Saxon 200mm mak

[Terry B]

Dear All
I have noted this scope for sale but haven't found any reviews of it. There is a thread from last year about it but no actual review. Has anyone actually used the scope and what is it like?
Would my GP mount cope with the OTA?

[chris lewis]

Yes - keen to see a review. I assuming it is a 'Snyta' made scope. I have seen one in the flesh and it appeared well made with sharp optics in brief day time testing. The secondary appeared relatively small - good planatary scope one would think. It comes on a upgraded EQ-5 with optional dual drives plus option of Goto' on the EQ-5. Appears to be a less expensive option to the 'know' SCTs.

[weeasle]

Hi -

I meant to give you a little advice and it has turned into a mini-review ...

I bought a 150mm (6inch) maksutov from andrews last year for $999 with EQ5C mount. The scope was made by Ningbo JingHua Optics (mainland china) as evidenced by the instruction leaflet in the box. (http://en.cn-jinghua.com) This scope has been amazing value and performance (good star-test, good sharp detailed observing of jupiter/saturn up to 200x - would go higher but I'm in Sydney and conditions aren't the best most nights)
However, this scope has one major bugbear... The star diagonal has a non-standard thread so you can't replace it with a standard 2 inch visual back (ie. meade/ celestron SCT visual back)... The diagonal was very average... I ended up sanding back an orion 2in sct visual back and epoxying it in place... not for the faint of heart... Now at least I can use a top quality dielectric diagonal...

The reason I'm mentioning this long story is because I believe the 8 inch Saxon is made by the same manufacturer and has the same issue. I base this on three reasons; 1. The scopes bases look identicle (compared to photos on Saxon website), 2. On the Saxon website there's no mention of visual back and it goes onto say about a 2in diagonal w/ 1.25 adapter..., and finally 3. I rang Andrews comms and enquired about whether a visual back adapter is available for the Saxon 8 Mak... never returned my call, so I guess not as I did mention I would by the scope if it had a 2in visual back...

These are fine scopes and it's such a shame for it all to fall over because of a non-standard visual back (the threadding is 1 or 2mm bigger than the standard SCT Visual back thread)....

As for the EQ5C mount (or your GP mount), I would say it would handle the 8 inch tube for visual great... long exposure might be a hit-and-miss affair
as the 8 in. mak is approx 20 lbs. which is higher than the recommended limit for imaging with a Vixen GP or clone (about 1/2 or 10-15 lbs. is comfortable for longer duration imaging)...

... I rebuilt my EQ5C (sanded polished worm gears and relubricated with a PFTE based boat lube) and it just handles my 6 inch Mak for imaging... The weight of my OTA is around 13-15 lbs loaded w/ finder, diagonal, eyepiece... and this seems to be a reasonable limit for this mount for astrophotography (if you're patient enough to rebuild/hypertune it)...

If you want to use the scope for nothing but visual observing or short-exposure planetary imaging and never intend to image w/ long-exposure, go the saxon 8in mak - great value (except for noted caveat) To be honest for the money you'de be better off investing in an EQ6 pro mount as I see you already have a VC200L... your imaging performance won't be exceeded by a huge margin anyways with a mak of the same aperature...

There's my 2cents plus interest..

Weeasle (Chris M)

N.Sydney, NSW
C8 SCT, 152mm Mak, 114mm dob, Meade DS90 & DS80
EQ5C Mount, LPI Imager

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi Chris.

As an aside, if you edit your signature you can put your personal details (or whatever you want) there and it will appear under all of your posts.

Welcome to IceInSpace!

[weeasle]

Hi Iceman!

Thanks for the tip and link to signature - I couldn't find the signature section before but I am at work so i wasn't looking too hard.

Thanks for the welcome - I love Iceinspace and read it most days - excellent website - In my humble opionion the two best Amateur Astro sites in the word are Ice and CN....

Keep up the good work!

[iceman (Mike)]

Many thanks Chris, that is fine praise indeed and much appreciated.

CN is a great site and it introduced me to the wonders of amateur astronomy! I hope IIS can do the same for many others!

Originally Posted by weeasle

Hi Iceman!

Thanks for the tip and link to signature - I couldn't find the signature section before but I am at work so i wasn't looking too hard.

Thanks for the welcome - I love Iceinspace and read it most days - excellent website - In my humble opionion the two best Amateur Astro sites in the word are Ice and CN....

Keep up the good work!

[Terry B]

Thank you Chris for the great info. My GP mount is a bit overloaded with my VC200L but I have been able to do CCD imaging with it. I have never tried longer than 5 min guided images or 1 min unguided but it seems to cope. A EQ6 would be a big purchase but in the future I will probably go down that road.