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I took about 30 minutes over lunch to take the 50 out into the bright and beautiful day.
Well, it works. Tripod is nothing to write home about but if you leave it collapsed it is not too bad as a table top. The alt/az is typical of my photo tripods I own. Hard to position accurately but the scope weighs nothing so the tripod is not carrying much. It was windy but I did not have a lot of trouble targeting it. Sometimes it was easier to rotate the tripod on the table than to use the releases to rotate it on the tripod. In any case it is steadier than I am with my binoculars.
I was targeted on house tops, phone poles and such that were about 600 feet away. The eyepieces came into focus fine. The 20 mm works OK, about 18X. The 8 mm, about 45X, is sharp enough fine but the image is quite dim. FOV of both is fairly narrow. I later compared to Plossls of similar, though not exactly the same FL. Clearly the Plossls had a wider FOV and are brighter.
The 3X barlow is worthless. I could not get it to come to focus in the 50 or in my ETX 80 with ether of the Hygens or my plossl eyepieces. Not even close. :4 It has a very small opening in a baffle about half way down the barrel. I have no idea if that could be the problem.
Can someone explain to me why all the baffles in this scope, the draw tube and the barlow? What is the supposed value of these baffles?
Using my Daytson 3X barlow I had no problem bringing the Hygens or the Plossls to focus in the 50 so it is the barlow, not the scope or the eyepieces.
I will try to get it out for a little while tonight if it is clear. Then I will start to plan the cutting and drilling. :flame:
I don't know how much value this would have as a target/spotting scope. If you are not going to move it much it might be OK.
With the 20 mm eyepiece it would be OK as a nature spotting scope but with a fairly narrow view. Maybe watching a bird's nest from a very stable location.
The 8 mm seems to be pushing the aperture even in the bright sun. Or, as suggested by Roger Vine in his review, the problem is all the unnecessary baffles. Well, I am going to remove them one by one and see what impact it has.
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