Which Refractor Is Best for $7000

[johnnyt123 (John)]

Hi everyone....

I have been wanting to buy a scope I may never need to replace again...
I have been doing some research and i want to get the largest aperture triplet refractor for arounf $7000 and i have come across the following...:

Omegon 150mm ED triplet APO carbon fiber
http://www.omegon.eu/omegon-apochrom...on-ota/p,21268

Sky-Watcher ESPRIT-150ED PROFESSIONAL
http://www.myastroshop.com.au/produc...p?id=MAS-045B2

William Optics FLT-151 OTA
http://www.myastroshop.com.au/produc...sp?id=MAS-047H

I want to ask if anyone knows which of these is best or even if anyone has any other suggestions then i would gladly welcome them....

Thanks for all your time...


Johnny

[g__day (Matthew)]

Depends on your purpose (visual, astrophotography, scientific) what your seeing conditions are like where you intend to use it and if your gear (mount and cameras are well matched to your goals).

Bit more information would be helpful to shape the advice that may be given.

I see you scopes are in the low to mid range of gear - yet you say never to replace - so it makes your purpose even more essential.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Wow, three nice sounding scopes there, hard to pick the best really...?

Matt is right though, what do you want to do with it?

Good luck with your quest.

Mike

[johnnyt123 (John)]

I want to use it primarily for astrophitography .....

I will buy a mount and a ccd camera to achieve that purpose.
But for now I am mainly looking for the scope.

What other suggestions do,you have?

[g__day (Matthew)]

Confirm your budget for the entire set-up (mount normally costs the most out of all your gear).

Confirm your target set - what sort of Objects you will most likely wish to image (to confirm this is compatible with the selected OTA - e.g. very faint nebulae in bright skies - more likely requires a large Newtonian or SCT or RC and/or narrow-band filters might make more sense)...

What size CCD will you seek to use? - if its a full format one, to avoid coma and provide a flat field certain apo designs may work better than others.

As Mike said (and he would know) more information from you means alot better advice will be given!

[MattT]

Have a look at Istar scopes too. Click on the link in my sig below.
Matt

[sgazer (Lee)]

not sure about the quality of each, but for AP I'd go for the fastest focal ratio which is the WO, sure it will also be excellent quality. Might need a field flattener though, so best make sure one's available.

[brian nordstrom (As avatar)]

Hi Johnny , have a look at the new Skywatcher 120-150mm "Esprit" triplets , they look very nice for the price .
Brian.

[leon]

Get the best mount you can afford, the foundation for any scope and go from there, a million dollar scope on a crappy mount just dose not work.

Leon

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

As has already been mentioned, you will need to spend similar on the mount. If that's no problem, have a look at the Tak FSQ or the Televue NPis as well. What you might also consider at this end of the market are the very fast Riccardi-Honders designed astrographs. Not a refractor, I know, but photons don't seem to care whether they're reflected or refracted.
Of course, you should probably keep another 10k or so handy for the camera and filters that will get the most out of this gear.

It's fun spending other people's money!
Best wishes,
Andrew.

[g__day (Matthew)]

So just a word of warning - if you expect to spend $7K on an APO, be prepared to spend $5 - $10K on a mount and $2K - $10K on a CCD, it all depends on what your are planning to do with your gear (i.e. how dim will be the targets you wish to image). This will determine the precision and capabilities of the mount and possibly the imaging camera you will require. Then there is the matter of guiding - requiring mounting for a side by side or piggy backed second OTA and camera - or an On or Off axis guider plus camera. Then there is control and image acquisition and processing software, precision focusers and other equipment.

At the high end - life ain't cheap!

[issdaol (Phil)]

Originally Posted by leon

Get the best mount you can afford, the foundation for any scope and go from there, a million dollar scope on a crappy mount just dose not work.

Leon

I can vouch for that even just for visual use

[PRejto (Peter)]

So why not a TEC140? I love mine and it is pretty close to perfect on the Paramount MX mount.

