Show us your...most loved scope!

[Littleguy80]

Love is blind and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This thread is place to share your most loved scope, not necesarily your best scope. It can be anything from that premium scope you wanted for years and was everything you dreamed it woud be to the scope you had as a kid and loved even though it was terrible. The only rule is for this thread is that all entries are based on love. Any posts that look scientific and well reasoned should be removed by the moderators  

To gets things going, here's my own entry. Well, actually, my heart is held by two scopes. You never forget your first love and my SkyWatcher 130M stole my heart completely. It was picked on the sole criteria that it could show me Saturn's rings. It was a few weeks before I really got going with it. To start with I though I was supposed to do all navigation with the slow motion controls! Cupid's arrow struck the night that I first saw Jupiter and it's 4 moons. I was completely blown away that I could see the moons!! My obsession rapidly grew and just 3 months later it gave me my first view of the Veil. I've been hooked on astronomy ever since. My second love is my 10" dob, it opened up the sky to me even more. It's shown me shadow transits on Jupiter and even the fabled Horse Head nebula. I still remember walking around the clubhouse at my astro society's dark site with a silly grin on my face after seeing the HH. I couldn't quite believe I'd seen it. Treasured memories from much loved scopes. My enjoyment and passion for astronomy didn't change with the increased aperture. It just increased the possiblities in terms of what I could see. 

[Roy Challen]

Bit like asking which is your favourite child...😅

[Littleguy80]

11 minutes ago, Roy Challen said:

Bit like asking which is your favourite child...😅

The third one. He slept a lot better than the others 

[sqfab]

Takahashi’s small APO 60🥰
He is a real mechanic who adapts to all situations: visual, astrophoto
Here the version with 1.7X extender (600mm focal length) mounted on a small equatorial mount.
Quickly mounted, quickly used and always images at the TOP
Pascal

[Highburymark]

Solar Ha is my main astronomy passion, so my favourite scope is this one. Two 70mm Solarscope filters on a TV85. Great for days like today, working from home, when the sky is clear. 

[Highburymark]

5 hours ago, sqfab said:

Takahashi’s small APO 60🥰
He is a real mechanic who adapts to all situations: visual, astrophoto
Here the version with 1.7X extender (600mm focal length) mounted on a small equatorial mount.
Quickly mounted, quickly used and always images at the TOP
Pascal

Love that mount and tripod!

[markse68]

Image borrowed from another thread but currently this is my most loved scope. I love that it cost me only £80 (well the OTA anyway  ) is portable whilst still a reasonable aperture, and is really quite excellent. My Tal-150p

Mark

[John]

The scope that I feel most affection for is my Vixen ED102SS. I've owned it for 16 years and it is a very versatile workhorse being able to show 4 degrees of sky and also perform sharply at over 200x magnification. It also sits happily on a lightweight mount such as a Porta, AZ-4 or even the AZ-3.

It is not my best performing scope but that's not the point of this thread as I see it, the Vixen always puts a smile on my face when I look though it and having done lots of outreach sessions with this scope, more people other than myself have got to look through it, which I feel is important as well 🙂 

 

Edited April 4, 2023 by John

[Littleguy80]

3 minutes ago, John said:

It is not my best performing scope but that's not the point of this thread as I see it

Exactly right, John. Not at all about performance. This is purely about the scope that gives you the happy feeling 😊

Loving everyone’s posts so far! 

[mdstuart]

28 minutes ago, John said:

The scope that I feel most affection for is my Vixen ED102SS. I've owned it for 16 years and it is a very versatile workhorse being able to show 4 degrees of sky and also perform sharply at over 200x magnification. It also sits happily on a lightweight mount such as a Porta, AZ-4 or even the AZ-3.

It is not my best performing scope but that's not the point of this thread as I see it, the Vixen always puts a smile on my face when I look though it and having done lots of outreach sessions with this scope, more people other than myself have got to look through it, which I feel is important as well 🙂 

 

John, I thought it was your 8 inch Orion dob. It's an amazing scope. It had an outing to the pencelli star party recently and performed impeccably.

