A scope is what it is

I keep seeing allot of posts bagging telescopes or brands of telescopes, I
think people are missing an important point.

When I first started in this hobby I was told by a ATMer with over thirty
years experience building many different types of telescopes that there is
no such thing as a perfect telescope, any optical design makes a compromise
somewhere. He also told me mounts are the most over looked but as important
as optics on any telescope and finally he told me in his opinion APO's and
RC's are probably the best optical designs but never under estimate a good
achromat or newt. I found his words to be true.

I have gained a good amount of experience now with the hardware of amateur
astronomers and the thing I have learnt is what ever
telescope/mount/eyepieces you are getting what are the trade off's.

Personally I am not a fan of SCT's but I can see why they are popular, they
are probably the best all round telescope in price, optically and
portability. I love Dobs, the embodiment of the "KISS" rule of thumb and
best value for money around. Achromat refractors, well you get the good,
bad and ugly with these, but never under estimate a good Achromat, I've seen
a 5 inch f/6 with optics from a now out off business company from the old
USSR days and until you look at the planets you could sear you are looking
through a APO, my 6 inch f/5 is not as good as that 5 inch but it will out
perform any 8 inch SCT on deep sky observing in flatness of field,
sharpness, contrast and I see fainter objects, but a 8 inch SCT does have a
bit more resolution power which on smaller objects this can sometimes give a
SCT a small edge on deep sky, planets a 8 inch SCT wins hand down. APO's
love them and would love a 6 inch APO, but the price of them limits me to a
4 inch APO, thus the trade off for me a 4 inch APO and a 6 inch achromat
instead.

Trade off is the key theme here, yes Meade make good telescopes but to make
them affordable with the all the bells and whistles trade offs are made,
especially from what I've seen in Meade telescopes (I'm not Meade bashing
just using them as an example) it is in the mechanical side and why they
offer SCT's Smit-Newts, ED's and now by the looks a hybrid optical design
that a cross between a RC and SCT, which may be better than a SCT but not
quite as god as a RC, we will have to wait and see when they hit the market.
But finish is good, optics are good for their optical design, mounts are
good (not excellent only good) unless it's a LXD55 which is joke. Meade,
Celestron and others etc have made affordable good telescopes with a few
trade off's, which when it come to parting or being able to part with cash
makes them a good if one recognises or even one does not realise what trade
off have been made.

Same goes for any brand, optical design and then size of the telescope, but
as you go up in price like AP, Tak less trade off's in quality is made and
the prices adjust accordingly. People seem to forget a SCT design has
certain optical faults as does a APO or RC or Newt or any other optical
design, what are you ready to live with, how much cash are you prepared to
part with and when it comes to size of telescope, hows your back.

Mounts, the mount may have plastic gears or bronze and if its bronze what
grade and what is the quality of machining and finish, Price again comes to
play, here is my trade off, I own an EQ-6, highly modified, okay its not a
Tak EM200 but it cost 1/4 of the price including modifications and I have
achieved the performance in tracking I require, still not as good as a EM200
one day I plan to buy a EM500 or AP1200, but limited finances means I have
to wait a few more years and as I am only low on the learning curve of the
astrophotography the EQ-6 is good enough for now and carries the load I
require at this time easily, a VC200L and a 4 inch f/5 guide scope which is
my Astrophotography setup.

I think most people forget what are the trade off's if I buy this piece of
equipment

As for advertsing by telescope companies, for example Meade and their new
line of RCX's, I'm a market researcher by profession (no longer working in
that field), so to me they are just doing what they need to do to sell the
goods, they have seen a gap in the market place and like any good business
are making a product that they hope will fill it, sometimes they may go to
far in their copy hype, but what company doesn't. Personally I feel people
need to take a bit of time to educate them selves about what they are going
to buy and then they will see through most of the hoop lar that they use to
market goods.

At the end of the day the best telescope is the one you use most often, for
me for visual use me it is my 6 inch f/5 refractor on a Unistar mount, I
know its faults and its strengths, I do not like its faults but personally I
can live with them because of its strengths, you may not be able too, but
you are not me, so your choice may be something different like LX90 or AP
Traveller or even a Obsession 25 inch Dob.

Just some musings

Clear skies yo you all

Phil

I agree that there always tradeoffs with optical systems. But the
question is, what to want to do with your telescope? I think imaging
requirements are a bit different than those for visual observers, for
example.

I believe that if you want primarily to observe DSOs, you should get
the biggest telescope you and your budget can handle. Of course, it
goes without saying (but I will anyway) that you are dedicated enough
to travel as long as you need to to get to dark skies often enough to
make it worthwhile.

