Travel scope musings

[John]

A while back I acquired a nice little 70mm ED refractor to use (mostly) as a travel scope. This little refractor is just 30cm long when in it's compacted form, weighs around 2kg and sits nicely on a lightweight alt-az mount on a good quality photo tripod. 

I have taken this rig away with me a couple of times and I've enjoyed using it under unfamiliar skies. It is a good performer, for a 70mm aperture scope.

Lately though I've been wondering if I might be better served, for travel, by a larger aperture, but still compact, scope such as a small, fast newtonian. My musing is along the lines of, I'm taking a scope away with me to use under hopefully darker skies so why not have something with a bit more aperture than 70mm to exploit that, assuming that the most likely goals will be deep sky targets rather than the higher resolution / higher power targets, which I can observe from home with a somewhat more powerful range of apertures.

I guess I'm thinking of what used to be termed a "rich field" type instrument ?

I want to stick with something that can work happily from the light alt-az mount / good photo tripod so I reckon that something around 100mm-130mm F/5-ish would be the max OTA aperture that I can get away with. Not bothered about 2 inch eyepieces particularly for this one, GOTO or a driven mount. I'm very much traditional "visual only" as well 🙂

So just kicking ideas around currently and I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has been through similar thought processes when considering a scope to take travelling ?

This is my current travel scope:

 

 

[JeremyS]

By travel, do you mean by car rather than plane?
A Newt is going to get bulky quite quickly, for travel. Perhaps something like a SW Heritage. Can be mounted on a altaz mount so you wouldn’t need the Dob base. I’ve Heritage 150. Nice scope bought with the aim of car travel. Found it a bit of a faff. Much prefer my Tak FC 76DCU.

[John]

2 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

By travel, do you mean by car rather than plane?
A Newt is going to get bulky quite quickly, for travel. Perhaps something like a SW Heritage. Can be mounted on a altaz mount so you wouldn’t need the Dob base. I’ve Heritage 150. Nice scope bought with the aim of car travel. Found it a bit of a faff. Much prefer my Tak FC 76DCU.

By car. We tend to tour when we have flown abroad so I take binoculars for those trips.

I have wondered about the Heritage 130 newt as an alternative OTA 🤔

[John]

We stayed at a remote cottage on Dartmoor a couple of years back. The skies were the darkest that I've experienced in years. I only had binoculars on that trip but I recall thinking a number of times on the clear nights, "goodness knows what I'd be able to see here with 4-5 inches of aperture" 🙂

 

Edited May 7 by John

[Louis D]

I only travel with my 25 year old ST80 in case the car gets broken into.  It hasn't happened yet, but if it did, I'm not out a very expensive scope.

The Heritage 130 might be an option if you can come to grips with its focuser and other foibles.

Or, build your own suitcase Dob:

[John]

10 minutes ago, Louis D said:

I only travel with my 25 year old ST80 in case the car gets broken into.  It hasn't happened yet, but if it did, I'm not out a very expensive scope.

The Heritage 130 might be an option if you can come to grips with its focuser and other foibles.

Or, build your own suitcase Dob:

I love the look of that traveldob 🙂

[John]

Hmmm .......

I've just read Roger Vine's review of the Skywatcher ST 102 F/5 achro. Maybe this is an option ?:

Sky-Watcher StarTravel 102 Review (scopeviews.co.uk)

 

 

[Ratlet]

27 minutes ago, Louis D said:

I only travel with my 25 year old ST80 in case the car gets broken into.  It hasn't happened yet, but if it did, I'm not out a very expensive scope.

The Heritage 130 might be an option if you can come to grips with its focuser and other foibles.

Or, build your own suitcase Dob:

My 130pds is 'officially' looking for a new home.  The reality is I'm planning on converting it into a travel dob like this.  Something about the thought of building a fun sized obsession clone fills me with joy.

[kev]

I use my st80 with a semi apo fringe killer filter.  Does the job nicely, although obviously at the cost of some image brightness.  Wonder what it would do on this.  

[russ]

5 hours ago, John said:

Hmmm .......

