Quote:
Originally Posted by Kal
Don't get too carried away with the carbon fibre tube. Theres a reason why the high end APO makers don't use CF. CF doesn't contract when it cools down, which is great for minimising focus shift in a SCT, but in a refractor the glass in your lens also contracts changing the focus point, and with an aluminium tube the changing focus point is negated mostly by the contracting tube. CF in a refractor may look good and be lighter, but it won't perform better.
For purely imaging, a tak FSQ-85 would be nice, it will give you a large flat imaging circle of 60mm which will easily cover a 35mm DSLR chip or a large CCD chip. For a non-petzvel scope, you need to factor in a focal reducer/field flattener into the price, and you will usually not get an as large imaging circle, particularly if you are using a 2" reducer/corrector. So think about what size chip you are going to image on.
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The CF tube I wasn't particularly bothered about, it seemed more like a novelty with no tangible benefits beyond OTA weight reduction. From what I've been hearing though it's got some of the best optics WO have created. That was my interest in the scope. I'd be using an eos 400d as the camera for now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by monoxide
you can get a tak fs102 ota for 3.5k but you'll probably want the reducer too which would bring it up to ~4k
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I've been looking more into tak scopes. I haven't been able to find any Australian distributors yet though, and 2nd hand scopes seem to be hard to come by as well. If they are really worth the extra cash I might be able to live on Maggie chicken noodles for a few more weeks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rally
You dont mention if you want wide field or DSO or something in the middle.
Some suggestions
2nd hand Tak FSQ106 in the $3000+ range - add an Extender for your Xmas present.
But you might also consider a 2nd hand Tak Epsilon 160 or maybe even 180 which is also achievable in that price range for a fast widefield option.
All of those scopes can provide a flat image field for 35mm format cameras or other Astro CCDs
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In the middle would be nice. The idea was to have a nice imaging scope that I could also fit in the car and go walkabout with. I'd be using it for visual observing too but not as much. I have a 12 inch dob hanging around somewhere for that.