[Moonshed]

I fell in love with my 1985 second hand 8” Celestron SCT the minute I unpacked it, 32 years ago. It was my first scope with an aperture larger than 4” and the views it offered of the Moon and planets, plus DSO’s, I found to be amazing. Okay, I have looked through far better and bigger scopes at society meetings but your first love is the one that stays with you.

 

[Saganite]

Without doubt this is my most loved scope, Andromeda, 5" f15 Achromat .  Unfortunately, after seven glorious years I had to part with her to achieve my ambition of having an obsy. The pier is still in place but around it now is a Pulsar dome in which my new, most cherished telescope, never to be sold,  is housed, my Vixen ED103 Swt.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Saganite

[Deadlake]

11 hours ago, John said:

The scope that I feel most affection for is my Vixen ED102SS. I've owned it for 16 years and it is a very versatile workhorse being able to show 4 degrees of sky and also perform sharply at over 200x magnification. It also sits happily on a lightweight mount such as a Porta, AZ-4 or even the AZ-3.

It is not my best performing scope but that's not the point of this thread as I see it, the Vixen always puts a smile on my face when I look though it and having done lots of outreach sessions with this scope, more people other than myself have got to look through it, which I feel is important as well 🙂 

 

I like my small scope too for the wide fields of view.

Very versatile as I can move it around the garden for tree dodging duties.

Works best with XWA 20 mm or 30 mm UFF. 

Also very good for looking at the moon a x500.

A great swap...

Edited April 5, 2023 by Deadlake

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

OK, here goes. The Celestron GP-C8 has been my visual, planetary and lunar workhorse for over 27 years, so it is certainly a hugely loved scope.  It has captured my best lunar and planetary images, and my first total eclipse, captured all of the supernovae I have seen, and shown the best visual planetary detail of any scope I have used (including a TEC-140, but that was under atrocious seeing conditions). The other Cat in my collection is the Meade SN6 6" F/5 Schmidt-Newton, the OTA of which set me back no less than EUR 165 (with better focuser, and better flocking than the stock tube). It has been such a great wide-field instrument, providing a whopping 3.3 degrees FOV at 24.5x with the mighty Nagler 31mm T5 (a.k.a. the "Panzerfaust"). It is great for comet hunting and a lovely DSO imaging scope. No slouch on planets either, but the C8 beats it.    

My first proper scope was a home-made 6"F/8 Newton, in a Dobson-like fork mount. I made it when I was 17 (bought the mirrors, 1/10 lambda according to the specs). With its small secondary obstruction this was a real planet killer, but also showed me many DSOs beautifully. I later rebuilt it with an octagonal plywood  tube, and much better flocking and baffling than before, improving the contrast a lot. I also replace the rather wobbly fork mount.

Then there is the APM 80 mm F/6 APO triplet, which functions as my main solar scope, grab-and-go wide-field scope, and DSO imaging scope for larger targets.

I have more scopes, also well loved, but the foursome here are special, and I still have three out of these four.

[Nicola Fletcher]

This is my most loved scope ever. I sold it and have regretted it ever since. It was a humble little Celestron 127 SLT Mak. It was recommended by a member at the Astro club I joined when I was just starting out. It was my only scope for about 7-ish years and I used to have such fun with it. I really liked how easy the Celestron handset and software was to use and had lots of first sightings of some of my favourite targets through it. Although it was goto which I know lots of people don’t recommend for beginners, it inspired me to learn the night sky and I now love to use refractors on manual alt-az mounts. I am honestly so tempted to buy another one!

[Guest]

The Orion 10 inch skyline.  She was my first scope and she is my forever scope.  I will have her until the day I die.  

[Moonshed]

2 minutes ago, Mike Q said:

The Orion 10 inch skyline.  She was my first scope and she is my forever scope.  I will have her until the day I die.  

And that is what this thread is all about. Passion.

[Paul M]

I don't have an images of my favorite scope. The 60mm "Prinz" Tascoesque refractor I got for Christmas in 1977. 

Ok, as an instrument it was a bit pants, but it was magic to me. I don't think my parents ever understood how special that scope was to me.

It went out on permanent loan, many, many years ago. I can't even remember who is looking after it for me!

[Guest]

34 minutes ago, Moonshed said:

And that is what this thread is all about. Passion.