I've just read Roger Vine's review of the Skywatcher ST 102 F/5 achro. Maybe this is an option ?:

Sky-Watcher StarTravel 102 Review (scopeviews.co.uk)

 

 

I have made myself up a small travel setup for when we use the family home on the Isle of Wight. Initially it was a Starwave 70, much like yours but also wanted more aperture to make the most of the much better skies. A dob, even a 6", was out of the question. Not enough room in the car and the flat isn't big enough to leave a scope behind, we share it with my sister's, so there is an agreement to always leave it empty. 

So I went with the Orion ST120. Really didn't care about CA, only doing widefield and DSO visual. The ST120 sits nicely on the Vixen Porta. All slots in the car without annoying Emma. And the views are what I want. It's my ninth ST120 since 2003. I love it but always seem to go looking for something else and then end up back at the ST120.

[DirkSteele]

I have certainly found myself thinking about the Heritage 130 for air travel. The ability to compress down and put on a photo tripod certainly makes me think. Would need to make a shroud for the top half but I do think those extra mm would really pay dividends at a dark site.

Might make my Fc-100DC a bit redundant as it was bought for this purpose (copying @Stu on how to disassemble and pack for flying) and might raise more than an eyebrow from my wife! Scope 10 might put me in the dog house.

 

[Ags]

Epsilon 130! 

[Ratlet]

1 hour ago, Ags said:

Epsilon 130! 

I wouldn't be able to afford a bus ticket after that, never mind a plane ticket 🤣

[Elp]

9 hours ago, John said:

car

If this, then anythings technically portable.

[John]

45 minutes ago, Elp said:

If this, then anythings technically portable.

True but my car is small and my other half seems to need around 75% of the stowage space !

 

[John]

Reading Roger Vine's report, I didn't realise that the ST102's used a wider air space to better control CA. I know that Tele Vue and Tak used that approach in some of their refractors but didn't know that Synta did too 🤔

I've only owned 1 ST102 which was a Celestron branded one. I didn't intend to keep it (it came with a mount that I was after) but I do recall thinking that the CA levels were quite low when I tried it before parting with it.

 

Edited May 8 by John

[JOC]

I have travelled with my baby Vixen, it and it's 'folding all inside itself mini tripod' all fit into a tiny plastic tool box I bought for it.  Here it is in action when I took it to Scotland

 

I have also sat it onto a proper tripod 

and I was respectably impressed with its performance the night I viewed Saturn with it at home.  It was at that point I realised that most apparent magnification seems to come from the EP that is deployed rather than the width of the mirror - which seems to come into play more if you go chasing feint fuzzies.  B.t.w. I like the little wheeled adjustment links to do the tracking with - they were so easy to use compared to shifting a Dob.

[Alan White]

33 minutes ago, John said:

True but my car is small and my other half seems to need around 75% of the stowage space !

 

Only 75% space, you are so lucky to get that 25% John!

[lunator]

Hi John

I have managed to get my 8" dob in the car as well as a dog & teenager. I only have a medium sized hatchback. It is amazing what you can fit in a car.  sometimes 🙂

Usually I just take my ST80 + Horizon tripod. If you could find something similar size and weight  wise to an ST80  but with a bit more aperture then I think it would be ideal.

Cheers 

Ian 

[Alan White]

I normally take several binoculars with me, can share the view and grab gaps in the cloud etc.
Makes family time even more enjoyable, sometimes, less is more.

[NGC 1502]

Top solution if your car is small- Get a trailer for the wife and all her stuff.

This gives you 100% of the car for you and your scope.

Can’t see any problems with the above, can you?

[Astrobits]

Aperture usually comes with more focal length. You want portable + aperture:

https://www.galaxypix.com/Dall/

Nigel

[Elp]

How good is the photo tripod as that will determine if you can go with a Newtonian design, they are also wind sails so your mounting has to be very solid. I've managed to store a 130pds and accessories inside a 70L backpack, tripod and mount head will need to be in a separate bag.

My C6 AP rig now fits into that bag including the goto mount, only separate item I need is the tripod, being a CF one it's not a burden at all.

But for ultimate portability I'd go with a 50/60mm refractor, in that case everything can then fit in one bag including the tripod (I've got a shorter CF one that will fit).

Edited May 8 by Elp

[LondonNeil]

I was about to say a sct or mak gives a very compact form for FL, but that Dall example is incredible!

[Ags]

1 hour ago, Alan White said:

sometimes, less is more

I usually find more is more...