C9.25 where to get one?

[EzyStyles]

Hi guys,

I have decided to hunt down a C9.25 . After many frustrating nights with my current 8" F/4 newt, coma's, collimation, etc etc my brain hurts and im too confused and exhausted from mucking around with the scope. I have tried many hours for the past 3 nights, days (easily 40+) rotating the secondary mirror, pushing it, twisting it, taking every possible bits off the scope mirror cell, spider, focuser still can't get it right. I just want a scope where i can wack onto my EQ6 mount without any sort of issues. im planning to switch to SCT. Where abouts can I get one for a reasonable price? and just to be certain, it definitely can handle the EQ6 + maybe 80ed guidescope on the way?

Thanks.

[ballaratdragons]

Eric, Andrews is the cheapest on the C9.25 to my knowledge.

He sells them as a package, or just the OTA, or just the Carbon-Fibre OTA.

Package: C9.25-SGT 9.25" Go-To XLT 235mm x 2350mm
# Includes Starbright XLT ultra-high transmission coatings
# 6 x 30 finderscope
# 25mm E-LUX eyepiece
# 1.25" star diagonal
# CG-5 Go-To equatorial mount with 50mm steel tripod legs
# "The Sky - Level 1" CD-ROM
C9.25-SGT XLT package includes;
9.25" aperture Schmidt-Cassegrain OTA with Starbright XLT coatings, 6 x 30 finderscope, 25mm E-Lux eyepiece (94x mag.), 1.25" star diagonal, 1.25" visual back (C11 SCT has 2" visual back), "The Sky - Level 1" CD ROM, Heavy duty CG-5, German equatorial mount with dual-axis slew motors and a computerised hand controller which has a 40,000+ object database, car battery adaptor, rugged adjustable height 50mm dia. steel leg tripod with centre brace and accessory tray, plus two 5kg. counterweights.
PRICE - $3699.00 AUD

Or just the OTA's
C9.25-A OTA only...$2699 AUD

C9.25-CF Carbon Fibre OTA only...$2799 AUD

He also has a much dearer one with GPS:
CGE 925 XLT
9.25" (235mm x 2350mm)
with Go-To and GPS
$8999.00 AUD

* Features CGE equatorial mount.
* Starbright XLT ultra-high transmission coatings
* 6 x 30 finderscope
* 25mm E-LUX eyepiece
* 1.25" star diagonal
* CG-5 Go-To equatorial mount with 50mm steel tripod legs
* "The Sky - Level 1" CD-ROM

Take ya pick Eric. :thumbsup:

[Starkler]

I think Erik needs a 2" visual back. Are these available for the c9.25?

Another maybe preferable option could be the Vixen VC200L ( I think )

[EzyStyles]

thanks ken for the info. most probably just the OTA without any accessories. hmmm i wonder if overseas will be cheaper? but darn the import tax law. actually the vixen VC200L is quite nice. i have seen great pics taken with it. it is only 8" though..

[Dennis]

Hi Eric

Hmm, just tread carefully Eric, your dreams may come true and you could end up owning a C9.25. Then, the problems will really begin! ;)


The C9.25 has a native focal length of 2350mm and with the F6.3 Reducer/Corrector that comes down to 1500mm and even on my (very expensive) Takahashi EM200 mount, I end up throwing away half my images due to non-round stars on long exposures even whilst auto guiding.
The C9.25 will still require collimation, although once mastered is quite straight forward.
The corrector plate is vulnerable to dew – you will need dew heaters as well as the dew shield.


So, the C9.25 will offer you many challenges and I believe an instrument in this class is unlikely to just plug and play “onto my EQ6 mount without any sort of issues”.

Cheers

Dennis

[Striker]

Eric you will be struggleing finding an overseas retailer sending you Meade or Celestron products...there not allowed and simply for the cost you pay here now it's not worth it for a C9.25...better of buying localy with a warranty.

SCT's have there own problems so your not out of the woods.

If you want a low maintenance easy to use scope get a APO refractor...no mirror flop...no collimation and no cool down needed....light and portable....but you pay for it.

[iceman]

Wise words from knowledgeable folk there, Eric.

Remember, if this imaging thing was easy, everyone would be doing it and getting fantastic results.

You've only been doing it for a short time, and already you've made outstanding progress. Don't try and move too fast and expect it all to come easy.

Every instrument has its own challenges, to go with its benefits.

[[1ponders]]

Another option Eric is to move to a slightly slower newt. Even an f/5 newt will be much faster than an SCT (3.3 reducer excluded, which won't be any good with a 350D anyway) and the vast majority of refractors. At f/5 you may find you don't have to fight the collimation at much and you can still use your existing coma correctors etc.

[JohnG]

Eric, you say you are getting an ED80, before jumping in and spending a lot of money, why not just use the refractor for a while and gauge the results.

What has already been said is good advice and I would take note of it before jumping in the deep end and committing to something you may not like.

