Posts Made By: Bob Young

The world must be ending. It's clear tonite in the Rochester, NY area (first time in a week...or two?) and I got a new scope today. It's out in the yard cooling off.

Maybe it's just a really, really good scope...that can part clouds.

Gotta get out there before they roll back in. Will probably get hit with a meteor.
Bob

Back when I first bought my TV102, it went side-by-side with my ETX125 a few times. The ETX has more than twice the f.l. of the 102 and could easily reach high magnifications. But it needed high magnification to equal the 102.

Again and again I found that I could see the same details and split the same double stars in both scopes if I used the same eyepiece in both. If I tried to make the magnifications equal, the TV102 showed more detail and did a better job splittting doubles.

There were differences, however. The 102's image always seemed cleaner...when BOTH scopes were showing the same level of detail (ETX at much higher magnification). With both scopes at the same magnification, both were sharp but the ETX image lacked detail.

Also, the ETX, as would be expected, did better on globular clusters. The images were brighter and the scope did a better job at resolving the cluster. In comparison, the 4" refractor lagged badly.

I would suggest you choose a Mak with at least 6" aperture.
Bob

The axes unlock on my older ETX125 (circa Y2K). Not sure how useful it would be for actual observing. The long f.l. and small FOV of the ETX would seem to make precise aiming and some kind of slow motion control a requirement.

Besides the computer, my unit came with a hand control box. I've used that much more than the computer. It allows fast and slow slewing on both axes (using the motors) and, if on a wedge, has a mode that will allow it to track on the polar axis. The tracking on mine is fairly precise. If polar alignment is decent, it'll keep an object in the FOV for several minutes.

You might want to ask if they still come with the hand control box.

The ETX is quite a comedown from AP and Tak. I haven't used my ETX since getting into APO refractors. They're quite decent optically, but 'No more widefield views for you!'
Bob

I have both the 9mm and the 12mm UO Orthos (volcano tops) and really like them. They're very sharp and have decent eye-relief. OTOH, my 5mm and 7mm UO Orthos were very tiring to use due to poor eye relief and were sold. They were sharp, however.

Nowadays, my 5mm e.p. is a Tak LE which is every bit as good as the 5mm Ortho, but with better FOV and good eye relief. My 7mm is a Pentax XL which is in another league altogether.

My lone TMB Planetary is a 3.2mm which I've not been overly impressed with. FOV is good and eye-relief is fine, but I've yet to see any detail in the 3.2 that I don't see as clearly in the 5mm Tak. But even that is an endorsement of sorts since the TMB cost about a third of what the Tak LE did.
Bob

I think it's great that Obama is making the election choice so easy for everyone. Shows a level of consideration I didn't suspect was in him. Nothing ambiguous here.