Mars tonight, C-8 vs. APO!

Horse Feathers wrote:
The venerable C8 is hard to beat especially the newer better ones.
Cheap, low weight/portable, ...... the list is endless. What I regret is
there never was a Scope of the Century appointment made in 1999
or perhaps it would have been the C8.


***Why do you think the newer ones are better?
What way? Opticly or over all?
JS





szaki wrote:


Had a peak at Mars around 2 am tonight, still low on the horizon. Just
bought an older, used C-8 SCT Faststar OTA, want it to try it out.
Also, compare it to my C-102F APO.
C-8 is pretty sharp, seems brighter than the 4" APO, looking at the
stars around Mars in comparison. Mars didn't show much details, it was
blazing in both scopes, may be the APO was less flaring.
I can tell, Mars has it's phases, only 2/3 of the planet was showing.
Moon was very nice in both scopes, very sharp in the C-8 too.
I'll keep playing with the C-8, very compact scope for an 8"-er.
Can be used for wide field f/2 imaging too with the right accessories
and CCD.
Julius

I don't know if the C8 deserves the "scope of the century" award. I would
vote for one of those little refractors that are sold at Wal-Mart for $50
that produce images that are as good as the Hubble Space Telescope. They
sure have sold more of those than any other scope! Seriously, I would
probably vote for the C9.25 since it has consistently good optics and
provides better images than the C8, or possibly a Dobsonian because you get
a lot of bang for the buck.

-mij



"Horse Feathers" wrote in message
...
The venerable C8 is hard to beat especially the newer better ones.
Cheap, low weight/portable, ...... the list is endless. What I regret is
there never was a Scope of the Century appointment made in 1999
or perhaps it would have been the C8.

...

szaki wrote:

Had a peak at Mars around 2 am tonight, still low on the horizon. Just
bought an older, used C-8 SCT Faststar OTA, want it to try it out.
Also, compare it to my C-102F APO.
C-8 is pretty sharp, seems brighter than the 4" APO, looking at the
stars around Mars in comparison. Mars didn't show much details, it was
blazing in both scopes, may be the APO was less flaring.
I can tell, Mars has it's phases, only 2/3 of the planet was showing.
Moon was very nice in both scopes, very sharp in the C-8 too.
I'll keep playing with the C-8, very compact scope for an 8"-er.
Can be used for wide field f/2 imaging too with the right accessories
and CCD.
Julius