Cheers

JohnG

[EzyStyles]

cheers guys thanks for the reply. i was playing around with collimation last night and now it seems fine.. :shrug: well better than before.. good idea john, might just try the ed80 first. arhh why couldnt they make scopes with fixed mirrors.. ... .. ..

[JohnH]

You will still have some coma on a C9.25, less, sure but it is there, the refractor suggested will also suffer from this, you can crop to remove it of course...

The flatest fields I know of (at reasonable $$$) are the Meade R series and the VC200L, you might consider swapping appature for flatness - imaging does not require big scopes for great results (eg ED80!). The C9.25 is very highly rated for planetary and imaging work and was on my shortlist (Meade R was not out at the time)...SCT folks still seem to have to play with collimation a fair bit plus you have the corrector plate (and associated dew and cooldown issues).

The VC200L has an industrial strength spider - and I have not had any need to tweak mine (yet)...it has a very flat field, open OTA, a fixed mirror...just about optimised for imaging. Is it perfect - no - the central obstruction is large as are the spider vanes reducing contrast/details on planets, the rack and pinion focuser is not great and the focus lock causes image shift.

There is another problem with any of these - they are all about F10 so your tracking will HAVE to be much better to get round stars - you will need a focal reducer.

This is a tough hill to climb im my experiance...

[janoskiss]

Because of the level of precision required such a scope would be a lot heavier. And materials expand and contract with changing temperatures and the bigger the scope the more sensitive the structure will be to climate. It's much easier and more practical to make scopes with collimatable optics. I'm sure you already got the hang of collimation, and you just got distracted by the 2ndry offset discussion and did some nasty things to your collimation in the process (looking at your last photo thru the focuser in the other thread) despite your better judgement (and you did not listen to me :poke: :D).

You would probably enjoy using the ED80 very much. Unless you want to get into planetary imaging, for which your DSLR will not be so useful, I don't see much point to a C9.25.

[bird]

Let me say something about collimation and newtonians...

I've only ever owned newtonians, bought the first one in about 1990, and I've designed and built two more up to the present.

Nowadays I'm quite happy with collimation, and I don't find it intimidating any more but for a long time I found collimation very puzzling. It seemed to me that it should be a simple idea (align this mirror with that, centre this in the focusser, etc ) but whenever I tried these simple things I always ended up with some parts of the system that weren't concentric, and most times I came away with more questions in my mind about whether or not I was doing the right thing.

This is the sort of confusion I see in other people as well, puzzlement that such a simple-sounding idea can be tricky to do in practice.

My $0.02 worth is that the basic problem comes from the wrong assumption that collimation is simple to understand and do without really paying attention. Just having this idea in your head means that you'll more than likely do things in the wrong order, or not understand which reflections should be concentric and which ones shouldn't.

Let me say this - collimation *is* easy, provided that you do things in the right order *and* you understand about secondary offset (whether or not you choose to do it) and what reflections should be concentric with the focusser and which ones shouldn't.

Just doing *one* thing out of order when collimating will invalidate the whole process and more than likely end up with a scope performing badly. Collimation is a sequential process with lots of steps (if you're starting from the beginning) and you absolutely have to do them in the right order.

If you haven't yet taken the time to learn these two important things about colimation then you're doomed to forever go in circles without really knowing what you're doing. I was like that for many years until I finally got fed up with it and knuckled down to understand what I was supposed to be doing.

As far as I'm concerned everyone who wants to collimate a newtonian should have a copy of Vic Menards book on collimation (co-authored by Tippy D'Auria) called "New Perspectives on Newtonian Collimation", it's a small paperback, google for it and you'll find it. It's cheap and well worth it.

There are also many websites around that explain both the theory and practice of collimation, with pictures to show what you should be seeing. Yes, they can seem confusing, but print them out and leave them where you can keep looking at them and sooner or later the light will go on.

If you own a newtonian then you really have to understand how to collimate it, otherwise you'll be forever stuck with poor images until you trade it in for a refractor :-)

regards, Bird

[mick pinner]

l agree with the above comments completely, this comment may or may not be relevant to you so take it for what you will.
Through my limited experience with telescopes and optics most relatively new amateurs and l suspect some seasoned amateurs don't know the difference between an ordinary image and an image produced by a telescope that is set up to work at it's maximum potential.
When l first recieved my Meade without any prior experience l looked through the ep and thought wow this is amazing, after viewing through a few others l thought that the images in mine looked soft in comparison and so took it to be serviced and thereby get it to work at it's full potential, after getting it back my impression was how much better is this, sharper images and much better contrast.
l was satisfied until a couple of nights ago when a generous experienced person kindly offered to have a look at my scope and give their appraisal, after the comment "average" and a thorough re-collimation the views are outstanding, my point being unless you know what you're chasing you will never get it, you have to know how to make your scope work for you and not expect a scope to just work.

[EzyStyles]

cheers guys and thanks bird for your informed reply. I made up my mind and got strikers ED80. Will test that out first before anymore playing around with the 8" F/4.