I also believe that almost every telescope type there is has a place
for someone. But if you only heve a 90mm ETX and you could have
purchased an 8" dob of good quality for the same money AND you could
fit it in a vehicle you have access to if you don't live under dark
skies, I'd say you could have made a better decision.
Clear skies,
Shneor Sherman

"shneor" wrote in message

I also believe that almost every telescope type there is has a place
for someone. But if you only heve a 90mm ETX and you could have
purchased an 8" dob of good quality for the same money AND you could
fit it in a vehicle you have access to if you don't live under dark
skies, I'd say you could have made a better decision.

unless the ETX is more likely to get used (to thine own self be true).

Ed T.

Very true
I do have several telescopes and mounts and have owned allot more than I
have today. I have four main setup for different purposes, First is my
visual set up my 6 inch f/5 is my telescope of choice, Second is my Vixen
VC200l on a modified EQ-6 mount with a 4 inch f/5 refractor, this is for
astrophotography, can be for visual but allot more effort and time to set up
so I really only use it when imaging. Third is a Vixen 80mm f/5 with a
white light Solar filter piggybacking a PST for Solar. Forth is a 17.5 inch
Dob.

Now for visual 95% of the time I use my 6 inch refractor, even when going
out to a dark site, its light, sits on the fount seat of the car, easy to
set up and gathers enough light to do serious deep sky observing. I did
used to have a 10 inch f/6 Dob also and that was my most used telescope
until I brought the 6 inch refractor, I did not intend this scope to become
my main visual telescope when I brought it, it was just going to be my quick
look scope, funny how things turn out. So I sold the 10 inch simply because
since Ive had this 6 inch refractor I just did not touch the 10 inch once,
it sat for a whole year unused.

I'm quite a keen Lunar observer as well, but I'm not a real keen planetary
or double star observer, but if the mood takes me a Baader fringe killer on
the 6 inch usually the way I go, faluse color on bright objects like the
planets is a real problem, but not on deepsky and belive it or not the moon
is nearly faulse colour free.

You are right, Nothing beats aperture, been there have the scope to prove it
and still have it to scratch the aperture bug when it bites, but over time
for me as I have gathered observing experience, it is surprising what one
can do with a 6 inch scope I regularly log mag 13 sometimes even mag 14
galaxies with the 6 inch. I did computerise the EQ-6 mount but used the
laptop once on it and went back to manually hunting down objects. I am just
so used to star hopping I do not need go to, plus I enjoy the hunt.

I get what I want from a 6 inch achromat scope, yes sometimes I want that
extra inch or two in aperture, but I'm not going to carry it outside if I
had it and the most important thing of all, my the time I spend observing
did start to decline, over worked and tired even a 10 inch Dob became a
hassle to move about, but then I brought the 6 inch and my observing time
doubled praticially overnight, its does what I want and its easy to setup.
Different stokes for different folks

Maybe when I have a my Sliding Shed observatory built (at least two years
away), my choice in telescopes will most likely change, I won't have to move
it around, but one thing for sure I will always have a 4 to 6 inch sort
focal length refractor of some type for when I do go off observing else
where.

This is my two big trade offs. I do really like allot of aperture, nothing
beats it and I hate false colour, but better to own a smaller telescope that
I use than a bigger one that I do not. I got a good achromat refractor and
because my observing pleasure is deepsky false colour is not a problem most
of the time on deepsky.


Phil

"shneor" wrote in message
oups.com...
I agree that there always tradeoffs with optical systems. But the
question is, what to want to do with your telescope? I think imaging
requirements are a bit different than those for visual observers, for
example.

I believe that if you want primarily to observe DSOs, you should get
the biggest telescope you and your budget can handle. Of course, it
goes without saying (but I will anyway) that you are dedicated enough
to travel as long as you need to to get to dark skies often enough to
make it worthwhile.

I also believe that almost every telescope type there is has a place
for someone. But if you only heve a 90mm ETX and you could have
purchased an 8" dob of good quality for the same money AND you could
fit it in a vehicle you have access to if you don't live under dark
skies, I'd say you could have made a better decision.
Clear skies,
Shneor Sherman

On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 12:43:39 -0600, Phil wrote
(in article ):


I get what I want from a 6 inch achromat scope, yes sometimes I want that
extra inch or two in aperture, but I'm not going to carry it outside if I
had it and the most important thing of all, my the time I spend observing
did start to decline, over worked and tired even a 10 inch Dob became a
hassle to move about, but then I brought the 6 inch and my observing time
doubled praticially overnight, its does what I want and its easy to setup.
Different stokes for different folks

Phil,

Your 6" sounds like it must be very easy to transport and set up. How do you
have it mounted?

