Look what the postie dropped off today.

[brian nordstrom]

Well I just could not help myself , being a refractor junky grabbed me one of these little beauties .
Yes a cardboard box ..:lol: , with a nice little alloy case inside ,,, I wonder ?

Brian.

[brian nordstrom]

:D What can it be ? ,, Woaw :eyepop: look at this ,, nice .
Brian.

[brian nordstrom]

Cool , look at this :D even my Takahashi SKY90 dwarf's it its so cute !!! ;) , I just want to hold it , its like a kitten , just so cuddly ,, its so sweet .
But seriously this is a solid, well made little telescope .
Brian.

[brian nordstrom]

;) Couple more to show how small this scope really is .

Brian.

[brian nordstrom]

:thumbsup: Now the guts of the scope , its beautiful 60mm f7 triplet lens , very well baffled tube , exquisite coatings , buttery smooth 360* rotatable 11/1 focuser , just beautiful but it will be getting a thorough work out tonight on the moon , Saturn and some southern milky way delights and I will report back tomorrow on how it performs ... man I love Tax time ;) .

Brian

[brian nordstrom]

:D Here it is on my Vixen SP mount , not to taxing on it I think .
Hope you all enjoyed these words and photos , its like Christmas time :thumbsup:.

Brian.

[cometcatcher]

I suspected it was a LP as soon as I saw the case.

An F7 triplet, it should be a fine scope.

[Regulus]

Will be interested in your report. It certainly has the looks.
Trev
ps Just checked the price! Nice. Got me thinking one of those might make a nice prime focus telephoto on the eos600D (576mm tele at f6 - nice)

[Larryp]

Look forward to a report, Brian :thumbsup:

[brian nordstrom]

:) Well the poor little thing has got a lot to aspire to because as seen here its going up against the mighty SKY90 tonight , looking forward to it .
I can max out at 140x using my 3mm TV Radian , still nothing to sneeze at , report coming.

Brian

[FlashDrive]

Look at the size of those focuser ' knobs ' :lol:
It looks quite the piece .... top little grab & go ....Triplet to boot to.

Col......:D

[SkyWatch]

Looks great,
I have often wondered how they perform, so looking forward to hearing a report! :thumbsup:

All the best,

Dean

[brian nordstrom]

:D Well I just come in from first light with the nice new LP 60mm f7 triplet , I had to pack it in because my toes are freezing ;).

Ok so how did the LP perform ? , very well actually , I had forgotten how nice a 60mm scope can perform and this little beauty is no exception , thankfully :), but no it throws up a nice image , nowhere as bright as the Takahashi sky90 for sure but it was not embarrassed in any way , quite the conatry it held its own up to about 140x , not bad at all , don't forget this is 54x per inch of aperture .

Now on to the moon at 17.5x (TV 24mm Pan) it was tack sharp , earth shine very bright and surrounding stars easily seen , showing that the baffling works well , nice .
Upping the powers steadily using 14mm down to 3mm Radians to the max of 140x showed how little light 60mm is , at 100x still sharp and bright but at 120x still sharp but dimming somewhat and 140 is enough , still very nice tho.

Saturn at 100x-140x was also very good , cassini's division seen but the image scale is small as 420mm is to short and you run out of short fl eyepieces quickly , it was a nice image all the same .

Mars was a different story , it remained very bright all the way up to the 140x max , polar cap seen , and ZERO CA !!. seen in and out of focus , both sides clean ,, impressive as Mars is a killer for showing CA in any refractor not a true APO , I would rate this little beauty a true APO , no question about it :thumbsup:.; see photo .

Deep sky was very nice as well with my 24mm TV Panoptic , flat field and sharp to the edge , a very good scope for this giving its only 60mm ( 2.4 inches ) aperture .

Beta Centauri was used at 140x to test the optics , for starters , ZERO CA !! seen here , outside focus showed perfect diffraction patterns , inside showed a brighter outer ring , small difference in the patterns , but both perfectly round and concentric , I would say slight over correction to at least 1/4- 1/6th wave , very , very good for a scope at this level , not as good as my now sold Tak FS60C but at 1/5th the price I ain't complaining .nice :) impressive results .
No zones seen .

