Quote:
Originally Posted by Benjamin
I've just been trying out a Skywatcher f9 ED100 on an AZ4 mount with aluminum legs. Can easily move it all in one go. The steel legged mount would be more stable but the Al is lighter and can go lower (which suits my daughter). Vibrations only lasted a second or two at 225x. It seems, at this early stage of trying it out, it's a very nice compliment to the 12" Dob. The views of Jupiter and Saturn were excellent and it picked up M8 well enough without a filter (I'm about 7km from Brisbane's city center). I wouldn't get rid of the bigger Dob but adding a nice ED refractor offers lovely crisp views of brighter objects, could be used for photography if you wanted to get a tracking mount later (although f9 is quite slow), isn't too heavy, doesn't need to cool down like the Dob or collimating, and with an AZ mount you're viewing in seconds. Might be better AZ mounts too but I'm happy with the AZ4 :-)
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I have several AZ mounts, but as always, I have been on a long quest for the perfect mount. I have had the same AZ4 with alum legs for about 10 days and am happy with it. It is amazingly light, but handles my Vixen 115mm without feeling like it is under strain. (Although, I have not pushed beyond 130x as the seeing here is not great). Strange really, because I really had my doubts about quality when I first assembled it.
I often use scopes under 100mm and gain much pleasure from doing so. However, this is a compromise as I normally will not bring out out my quality gear when humidity is high, which in this area is from the beginning of Jan to the end of April.
Having said that, I did agree that 100mm is the magic point where refractors start to give really great views.
So, I whole-heartily agree with the previous advise.