The age old question: What telescope to purchase?

[shelltree (Shelley)]

Thanks Brendan, that did really help a lot And the great thing about getting the 10" also is I can get it from Sirius Optics for $795 and not have to stuff around with freight! And I can spend a little on a good ep! Time to get out my star ware book and read up some more on eye pieces and barlows.

[Jeeps (Sam)]

Today i bought a 10" skywatcher flex dob, the collapsible one in that nice black paint. I paid about the going price and took it home and set it up. This is my first 'proper' scope after playing for a few years with a terrible OTA on a horrible mount I'd been umm'ing and ahh'ing for quite some time on whether to get a small GOTO or something with a motor etc, but decided that i wanted aperture more than anything LOL

Took me about 45 minutes, maybe more to completely pull it all out of the boxes and set it up. I'm very impressed with the build quality. It needed colimation but with my new laser colimator it was only a 60 second job after being shown how to do it in the shop. This model has nice big knobs on the primary mirror and I wonder if i can get knobs for the secondary? It's far more heavy and bulky than i anticipated! I think i'll get a hand trolley eventually...

Out it came tonight and i let it cool for an hour and went back out and low and behold in the hour it had clouded over. Never mind, it cleared within 10 minutes, as it does here on the mountains. Well the moon is almost full so it took up the whole sky but with the standard ep's and a cheap barlow the detail was outstanding, but i need a moon filter as it's FAR too bright! Craters within craters were easily seen with the 10mm & barlow. Eventually jupiter rose in the east and with the standard 25mm a faint cloud band or two could be seen as could 4-5 moons. With the standard 10mm ep &/or barlow it wasn't too crash hot either due to cloud, the moon or the quality of the 10mm ep. Maybe it was simply still too low on the horizon. The cloud came back so i called it a night and collapsed the dob, carried it up into the house quite easily, although slowly as it weighs a ton!

Overall i'm very happy with the dob, but i can't wait till i get a moonless night. I now need to learn up and invest in some decent eyepieces

cheers

[Colin_Fraser]

Lucky bugger

The scope I have my eyes on will not be available until September

[shelltree (Shelley)]

Thanks for sharing your experience with a 10" Sam, just makes me even more excited and impatient about getting it!!

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

10" is a nice little scope Just be sure to buy a laser collimator and a cheshire eye piece. these are 2 pieces of equipment that every beginner should have from day dot when using Newtonians. without them a newt is next to useless.

[shelltree (Shelley)]

Thanks mate, I'll add that to the list, I was going to ask them about the laser collimators when I go to purchase it, I hope they can give me a run down of how it's done too!

[Esseth (Alan)]

First time i did it, i was watching (and pausing quite often) this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME-CBtemo7Q

[shelltree (Shelley)]

Bookmarked! Thanks for that

[shelltree (Shelley)]

I tell you, as soon as I made the ultimate decision to get the 10" Dob, my money was sabotaged by debt and necessities I'd rather not pay for. Plus, it's been raining ALL week, I mean, c'mon!

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

just bite the bullet hehehe sometimes you gotta live off noodles for a week to get what you want!

[shelltree (Shelley)]

I'm living off soup and safety pinning my pants back together but alas I despise credit cards and don't own one myself so I can't make a terrible/awesome decision.

[Jeeps (Sam)]

Originally Posted by shelltree

Thanks for sharing your experience with a 10" Sam, just makes me even more excited and impatient about getting it!!

No problem! Just be aware of the weight of the thing! I seperate it and place the tube on a bean bag, carry the base out and then the tube last. I live in a dark sky location with no street lights however lots of trees so i find i need to move around the yard a fair bit to see north for example. I live in a quiet cul-de-sac so i often just setup in the middle of the bitumen road and have all night without a car coming past It does seem to go out of collimation every night... ?

Originally Posted by bmitchell82

10" is a nice little scope Just be sure to buy a laser collimator and a cheshire eye piece. these are 2 pieces of equipment that every beginner should have from day dot when using Newtonians. without them a newt is next to useless.

I've got a laser collimator but not a cheshire. Is there any reason i should get a cheshire as well?



The rain is bugging me but so is the moon. I can't wait for a dark night! Although with the full moon blazing away on sunday i did pick up M7, NCG6441 (above scorpio), Cru cluster (above crux) but not much else. I don't know the sky well but i'm learning - i just need to get out there when the clouds clear.

Here's a pic of the new toy:


http://i421.photobucket.com/albums/p...r10inchdob.jpg



Now i need to start looking at expanding my eyepiece collection, getting filters... etc.

cheers

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

i use it as a redundancy system, don't always trust a laser they are not fix all tool that will always be right. on the other hand a set of cats eye collimation tools is but they are not as easy to use.

[shelltree (Shelley)]

I use to only have one street light on my street which would have been perfect but now there's another two lights that have been put up since the new estate across the road was built I can see most of the sky to the north from a particular spot in my backyard (consequently near where I'll be storing my telescope) but I can only see very well to the east from another spot in my backyard that has power lines above it So yes, I think I'll be moving it around a lot I just have to get use to all the creepy sounds of the night that come with living on acreage.

[Esseth (Alan)]

Id rather be on acreage and where i am sometimes... smack bang in the middle of Fortitude Valley...

Fun fun, i think it was only a 20-25sec exp

[shelltree (Shelley)]

Oh my, that's horrible I live about 40-45 minutes away from the city and at the end of a street and there's no one living next door at the moment ( have considered sneeking into their yard as it's higher ground but I don't think I'm capable of lugging a 10" Dob up a ladder and over a fence )

I'm pretty excited about getting my telescope!! When I can afford it...

[Peter S (Peter)]

I'm looking to buy my second scope. 1st was a 10" reflector. Too big for first scope given where i had to carry it to get to the viewing area. Also didn't know much about setting up a goto. very quickly disillusioned. 10 years later (abouts) i'm looking to a refractor. A TAK TSA 102S or a William Optics FLT 110. Both Triplets. I want to use my canon 7D off the back. But i want to do visual as well. one supplier tells me the TAK is really good at Astrophotography and not so good at Visual. He tells me his product is superior on both counts. The other tells me the TAK is all made in Japan and the other is make in Taiwan or China. 1 review mentioned that the glass on the WO is made in Russia, another says Taiwan. The seller tells me they are the same optics brand as the TAK (Japanese). I want a quality product (it's that time of life) and am happy to make the investment. Anyone got any ideas OR FACTS. Both are beautiful scopes, but how well made and how accurate is the collimination out of the box. Help please.