My New Toy :)

[rapidfire]

Ooh i got a new toy and its so cool. Picked up a very nice second hand ETX (thankyou very kindly Peter) and with a couple of dollars in bolts and some slaps of paint I rigged it up to my EQ mount. Its so much fun. So much fun in such a small little package....

[ving (David)]

looks cool!
hope you enjoy it!

[rapidfire]

gee Ving , your quick I hadnt even finished posting yet. Its a 5" Mak Cass and the image is very sharp. I have yet to work out the best EP setup, thinking I will take my new toy to an astro meet and see what other have setup and possibly try out some different combos. At the moment I have a fairly basic 20mm 12.5mm and a 4mm so its already producing some great results for me. I have been reading that for DSO a wider appeture is better, specifically people are saying 32mm is good on this scope. What do other DSO observers use on their setups? But after weeks of clear weather, its all of a sudden clouded in and we are having a bunch of overcast days...what gives....

[okiscopey (Mike)]

Never seen a 'naked' ETX before! Looks like a good set-up. Is it a 125, and what size EQ is that?

You seem to have eliminated the two problematic bits of the ETX - the mount and the finder! There's no doubt the optics are superb.

I have the standard 125AT but only had two half-way serious observing sessions so far.

The 40mm VX Vixen works well for me - only 42 deg AFOV but 20mm eye relief - handy with occasional observing with specs. Probably overkill in $ for an f/15 scope but thinking this and other VX's (26, 12, 9) will be useful with any future shorter FL scope.

I don't expect too much from the 125 on DSOs, especially after looking through an 18-in Obsession recently!

Surely you don't get a reasonable image with a 4mm eyepiece? ... that's x375, or about x75 per inch of aperture! I had been thinking about a 6mm, but was advised 9mm was about the limit.