New Newtonian Advice

[Spad]

At present I have a Sky-Watcher Explorer 150P Newtonian with an upgraded (supposedly) dual speed crayford focuser. I am wanting to get a new Newtonian...

The one I am leaning towards is the StellaLyra 8" f/5 M-LRN Newtonian Reflector. I am also seriously considering the 8" f4 one, but I have read they can be diffucult to collimate, is this correct?

Would this be a good replacement for the SW Newtonian and will it prime focus?

Thank you,
Ian

Edited February 10 by Spad

[Cosmic Geoff]

You may need to provide more information for a helpful answer. Why do you want to upgrade, what do you intend to use the scope for, why would you want the f4 rather than the f5?

And what mount do you intend to use? A mount just adequate for the 150P is unlikely to support an 8" weighing perhaps 1.7x more.

[alacant]

2 hours ago, Spad said:

I have a Sky-Watcher Explorer

Hi. What's wrong with it? What are you expecting over and above that which the 150 offers?

Cheers 

 

Edited February 10 by alacant

[bosun21]

The f4 reflector telescopes are definitely a bit more finicky to collimate the mirrors. It depends on how much experience you have collimating.  For someone who is wary of collimating it will be more difficult for sure but doable.

[Spad]

I have an EQ6r Pro.

I want it for visual and imaging.

I just want to know if these are good as I want to move away from Sky-Watcher scopes.

[malc-c]

The scopes are manufactured by Guan Sheng Optical (GSO) in Taiwan.  FLO are the importers and brand them as "StellaLyra"  From limited research via google they seem to have a good reputation but how they compare to scopes made by Synta (Skywatcher / Celestron) might be subjective.  Maybe drop FLO an e-mail for details as they could confirm what choices will work, and if collimating one of their F4 newts would be any more challenging than an F5 

[Mr Spock]

I have both a StellaLyra 12" f5 Dobsonian and a  StellaLyra 8" f/4 M-LRN Newtonian. The 12" is a doddle to collimate - it takes a few seconds at the start of each session. The 8" f4 is a lot more difficult and I'm not sure I've ever got it right and I (allegedly) know what I'm doing.

The 8" f4 has huge back focus for imaging and the matching coma corrector works really well. For visual you need a couple of extension tubes to get it to focus - it was made for imaging. The build quality is excellent as are all the StellaLyra scopes.

[Spad]

16 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

I have both a StellaLyra 12" f5 Dobsonian and a  StellaLyra 8" f/4 M-LRN Newtonian. The 12" is a doddle to collimate - it takes a few seconds at the start of each session. The 8" f4 is a lot more difficult and I'm not sure I've ever got it right and I (allegedly) know what I'm doing.

The 8" f4 has huge back focus for imaging and the matching coma corrector works really well. For visual you need a couple of extension tubes to get it to focus - it was made for imaging. The build quality is excellent as are all the StellaLyra scopes.

Thank you Mr Spok amd mal-c... this was the kind of advice I was looking for!

Edited February 10 by Spad