Alpha Centauri was a clean split with black sky between them at 140x , ( zero CA again ) and its getting close , 2 perfect aeiry discs surrounded by overlapping diffraction rings one bright and one very faint , a pleasing image .
Alpha Crux was also cleanly split like A Centauri but not as bright so only one ring around the intervidual stars , again a very nice image .

Ok , this is only the first test from the middle of a city , fairly dark but I will test this sweet scope out at our dark sky night soon :question: .

These are 2 of the best moon shots taken tonight , about 85x and 65x respectively , and the Mars shot at 140x showing the lack of CA , again high tech Nokia 1020 hand held over the eyepiece :lol: great stuff.

Feel free to ask any questions and I will answer them if I can :thumbsup:.

Brian.

[el_draco]

Ah ha, Seek Help.....:lol::lol:

[FlashDrive]

Good all round review Brian .... sounds like a winner for a very decent G&G Scope without a huge price tag.

Col . . .

[SkyWatch]

Thanks Brian, nice report, and the scope sounds great.

It would be interesting to see how it performs against the TV or Tak 60's.

Hope the toes are warmer now. :)

- Dean

[brian nordstrom]

:D Thanks guys , I see you are all 'Refractorholics' like me :lol: , reflector owners would not understand that in a fit of madness selling my Takahashi FS60C and Zeiss telementor ll , the 2 best 60mm class scopes ever made the reason for even contemplating a scope so small ???:eyepop: ,,,. Dean its probably about 95% of my old FS60C , pretty damn good I think as I said ,, for the price .
I have been wanting one to replace these for a while now and this looks to fit the bill nicely good price , excellent Long Perng build , you can never fault this and HOW :shrug: do they do it at this price point , its just so well made , anyway very good optics and so cuddly ( :rofl: sorry Rom , I feel your cringe ) this little beauty fits the bill perfectly .

And yes as Trevor points out it would make an excellent telephoto for prime focus AP , it has a threaded on visual back that looks the same as the ambigious SCT visual back so there are plenty of adaptors available , a nice touch I think .

One more set of photos , all set up ready to hunt down and devour some NGC thingies ,,, sorry reflectorholics , could not help that .;) .


The only real negative is the colour !!! I like the black finish ,, but MAN !!!:help: is it a 'Finger Print Magnet' or what ? I looked this morning and its covered ,, oh well at least it comes with a cleaning rag ,, sigh .....
Brian.

[brian nordstrom]

Having a play around as its raining :sadeyes: here at the moment , and tried my old 6x30 Celestron finder off my C9.25 and I know its rough and ready but I will fabricate an alloy block to weld onto the finder bracket and screw to the hole in the rotating finder , it will work ok I think .

Geez , less than one day and I am tinkering with it ,,:lol: .
I know Flash ;) I have not cleaned the finger prints off yet :hi: , a real print magnet for sure .

Brian.

[brian nordstrom]

While I am at it here is the threaded visual back , strange sort of accessory on a refractor , perhaps they were thinking of astro photography :shrug: , its no big deal , just different .

It measures M50x1 , is this a standard thread ? I would not know .

Brian.

[LewisM]

SCT thread.

Standard too with some William Optics "little'uns", which is hardly surprising considering LP makes them for WO. My Stars and Bars commemorative had it.

[Regulus]

Thx Brian, a useful report.
The touch of gold on it is nice.
Does a T-Adapter screw straight on to that thread? That would be handy.
I think I would be happy parting with $499 for one of these, it looks to perform quite nicely. And I can spend rainy days polishing the finger marks off :-)
Trev

[MortonH]

Very nice report, Brian. :thumbsup:

I was wondering if these scopes had the same optics as the Astro-Tech AT60EDT, which got so-so reviews, but your scope sounds like the business! :D

[brian nordstrom]

:) Trevor , I just tried my Maxxum T adaptor that I use on my Sony Alpha DSLR and it was to small , about 44mm .
Lewis might be able to help here ? .
Morton , I think these new LP's are a totally new design , they are different to the earlier models , just look at the interphase join where the focuser joins the main OTA , that larger diameter ( female ) piece is gone , the focuser is threaded directly into the OTA , via that nice gold ring Trevor spotted :thumbsup: , its a well made scope in all ways .
I like it .
The sliding dew shield is a different shape as well .
Brian.