of the Mewlon. But Flos Stella lyra cc is really rather top notch. Hard to beat in my opinion. At the 7. and 8" Size. A better comparison to the 180 Mewlon. As the 8" CC is 7.3 in aperture. 

Agreed… I have no doubt that either the Mak180 or CC8 would more then give the Mewlon 180 a run for it’s money optically!

Ergonomically, I still prefer the Mewlon… it’s very lightweight for its aperture and is super easy to handle on and off the mount 👍

I did have a Mak150 briefly and that was a chunky dense scope, so can only imagine what the Mak180 is like. The CC6 was also heavy for it’s aperture, but mine did have a lovely handle fitted (courtesy of @johninderby😃)