Quote:
Originally Posted by doug mc
My biggest disapointments were with the 5 and 6inch acro refractors. After being amazed looking through a 4inch f/15 Unitron refractor back in the late seventies, on returning to this hobby in 2002, i drooled over the big acros. After using 4,5 and 6inch f/8 to f/10 units, i found the average 6 to 8inch newts were much better. I currently have an Celestron C8 new, and a 8inch f/6 eq. mounted newt with a Parkes mirror in it. No substitute for quality i guess. I really did want those acros to work. The worst scope i had was my first main one, a KMart 114 eq reflector. I discovered the secondary was distorted by too much by back pressure in the mounting, pushing it against the two points on its major axis. Replaced it with a new one by mounting it with double sided foam tape. With the secondary bent along the minor axis it showed stars as crosses at focus. The C8 has very good optics, and on a eq5, is a comfortable observing experence.
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Very interesting about those big achromats.
Good to see another fellow K-mart Focal 114mm owner. As I mentioned below, it only took me ten years to get it collimated correctly (we didn't have the internet back then), but when I did so, and put a 6X30 finder on it, it became a joy to use. I still have it, and I especially enjoy the 4 spikes on each star - gives me the feel of those astrophotos from big research telescopes I used to see published when I was growing up.
On the positive side, though rudimentary, the instructions with that telescope did tell you about collimation. I bought a good quality 5" reflector in Italy seven years ago. But it was out of collimation and I fixed it in 3 minutes. However, when I looked at its otherwise very comprehensive manual, it did not mention collimation once.
Cheers,
Renato