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Anyone know of Cape Newise 200mm Newt

earth titan

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earth titan

earth titan

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Local camera shop has a 200mm Cape Newise light tube in the back room, with mounting rings but no tripod. It has no other marks on it but it appears to have a perspex / glass front to it rather than spider suports.

He has had it around 9 years - evidently as a demo display model.

Is it worth ought???

He has asked me if he should punt it out on EBay and what he should expect - but as I am a newbie and know nothing, I said I would ask. I have offered him £50 quid to take it off his hands. Oddly he hasn't taken this offer up....:D

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NickH

NickH

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nope...they are a mare...avoid like the plague (we have one at Wiltshire Astro...it's a dog)...£50 is about right... show him this thread if you like, taking into account I do equipment reviews for mags may help your cause! :-)

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beamish

beamish

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nope...they are a mare...avoid like the plague (we have one at Wiltshire Astro...it's a dog)...£50 is about right... show him this thread if you like, taking into account I do equipment reviews for mags may help your cause! :-)

Cheers Nick- but that's your opinion I guess !

If you're a newbie- steer clear ! It's pretty much taken 3yrs to get to grips with this scope's idiosyncrasies and TBH I've probably got the best one he ever made !! ( his personal scope) can't recommend this to you unless you've the patience of Jobe.

Bino's Peter ummm, interesting project perhaps.

I suppose none of like to be told our kit's Rubbish- I'm aware that a lot of folk have had poor experiences, and that's really another thread, looking back I can honestly say that I think I would have had a better time with a SCT or Meade SN but hey no point crying over spilt milk. The point is when this scope is on form it's a cracker- it's biggest failing is lack of ease re user servicing, too much glass in the train !

It seems to have solved problems that didn't need solving - a virtuoso piece really without an obvious point !

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russ

russ

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I always fancied a Cape. I remember the CN reviews were good except for quite a few mechanical problems initially, such as the corrector plate falling out and the secondary falling off the corrector. But i'm sure they ironed those out. Perhaps Nick's astro group has one of the real early jobs.

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beamish

beamish

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I always fancied a Cape. I remember the CN reviews were good except for quite a few mechanical problems initially, such as the corrector plate falling out and the secondary falling off the corrector. But i'm sure they ironed those out. Perhaps Nick's astro group has one of the real early jobs.

I can assure you it would impossible for the front plate to "fall" out or for the secondary to fall off without a great deal of help. Bit like saying your crayford will fall - but only if you unscrew the thing !

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Karlo, I don't thnk anyone is calling your scope Rubbish. But there are so many disgruntled Cape customers, and the person behind them appears so commercially irresponsible, that I would want fifty quid to come to me if I were to take one out of the shop. As for the other pups in the litter, does a responsible person start advertizing a new (and hugely expensive) telescope well before even a properly functional prototype is available?

Olly

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russ

russ

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I was only saying the initial prototype run that was given for review was prone to faults. I can remember clearly that on the first one the secondary assemply was glued in place and that failed. But these were corrected and the reviewer was very happy with the optical performance of the scope. That was before the production models were offered.

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beamish

beamish

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I'm not having a pop at anyone, Russ is right in what he says and I feel I have to agree with you too Olly to a large extent.

The early models were plagued. I personally wasn't too enamored by the carbon fibre models either.

I cannot recommend this scope to anyone but the brave :) The more I've learnt about this scope the more I feel they was little point in it except to prove a point, that being a spherical fast mirror could be used to produce a flat wide field-but to what end ? they cost a fortune initially to buy, the components eg crayford were none too great, product support is minimal, tolerances are near critical (courtesy of the additional lenses), and user servicing-well there's the brave bit !

BUT when its working its great ! It's heavy for an 8" newtonian but short.

Personally if it were mounted permanently on a pier in an obs then okay, a larger one has been made for Leicester Uni I think, and doubtless that'll be fine but for the amateur market I think it wasn't ever going to work.

I am lucky that the one I own was an upgraded version re crayfod and mirror etc that was used for reviews by both manufacturers and mags but what does that tell you ??

I was a newbie and naive and sucked in by the " British Engineering " in the ads ,oh this was prior to finding SGL, had I been a member and known then what I know now then clearly have given it a wide berth TBH.

But as I say no point crying about it... it's a love/hate relationship

I'm only aware of three other individuals who own one !

I stick by what I said earlier tho I think this is a virtuoso piece that really didn't have a need in the open market and the construction made it expensive apart from a lack of scales of production benefits.

It continues to give me some fantastic views and I've made it my own adding a motorfocuser and easier collimation knobs for the primary.

In a nutshell :D

Apologies if I have offended anyone, perhaps "Rubbish" was a little too over emotional but no-one likes to hear they kit is rubbish .

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russ

russ

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That's okay Karlo, you stick up for your scope. You know how well it does and thats what matters. I've always fancied owning a Cape. It was an interesting concept to fit 8" f6 into the tube of an 8" f3. You carry on being proud of your scope.....

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NickH

NickH

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I don't take it as a pop at all...I know what I have used/seen... and as Karlo et al have intimated, the scopes have major issues... the early ones (which we do have) in particular.. whilst St Aspah's finest may be a clever engineer he left a lot of people with complete spuds..for products

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