Just with tube rings onto a Unistar Deluxe Mount see
http://www.darwinastronomy.com/telescopes.htm

Phil

"Bill Tschumy" wrote in message
. com...
On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 12:43:39 -0600, Phil wrote
(in article ):


I get what I want from a 6 inch achromat scope, yes sometimes I want that
extra inch or two in aperture, but I'm not going to carry it outside if I
had it and the most important thing of all, my the time I spend observing
did start to decline, over worked and tired even a 10 inch Dob became a
hassle to move about, but then I brought the 6 inch and my observing time
doubled praticially overnight, its does what I want and its easy to
setup.
Different stokes for different folks

Phil,

Your 6" sounds like it must be very easy to transport and set up. How do
you
have it mounted?

quite as god as a RC, we will have to wait and see when they hit the market.
But finish is good, optics are good for their optical design, mounts are
good (not excellent only good) unless it's a LXD55 which is joke. Meade,
Celestron and others etc have made affordable good telescopes with a few

Interesting how you can call the LXD55 a joke, but not the CG5 or other
scopes which are the predecessors and identical in design. The LXD55
works as intended (despite the soft china aluminum) and includes the
best software on the market (autostar)... so... a joke? The OTA is made
in the USA and is made extremely well. Maybe you haven't owned one. If
you can find something similar in quality, size, and features for less
I'll eat my shoes. My 8" SN8 cost me $829 with autostar and six super
plossls. I sold it a year ago for my LX90 because I got tired of doing
gymnastics for the GEM.

-tom

Yes you are right, poor choice of words on my part, really the mount is
good, Its a joke that meade over loaded it with the 10 inch Shmit-Newt and 6
inch Refractor, same goes for a allot of companies and overloading mounts,
but I have to admit if you are careful with the balancing they work well, we
have a LXD55 10 SN and LXD55 6 inch refractor in our club and the owners
spend at least 1/4 of their night adjusting the balance on the scopes as
they go from one part of the sky to another to keep the goto accurate. One
thing the 10 inch SN OTA, optically, "WOW" I'm very impressed, I did
considering buying one of these packages just for the OTA and selling the
mount with a 4 inch f/10 achromat refractor that I have and no longer use, a
more sensible OTA for the mount. But I brought a VC200l instead

I like the CG5 mount allot, again I just question the logic of putting a 11
inch SCT on it, but with attention to balance it would be a nice visual
setup, allot of bang for ones dollar.

My personal choice for visual in Altz mounts, less fooling around and less
gymnastics at the eyepiece.

Phil

"vic20owner" wrote in message
.. .

quite as god as a RC, we will have to wait and see when they hit the
market. But finish is good, optics are good for their optical design,
mounts are good (not excellent only good) unless it's a LXD55 which is
joke. Meade, Celestron and others etc have made affordable good
telescopes with a few

Interesting how you can call the LXD55 a joke, but not the CG5 or other
scopes which are the predecessors and identical in design. The LXD55
works as intended (despite the soft china aluminum) and includes the best
software on the market (autostar)... so... a joke? The OTA is made in the
USA and is made extremely well. Maybe you haven't owned one. If you can
find something similar in quality, size, and features for less I'll eat my
shoes. My 8" SN8 cost me $829 with autostar and six super plossls. I
sold it a year ago for my LX90 because I got tired of doing gymnastics for
the GEM.

-tom

Phil wrote:
Yes you are right, poor choice of words on my part, really the mount is
good, Its a joke that meade over loaded it with the 10 inch Shmit-Newt and 6
inch Refractor, same goes for a allot of companies and overloading mounts,
but I have to admit if you are careful with the balancing they work well, we
have a LXD55 10 SN and LXD55 6 inch refractor in our club and the owners
spend at least 1/4 of their night adjusting the balance on the scopes as
they go from one part of the sky to another to keep the goto accurate. One
thing the 10 inch SN OTA, optically, "WOW" I'm very impressed, I did
considering buying one of these packages just for the OTA and selling the
mount with a 4 inch f/10 achromat refractor that I have and no longer use, a
more sensible OTA for the mount. But I brought a VC200l instead

I like the CG5 mount allot, again I just question the logic of putting a 11
inch SCT on it, but with attention to balance it would be a nice visual
setup, allot of bang for ones dollar.

My personal choice for visual in Altz mounts, less fooling around and less
gymnastics at the eyepiece.

Phil

I agree with the overloading issue of the GP clones. The altaz for
visual is also right on, unless you are really into planet observing. I
still demand tracking for planets. While my 12.5" Meade mirror based Dob
is absolutely awesome for planet images, the Dob mount doesn't lend
itself well to that work.

So I now also have a GP-C102-ED (Vixen 4" F9 ED on GP) for planets and
moon. This scope is easily capable of 70x per inch, and only the best
(rare) nights here in New England allow planet observing at higher than
200x in any aperture, so this scope is a perfect trade off in
portability and image quality.

