Posts Made By: Randy Roy

Get both! (Ok, but since I am living vicariously through your post)

I can't speak for these specific scopes, but I just sold an excellent M210 to buy a new FS128, so I have an idea of what I might do. If you are interested mostly in visual, the Mewlon will outperform the TOA in every way but widefield views. It really is a wonderful planetary scope, but performs quite well at deep sky due to its incredible constrast. Not that it is important to your decision, but as an aside, the Mewlon as the be the most esthetically pleasing scope on the planet (IMO).

The TOA, may be a better general purpose instrument. It is also one of the finest (arguably the finest) scope in its class. If you are primarily interested in imaging, I would say the decision is simple, got with the TOA. If you simply prefer refractors, go with the TOA. For most other purposes, I don't think you could go wrong with the M250. I have a 16" Starmaster as my big visual scope. I may sell it someday and get an M250 instead and keep the FS128 as my widefield scope.

I think the TOA130 and the M250 is a dream combo--at least for me!

Randy

For a little bit more you could get a 27mm Panoptic, which is a wonderful ep and great match for your scope.

I tried the TV 55 Plossl in my F4.3 Starmaster. You could indeed see the shadow of the secondary with the monster exit pupil that ep gives a fast newtonian. Also, the TV 55 Plossl requires a good bit of back focus and I had to back the ep out of the focuser about an inch and could barely get it to focus at that. One last negative, even without seeing the secondary's shadow, I find exit pupils over about 6mm mean eye placement is very critical (blackout).

However, I think the TV55 Plossl is a great eyepiece. I love them with F10 SCTs and longer FR maks, etc. I had a C11 and found the 55 plossl to be a great DSO ep at F10 (I found it unusable with a F6.3 F/R due to exit pupil but that is a whole nother story).

Randy

I've heard about masters and dogs, but now you have me wondering about amateurs astronomers and eyepieces. I used to have the body of a 2.5X Powermate, but since retirement have taken on more of a 41 Panesque shape.

Randy

My Nagler T6's are stamped, "Area 51". What country is that?

Randy

I have a 5" F8 APO and use the 41 Panoptic as my low power ep--wow!

Randy

"Made two lifting feet for the North end to give me 3.5° lift for the local 35.5° Longitude,"

All this time I thought you lived in the U.S.! :>)

Just kidding--Congrats on the platform. You will love it when viewing Mars at 700X!

Randy

Linton,

I have a 16" Starmaster w/Zambuto primary and it is a fabulous scope. That said, for your question, a great 14.5" scope under very good seeing will not outperform a great 18" dob. If you were comparing similar apertures, I would say go with ZOC. This is not because other guys can't make mirrors as good as Carl, but because I have never heard of anyone getting a ZOC mirror that was not superb. However, even if a 14.5" mirror were perfect, it would not outperform a darn good 18" mirror. In reality, the 18" Obsession would probably have a great mirror.

Do consider how much you are willing to transport and setup, though. I love my 16", but it is the most I would want to handle alone.

Randy

Hi Floyd,

I made a curved spider for a 10" dob I had a few years back. It did get rid of the diffraction spikes. I wanted this, not for esthetic reasons, but in hopes of being able to split some close doubles. I was going after the Pup, which was very difficult with 10" at that time (still pretty darned difficult).

Well, it got rid of the spikes, but I noticed no real improvement in being able to make tight splits. IMO, since diffraction spikes don't really bug me, I saw no advantage. I can't say the overall contrast was worse, but I do tend to believe that diffraction still occurs with a curved spider, but is merely spread across a wider area. Again, just me, but unless I were doing some serious AP, I wouldn't bother. Actually, I personally still would not bother, but that is just my opinion and I am aware that many use and love curved spiders.

Randy

Paul,

I had an NS9.25GPS last year. I got the Celestron HD wedge and found it to indeed be too light for my taste and way too shaky for AP. I got the APT wedge and was delighted with its performance. Also, I believe Anacortes carries the Milburn wedge. I haven't owned one, but have seen them and they are very nice as well.

Randy

I am not really qualified to answer the question, but take a look at this article by Roland Christen. It gives one of the best treatments related to your question I've seen.

http://voltaire.csun.edu/roland/ed.html

Randy