With impending arrival of my ATM 12" CDK I have to make some room.
So my workhorse 10" f/4.7 Newtonian goes on sale. It was my main imaging instrument from my backyard, paired with a Vixen guide scope (also for sale) on my massive homemade equatorial.
The OTA has been reinforced where it counts (around primary and focuser), and has very beefy rings. It will NOT flex or sag! I have used separate guide scope and never seen any signs of flexure (admittedly I could never go for longer that 15min subs because of light pollution).
Of course, it will require a coma corrector for astrophotography work; Paracorr 1 will cover APS size chips nicely, as will MPCC.
Optics are clean and of very high quality. Mirrors are smooth and scope was Roddier tested with Strehl well into mid 90's.
Now, not many people will have a mount to carry such beast, so I am offering this scope as a Dob too. Dob mount has been a homemade job, but with highest quality materials and workmanship - marine grade ply, Ebony Star formica, teflon, polyurethane varnish.
Large altitude sectors make for very nice and positive movements; rebalancing and tube rotation is also really quick - a matter of loosening a cradle and sliding the tube.
A high quality 1x finder (Quickfinder) is supplied.
The precision radiused and felt lined 10mm Aluminium blocks with straps are also included, if you are keen to mount it equatorially. Rings are beefy, but its contact area is small and they will flex there, no matter how precise or expensive they are. These blocks will keep it much more securely that ANY rings you can buy; period. In my application I used those rings to carry a Vixen guidescope. Main OTA was then secured using those blocks.
Price is $400 ono, which really is only a half price of a new (and inferior IMHO) commercial Dob.
Considering size and bulk this has to be pickup only (Melbourne). I'm also willing to deliver half way within 500km circle.
Some images done with a 10" above.
Jpegs are of course pretty bad quality as they have to be reduced; any interested parties please provide email address via PM and I can supply much higher quality images if requested.
it is 1175mm focal length, f/4.7 native. With Paracorr in my case it was working at 1352mm (effective f/5.4 ).
Personally, I don't think EQ6 would be quite enough. (I haven't tried it though)
On the other hand I've seen people put 12" Newtonians on EQ6 and actually do take decent deep sky shots, so I guess it really depends on how finicky one is.