Most every APO is going to need a field flattener if you want to use a camera able to capture a wide field. The TEC Flattener alone adds $750.00. Yuri said with a KAF8300 CCD camera (which is a pretty nice match for the scope giving 1.14 Arc sec resolution) that I probably wouldn't need a flattener. Mostly true, but I do see some distortion right at the edges which I can easily crop off. My photos look pretty flat but surprisingly, even so, CCDInspector shows curvature. Anything larger than the KAF8300 and the FF isn't optional. I'm pretty sure this is standard fare for just about any APO. The WO scope you listed in the first post is fast and has a FF but it is way higher than your budget. Anyway, I could wax on about the TEC for a long time, but most would probably agree that it ranks amongst the top 2 or 3 refractors currently in production, and compared to those other 1 or 2 top scopes comes in more affordable, perhaps because it uses an oil spaced triplet, rather than air spaced. People will argue the merits/demerits of this design forever, but one thing that seems to stand out in my reading is that these lenses are quicker to reach thermal equilibrium. Another thing you might consider is that these top end scopes retain their resale value extremely well. If you want to sell a TEC, and you price it fairly, you might sell it in a day.

Visually my TEC140 has given me the greatest views of the planets/moon I can quite imagine. Sure, I'd love a TEC180 or TEC200, but this size seems to hit a sweet spot in terms of seeing with larger apertures more affected by poor seeing. Not that 10 mm is going to make a huge difference one way or the other. I didn't price your other scopes re required accessories, but you can see the TEC140 prices here. It's fairly close to your budget new, but you need to factor in shipping and customs too. On the used market they certainly do come up and you could get the whole package under your $7k.

http://www.telescopengineering.com/t...der/order.html

[OzEclipse (Joe Cali)]

This maybe a bit over or out of your price range
CFFT telescopes made in Romania
http://cfftelescopes.eu/160mm.html
It's a 160mm f6.5
Export price ~ €7000

I met one of the owners last year. He came on my eclipse tour. These are well made instruments but not so well known- the company is still quite new.


Joe

[johnnyt123 (John)]

Wow I am overwhelmed with everyone's appreciated input.

Rally brought to my attention Takahashi TOA150.
This is a great scope and I know it is outside my 7k budget but I feel this will be one that I may be happy with for a very long time.

Takahashi and unquestionable in they're color correction and quality.
But furthermore I hadn't really considered everything in detail regarding the type of idealic setup I am hoping for. So all up I think conservatively I need to budget 20k. I can definitely feel that black hole in my pocket feeding on my wallet.....

But I thought I had to start somewhere and I thought a really good scope might be the thing to start with.

I will continue to look into this. If anyone has or knows of a fully functioning electronically driven fully automated setup of this caliber could you please bring it to my attention.

Once again I appreciate everyone's help.

Johnny

[clive milne]

The Veblen Uber-Hypochromat is irresistible..
(Frédéric Beigbeder had one up for sale recently at the bargain price of 99 Francs)

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

Originally Posted by clive milne

The Veblen Uber-Hypochromat is irresistible..
(Frédéric Beigbeder had one up for sale recently at the bargain price of 99 Francs)

Didn't you have one of those?

[Poita (Peter)]

A 6" refractor is a big bugger of a thing, I've been using one for solar and I really underestimated just how big they are.
All of those scopes are lovely beasts, but as said repeatedly here, a mount is going to be expensive for it.

A few questions before making recommendations...

1) What targets are you interested in photographing?
2) How dark are your skies?
3) What is your current experience level with astrophotography?

Cheers

-Peter

Originally Posted by johnnyt123

Wow I am overwhelmed with everyone's appreciated input.

Rally brought to my attention Takahashi TOA150.
This is a great scope and I know it is outside my 7k budget but I feel this will be one that I may be happy with for a very long time.

Takahashi and unquestionable in they're color correction and quality.
But furthermore I hadn't really considered everything in detail regarding the type of idealic setup I am hoping for. So all up I think conservatively I need to budget 20k. I can definitely feel that black hole in my pocket feeding on my wallet.....

But I thought I had to start somewhere and I thought a really good scope might be the thing to start with.

I will continue to look into this. If anyone has or knows of a fully functioning electronically driven fully automated setup of this caliber could you please bring it to my attention.

Once again I appreciate everyone's help.

Johnny

[LewisM]

Now you know why I called it "the Dinosaur" Peter - my daughter saw it under a sheet once on the mount, and asked me was it a Dinosaur

[clive milne]

Originally Posted by alocky

Didn't you have one of those?

Before they were Veblen... I only paid $3600 and that was for a 7" made with the infamous NASA glass pour.