And that girl lead me to a bigger scope

[Nakedgun]

13 hours ago, Littleguy80 said:

Love is blind and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This thread is place to share your most loved scope, not necesarily your best scope. It can be anything from that premium scope you wanted for years and was everything you dreamed it woud be to the scope you had as a kid and loved even though it was terrible. The only rule is for this thread is that all entries are based on love. Any posts that look scientific and well reasoned should be removed by the moderators  

To gets things going, here's my own entry. Well, actually, my heart is held by two scopes. You never forget your first love and my SkyWatcher 130M stole my heart completely. It was picked on the sole criteria that it could show me Saturn's rings. It was a few weeks before I really got going with it. To start with I though I was supposed to do all navigation with the slow motion controls! Cupid's arrow struck the night that I first saw Jupiter and it's 4 moons. I was completely blown away that I could see the moons!! My obsession rapidly grew and just 3 months later it gave me my first view of the Veil. I've been hooked on astronomy ever since. My second love is my 10" dob, it opened up the sky to me even more. It's shown me shadow transits on Jupiter and even the fabled Horse Head nebula. I still remember walking around the clubhouse at my astro society's dark site with a silly grin on my face after seeing the HH. I couldn't quite believe I'd seen it. Treasured memories from much loved scopes. My enjoyment and passion for astronomy didn't change with the increased aperture. It just increased the possiblities in terms of what I could see. 

 

~

Please, don't ask me to choose, too painful to contemplate.

 

 

 

.

[Whistlin Bob]

Here's mine.

We name stuff in our family- so this is Henrietta - named for the astronomer who first enabled us to measure the distance to galaxies. She's at least third hand: the previous owner bought her to strip the DSCs for an atm project he was working on- not a problem for me as I like star hopping. He thought the previous owner was a London cabbie. She's been with me for five years now, and I very much hope for many more. She fits me perfectly: at zenith, the eyepiece is nicely level with my eyes, at 80kg she's not light, but will fit happily into a medium sized hatchback with the back seats still up.

I've seen things with her that make me sound like Rutger Hauer. Moonrise over Jupiter. The pup of Sirius. The fossil light of galaxies dancing in the Permian period. If there really are attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, then I'm pretty sure she's gonna get them too. And then share it with anyone fortunate enough to be nearby at the time. 

Here she is doing her stuff at Castlerigg stone circle a few years ago, the first night I saw the Horsehead

[Ratlet]

Despite going down the Dob route I still love the 130pds.  Fantastic visual scope and was my dream scope way back in 2012.  Wee pocket rocket.

Just need to figure out how to mount it to the Dob and I think I'd have the perfect setup.

[jetstream]

Heres mine, great on everything. High mag, low mag, cools easily, holds collimation extremely well and is wicked on the moon and planets.

Edited April 5, 2023 by jetstream

[josefk]

7 hours ago, Whistlin Bob said:

Here's mine.

We name stuff in our family- so this is Henrietta - named for the astronomer who first enabled us to measure the distance to galaxies. She's at least third hand: the previous owner bought her to strip the DSCs for an atm project he was working on- not a problem for me as I like star hopping. He thought the previous owner was a London cabbie. She's been with me for five years now, and I very much hope for many more. She fits me perfectly: at zenith, the eyepiece is nicely level with my eyes, at 80kg she's not light, but will fit happily into a medium sized hatchback with the back seats still up.

I've seen things with her that make me sound like Rutger Hauer. Moonrise over Jupiter. The pup of Sirius. The fossil light of galaxies dancing in the Permian period. If there really are attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, then I'm pretty sure she's gonna get them too. And then share it with anyone fortunate enough to be nearby at the time. 

Here she is doing her stuff at Castlerigg stone circle a few years ago, the first night I saw the Horsehead

Never mind the scope - what a fantastically cool spot to be set up observing!

…actually really nice scope too  🙂

[Whistlin Bob]

38 minutes ago, josefk said:

what a fantastically cool spot to be set up observing!

Yeah- it was pretty awesome. One of those nights when it all comes together. I had it to myself for a few hours, then a guy showed up wanting to photograph the stones against the night sky. Initially we both scared each other, as neither of us expected to be sharing the site in the small hours of a cold October night- but it was good for both of us. His first view through a telescope was m31 in a 14" dob, and I got to learn about light painting from a pro!