Quote:
Originally Posted by ving
so shes an astronomy widow hey 
keep up the good work. you'll find the colour will be better in the ED80 than the 120mm which will give false colour (due to not being an ED scope) |
Thanks David
I understand what you are saying about the Apo/ED vs the Achromat, but my decision simply came down to the following:
1. 120 was already on the mount and balanced.
2. Time was against me and so was the wife.
3. I was also interested on how it would perform, I only bought this scope a month back (secondhand) from another IIS member. I actually bought it for the WO 10:1 microfocuser which in the end needed stripping and repairing. I recently stripped it down (the scope completely including the focuser), took apart the objective (I hear you all gasp) and cleaned it. Then put it backed together. Now don't get me wrong taking apart an objective is not my cup of tea and I did a lot of preying
. But the lens had a lot of dirt and watermarks externally as well as some fungus between the objective. Whilst I originally only really bought it for its focuser, I am now quite happy with it as a complete package. Not bad for $300 bucks
.
4. Also aperture fever got hold of me a little when comparing it to the ED80!
I was quite happy with the images I got last night. Especially when all I did was grab the mount from the shed, look to what I thought was south and plonked it down. No fiddling with a compass or polar scope just a complete guess. Turned on the Goto system and entered date etc. Did not do any kind of Goto alignment, ignored it. Set tracking to sidereal rate on the synscan controller. Loosened the RA and Dec and swung manually to first object, which was M42, and let tracking do its business. Oh and hoped for the best
!
The rest is history and I feel it was some of my best imaging. Funny how things work out
.
Regards
Gav