I added GoTo and a 2" steel leg tripod to the GP mount (taken from the
new Celestron Advanced Series GT mount), and am now trying to work out
what 8" aperture scope I will put on top. An 8" F5 Newt is the limit of
weight (15 lbs, not including finder and eyepiece) and length (32") in
my opinion as a visual instrument. I can't imagine a C11 or even a C9.25
on this mount, so I'm thinking a C8 (had one of these OTAs in the past
and it performed admirably given the limitations you describe in your
original post).

OTOH, The 4" F9 refractor is a rock on the GP with 2" steel legs. A good
rap on the OTA settles in the time you can say, "one thousand one". Toss
in the binoviewer, and there's little reason to use any other scope,
unless you want to go really "deep". There are a lot of objects to enjoy
in a 4" aperture scope with high quality optics.

-Stephen Paul

I had chance to play with the CG5 carrying a 9.25 for a night and tried
serval OTA's on it, the mount was at its absolute limit with the 9.25, the
saviour is the stainless steal tripod legs. Again balance was the key. My
VC200l was better on the mount, but still not what I would call a
Astrophotography setup, but it handled my FS102 tak and 150mm f/5 refactor
very well. It is certainly better than the LXD55 and in my opinion just
that bit better than the LXD75 mount. There is a good review on these three
mount head to head on http://www.cloudynights.com/premium2/Mounts.htm

Nice thing about the CG5 is you can buy it without a OTA

Those Vixen EDs are nice, had a chance to look through a 114mm, I think it
was an f/5.5, not bad at all for such a fast ED scope, very very impressive,
I nearly bought a Vixen102 ED f6.5 after that night, but had a good month at
work and decided to spoil myself with the Tak instead. To be honest I wish
I had brought the 102 f/6.5 ED now, the Tak is so near perfect for a
telescope of its type and size, but considering how much I use it, for half
the price I could have had the ED, which would have been nice with my VC200l
on my EQ6 instead of the 100mm f/5 achromat. Oh well at lest I have one
hell of an APO.

Now if Vixen will just make a 150mm f5~f/6.5 ED, I would be first in line.

Phil

"Stephen Paul" wrote in message
...
Phil wrote:
Yes you are right, poor choice of words on my part, really the mount is
good, Its a joke that meade over loaded it with the 10 inch Shmit-Newt
and 6 inch Refractor, same goes for a allot of companies and overloading
mounts, but I have to admit if you are careful with the balancing they
work well, we have a LXD55 10 SN and LXD55 6 inch refractor in our club
and the owners spend at least 1/4 of their night adjusting the balance on
the scopes as they go from one part of the sky to another to keep the
goto accurate. One thing the 10 inch SN OTA, optically, "WOW" I'm very
impressed, I did considering buying one of these packages just for the
OTA and selling the mount with a 4 inch f/10 achromat refractor that I
have and no longer use, a more sensible OTA for the mount. But I brought
a VC200l instead

I like the CG5 mount allot, again I just question the logic of putting a
11 inch SCT on it, but with attention to balance it would be a nice
visual setup, allot of bang for ones dollar.

My personal choice for visual in Altz mounts, less fooling around and
less gymnastics at the eyepiece.

Phil

I agree with the overloading issue of the GP clones. The altaz for visual
is also right on, unless you are really into planet observing. I still
demand tracking for planets. While my 12.5" Meade mirror based Dob is
absolutely awesome for planet images, the Dob mount doesn't lend itself
well to that work.

So I now also have a GP-C102-ED (Vixen 4" F9 ED on GP) for planets and
moon. This scope is easily capable of 70x per inch, and only the best
(rare) nights here in New England allow planet observing at higher than
200x in any aperture, so this scope is a perfect trade off in portability
and image quality.

I added GoTo and a 2" steel leg tripod to the GP mount (taken from the new
Celestron Advanced Series GT mount), and am now trying to work out what 8"
aperture scope I will put on top. An 8" F5 Newt is the limit of weight (15
lbs, not including finder and eyepiece) and length (32") in my opinion as
a visual instrument. I can't imagine a C11 or even a C9.25 on this mount,
so I'm thinking a C8 (had one of these OTAs in the past and it performed
admirably given the limitations you describe in your original post).

OTOH, The 4" F9 refractor is a rock on the GP with 2" steel legs. A good
rap on the OTA settles in the time you can say, "one thousand one". Toss
in the binoviewer, and there's little reason to use any other scope,
unless you want to go really "deep". There are a lot of objects to enjoy
in a 4" aperture scope with high quality optics.

-Stephen Paul