Thanks Adam. That is excellent info. Your post pretty much covers everything I wanted to know. Sounds like they are exceptionally good scopes for the money.
But I will have to mull it over (and I'll have plenty of time to do that because I won't have the funds any time soon to buy one) - whether to be lazy and buy something off-the-shelf or buy the optics and build most of the rest.
I am not that attracted by the GOTO, but more so by tracking. I quite enjoy doing things old school with star charts and star hopping my way to a target or just exploring a region of the sky visually. And these days there are also lots of other electronic aids for helping one navigate (tablet PCs, phones etc).
I guess will stick with my 10" for this year (or till winter's over at least
) and try and improve on that --- see if I can add tracking to the existing mount. I do have two capable stepper motors with controller boards and a Raspberry Pi 2 that has not seen much action yet. I am a little stumped though on how to mechanise/motorise the movement: along the alt-axis especially. Everything I've thought of so far (and seen others do) is either fairly cumbersome or flimsy.
But since having permanent access to some excellent dark skies (thanks to one of my in-laws), I am also very keen on eventually getting some more aperture and spending more time with the Cosmos. I am liking what I am seeing at
http://www.hubble-optics.com/ (I forgot about these guys till I linked one of their ebay ads in my earlier post, just from an old bookmark in my browser).
Quote:
Originally Posted by raymo
Great post Adam, but sadly, you omitted the o in Diarrhoea.
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I can never remember how to spell that word either.
