We have an 11" Celestron CPC (our first telescope purchased this June), and we are really enjoying, but we have been thinking it would be good to have a smaller, more portable scope, for ease of use and perhaps some simple astrophotography. My husband, Craig has been looking at an 80 mm refractor such as the Meade ED triplet apo (series 5000), or the Orion ED apo, or the Celstron Onyx ED. Has anyone used these and have a recommendation? We also don't know what would be a good, but not too expensive equatorial mount for a refractor. Thanks for any advice you have, when you are just starting, there are so many choices, it's hard to know what might be best.
Ann, I own the Orion ED80mm, and find it of excellent quality and and even better value. Chromatic abberation is almost non-existant- I found no difference between it an a friend's TeleVue. The focuser is a very smooth 2" Crayford-style. I use a red-dot style finder along with the Orion right-angle 8x50mm finder. If you plan on taking on an airplane, though, the TeleVue 80mm is slightly smaller physically. I have not used the Meade or Celestron refractors you mention. I highly recommend the ED80mm. I am currently saving my lunch money for the ED120mm. ;o) If you and your husband can get to a SPOC star-party sometime this month, I am willing to let you look through it if I can make it also. The small equatorial mount I use is about 20 years old, and extensively modified by me for various astro-photography configurations, so I can't recommend a currently available mount- perhaps another list member can help in that department. --- Ann Blanchard <blanchard-a@ugs.utah.edu> wrote:
We have an 11" Celestron CPC (our first telescope purchased this June), and we are really enjoying, but we have been thinking it would be good to have a smaller, more portable scope, for ease of use and perhaps some simple astrophotography. My husband, Craig has been looking at an 80 mm refractor such as the Meade ED triplet apo (series 5000), or the Orion ED apo, or the Celstron Onyx ED. Has anyone used these and have a recommendation? We also don't know what would be a good, but not too expensive equatorial mount for a refractor. Thanks for any advice you have, when you are just starting, there are so many choices, it's hard to know what might be best.
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Aloha Ann I'll put my 2¢ towards William Optics, I have their 80mm Fluorite Doublet and I'm quite happy with the performance and price. As for a mount, I use the 80mm on a Vixen GP with great results, solid and fairly light weight, excellent tracking and all fits into a small Pelican case. Aloha Rob
Hey, Rob, I'm going to assume that you've done a bit of imaging with the WO 80mm Flourite; how flat is the field? Have to admit I've drooled over ads of that one, too. I have the WO 2" star diagonal and it's the best one I've ever used. --- Rob Ratkowski Photography <ratkwski@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
Aloha Ann
I'll put my 2¢ towards William Optics, I have their 80mm Fluorite Doublet and I'm quite happy with the performance and price. As for a mount, I use the 80mm on a Vixen GP with great results, solid and fairly light weight, excellent tracking and all fits into a small Pelican case.
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The Vixen GP and the slightly larger GP-DX mounts can both be outfitted with the SkySensor 2000 with 13,000 object data base. I think GOTO is a must for CCD imaging. The SkySensor also has a good polar alignment routine and the GP-DX a good polar scope either of which is good enough for 2 minute unguided images. Most smaller mounts on the market do not have sufficiently good tracking capability. The next step up from the GP and GP-DX would probably be a G-11 Gemini or Celestron CGE. The GP clones such as the CG-5 (I speak from experience) do not have the tracking accuracy of the Vixen mounts from which they were copied. -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces+djcolton=piol.com@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces+djcolton=piol.com@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Rob Ratkowski Photography Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 5:23 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Which 80 mm refractor to buy? Aloha Ann I'll put my 2¢ towards William Optics, I have their 80mm Fluorite Doublet and I'm quite happy with the performance and price. As for a mount, I use the 80mm on a Vixen GP with great results, solid and fairly light weight, excellent tracking and all fits into a small Pelican case. Aloha Rob _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com
participants (4)
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Ann Blanchard -
Chuck Hards -
Don J. Colton -
Rob Ratkowski Photography