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Look at the size of that thing......

Astro_Baby

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Zakalwe

Zakalwe

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LOL at Astro-Babe...surely you deserve a medal for dedication above and beyond if you are hauling an EQ6 up and down 8 flights of stairs. My garden is just behind the curtains on my piccies, and hauling the EQ6 out, plus scope, plus assorted bits and bobs, plus Nexstar is enough effort for one evening, thank you very much.

I have today dropped £800 to replace the nasty old patio doors that I have had to squeeze through...I have taken to humping the Nexstar and tripod out in one gert unwieldy lump.....aint much fun with a single patio door. Hopefully the new French doors will allow me to waft in and out with grace and aplomb!:):D

So apart from the weight of these things, finding a place to store them, having space top use them, you also have to consider getting the damn things in and out of the house*. Why didn't I take up stamp collecting??:):BangHead:

*Unless, of course, you are lucky enough to have an obsy.....<narrows eyes, strokes imaginary beard on chin, sucks air through teeth and whistles softly as he looks at the garden.....>:)

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kentronix

kentronix

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excellent idea for a thread, its so hard to tell unless you see a comparison.

Here is a pic of my little scope family :-

Blue sky watcher 150 (the big boy)

Black sky watcher 130p (the new toy)

Grey meade DS2114 (114mm) (travel scope)

IMG_1077.JPG

IMG_1075.JPG

As you can tell by the dust, I dont take my scope travelling as much as I originally intended :) But it fits diagonally across a carry on cabin bag on budget airlines.

I am an unconfirmed enigma and therefore impossible to capture on film, the guitar will have to do for scale.

For the sake of completeness I should point out the weight varies massively. The 150 is heavy in comparison, added to by the fact it uses rings for its mount. The 130 uses a dovetail fixed directly to the tube and is much lighter. The 114 is nice and light.

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Astro_Baby

Astro_Baby

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Performance wise the scope I love the best is the TAL. It always exceeds expectations ans always delivers great views whatever the state of the viewing conditions. I have yet to use the 180 so I cant comment.

Some of the best views I have ever had even of deep sky objects have been with the TAL and on planets so far its been a killer.

On top of that it works brilliantly with almost any eyepiece, its long focal ratio is a big advantage. Its easily the most used scope because its light and fast to setup, needs no cooldown and so far has been dew resistant way past the point where other scopes have given up even with anti dew gear.

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russ

russ

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Excellent thread Mel and well modeled. :)

That 250PX is certainly a monster and even more so when up on the EQ.

Shane, just goes to show how light that OO 12" is. If i tried that with the Revelation 12 i'd never be able to straighten my back again.

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boboco

boboco

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I thought I would show the difference 4" makes - so on the left Orion Optics OD350 f4.6 (14") and on the right OD250 f4.8 (10").

But more telling is the difference in weight the 14" weighs almost 2 times the 10" (20kg vs 11kg).

The 10" will go across the back seats of a Prius, the 14" will not, it does go (just) from the boot across the folded back seats with the passenger seat pushed forwards - so its not a family weekend away choice.

(If the photo is on its side, I apologise, but its getting rotated when its uploaded..)

post-12939-133877526443_thumb.jpg

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The Bat

The Bat

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Here is me very proud of my (then) new 8" Celestron C8. Look, it's so new, it's still got the "Do not look at the sun" warning label attached :). I did go to a showroom before buying, and had seen a 6" SCT. Even so, when it arrived and I saw the length of my flexible dew shield, I thought that I had been given the wrong size ... until I opened the telescope box :).

C8-S.jpg

Rachel

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ladykitty

ladykitty

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Good to see nail varnish used on nails and not just on cheap torch lenses.

Is this the right time to say "It's not the size-it's what you do with it that counts"?No?

Tough-just did.

I'm waiting to see a fine array of scopes at Astrofeast.

The extra "a" is deliberate.....

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michael.h.f.wilkinson

michael.h.f.wilkinson

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Here is me very proud of my (then) new 8" Celestron C8. Look, it's so new, it's still got the "Do not look at the sun" warning label attached :). I did go to a showroom before buying, and had seen a 6" SCT. Even so, when it arrived and I saw the length of my flexible dew shield, I thought that I had been given the wrong size ... until I opened the telescope box :).

Rachel

C8s are so nice, aren't they. Put that next to a 200mm Newtonian, and see which you can fit into the boot of a Peugeot 106 :). I do look at the sun with it from time to time (even got the 1999 eclipse), but of course with a proper solar filter.

I am not biased towards SCTs of course;)

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russ

russ

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Here is me very proud of my (then) new 8" Celestron C8. Look, it's so new, it's still got the "Do not look at the sun" warning label attached :). I did go to a showroom before buying, and had seen a 6" SCT. Even so, when it arrived and I saw the length of my flexible dew shield, I thought that I had been given the wrong size ... until I opened the telescope box :).

Rachel

That's a great looking setup Rachel. Have you had a first light with it yet?

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John

John

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John, i forgot what a beast of a scope that 6" f8 is. I know back then my EQ5 didn't think much of it. :)

It's OK on the CG5 for visual (2" steel tube legs help) and just about OK on the Ambermille alt-az on the same tripod. I've just taken delivery of a Helix Hercules 10" fork alt-az which I'm hoping will provide a more stable platform - I may need to look at a nice sold wood tripod to go with that - wood is so good at dampening vibrations.

In an ideal world I put it on an EQ6 but that brings portability issues ..... :)

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great_bear

great_bear

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I have yet to use the 180 so I cant comment.

Well - don't use the stock diagonal that comes with the gold 180 Mak. It's no co-incidence that the new black-tube 180 comes with a Dielectric 2" diagonal instead of the lowest-grade 1.25" that the gold-tube ships with.

Putting the Revelation 2" Quartz Dielectric Diagonal onto my gold-tube 180, revealed all the nice wispy bits of Jupiter that were previously unseen in my scope.

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perrin6

perrin6

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The mirror box on my homemade truss-tube dob was so heavy I felt I was on the verge of doing my back in so I drilled several large holes in it (in a pretty pattern!)plus took the heavy bearings off and drilled hundreds of 10mm holes half way into the wood. Trouble is the scope wasnt balanced so I then had to drill lots of holes in the secondery cage. As I get older and more decrepit I expect to have to drill yet more so it may just collapse under it's own weight in a pile of dust one day, but at least with all that air circulating, cool-down time is much reduced !

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John

John

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The Helix sounds pretty beefy. Is this going to be your SGL6 setup?

Thats my current plan Russ - I may sneak the Intes MN61 in as well on another alt-az mount - it's interesting to compare the pair of them :)

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russ

russ

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Thats my current plan Russ - I may sneak the Intes MN61 in as well on another alt-az mount - it's interesting to compare the pair of them :)

We'll try the Meade on the Skytee 2 if you like. Be a good test.

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haitch

haitch

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It's OK on the CG5 for visual (2" steel tube legs help) and just about OK on the Ambermille alt-az on the same tripod. I've just taken delivery of a Helix Hercules 10" fork alt-az which I'm hoping will provide a more stable platform - I may need to look at a nice sold wood tripod to go with that - wood is so good at dampening vibrations.

In an ideal world I put it on an EQ6 but that brings portability issues ..... :)

And the thick tubing gauge doesn't help with the weight. Mine's on a CG5 with 2" tripod too the only thing I find is that at high magnification you can see the vibration of the tick in the stepper motors.

You could do with a handle on top...

post-14514-133877526513_thumb.jpg

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