Posts Made By: david elosser

Floyd,
This is a very common problem coming out of China now. The high viscosity of this grease can actually render the equipment unuseable when the temperature dips much below freezing. This is one of the common fixes that new owners of the Meade LXD75 or Celestron CG5 have to make as well.
David E

Thanks for all the nice comments everyone!

David E

Those are fantastic pans, Jeff. My Canon Powershot has a pan mode in it but I havn't played with it much. My favorite is Monument Valley. Great place to visit but wouldn't want to live there!

David E

Hi Joe,
I don't know what brand that is but I am sure it is similar to the 8" Zhumell Dob I reviewed here on AM a few weeks ago. My review has the specifics but bottom line is, yes I think these inexpensive Dobs are a good deal. I would also look around at other brands, Celestron, Orion, etc as these are all about the same quality and you might get a better deal with accessories going with another brand. My view of comet SWAN last night with my 8" Dob was totally awesome!

David E

That one's nice Jim. I can almost hear the water falling.

David E

Wes, a fantastic photo! Clavius is one of my favorite craters and I am going to use your photo to see how much detail I can pick out with my telescopes.

David E

David,
I just purchased a Stellarvue SV66 for many of the same reasons. I've had mine for a month now and I have used it for solar, birding, and astro work. You won't find any Stellarvue telescope that's mis-collimated, with coma, or astigmatism. They are all hand assembled, bench tested, and then star tested by Vic Maris, the owner of SV to make sure it is perfect when it gets into your hands. This of course, makes the SV66 a bit more expensive but I think it's worth it. The SV66 weighs about 3.5 pounds (ota) and is literally back packable. Although I recommend getting the SV diagonal with it, it will come to focus with any after market 1.25" 90º or 45º diagonal. All of my eyepieces, from plossls to Erfles to Naglers, come to focus with no issues. You can use a binoviewer but it must have an oca, and you might find the balance a bit awkward. It's a great little scope that sets up in minutes to catch a bird in the back yard, a comet, or even to photograph my cosmos flowers with. Today I took it to work to catch the sunspots during my lunch break. I still do my serious observing with my larger scopes, but once you accept the limitations of the 66mm aperture, it's a fun little scope to use.

David E

Steve, here is a link of Phil Harrington's review in Astronomy magazine.
http://stellarvue.com/sv4.html
A few minor specs may have changed since the review was written. You can find an excellent review of the ZS110 on Cloudy Nights written by Tom Trussock.

One of the biggest differences is the focuser. The ZS110 uses a Chinese made focuser. The SV4 uses the American made Feathertouch focuser, which is the best focuser made.

Hope this helps to get you started.

David E

Mark Norby said:

I guess I don't get it. You can get a 80 or 90mm. So what if you get some false color-get a filter. Maybe it's just me.

Hi Mark,
Well, I don't know if I can answer that one but I'll take a stab at it. I own a 66mm as well as several larger scopes, a 4" apo and an 8" Dob. I find the views through the 66 to be certainly different, but not neccessarily better or worse. There's nothing like viewing the Orion Nebula through my 8" Dob. WOW! But OTOH, at 14x with my little 66 I can get the entire "sword" in the field of view with plenty of space around it. M42, M43, and the tiny glow aroung Nair al Saif is visible in one field, and the Trapezium is resolved with tight pin-point stars. Many open clusters are just as pretty in small scopes, in fact the restricted field of view of my 8" Dob almost ruins my enjoyment of clusters like the Hyades, Mel 20, or even the Pleiades. Sure, I can resolve Sigma Ori easily enough in my larger scopes, but the 66 at 20x can resolve Sigma Ori AND Struve 761 with Alnitak stuck up there in the opposite corner. DSO's are certainly dimmer, but not really worse off. Globulars like M13, 15, or 22 are not resolved into stars, but have a wonderful cottony look to them. The Wild Duck (M11) has a bright star surrounded by an errie glow. Objects can be easier to find in a small scope with a wide but sharp field of view. The multiple Struve 2816 in Cepheus is easy to find and split at 20x with Erakis in the same field. There's no such thing as the "perfect" scope and my 66 takes only an additional minute to set up next to my larger apo or Dob. I did that when the comet Swan suddenly swelled up to 4.5 magnitude. The view of the core through the Dob knocked my socks off but the 66 gave a very lovely low power view with the comet and surrounding starfield, and I was able to see more of the tail. So yeah, I love my big scopes, but I still have an affection for my small refractors.
David E

Chris, is that $1000 for the telescope only? If so, look at the Meade SN6 with Autostar and UHTC coatings, for $999. It has the shortest focal length in the LXD75 series (760mm) giving you the widest field of view; it has fast F5 optics; it is smaller and lighter weight than the SN8 so the mount will tend to track easier (especially with additional weight of camera, guidescope etc.); thermal stabilization will be easier and quicker than the SN8. You WILL need dew control for the corrector plate, either a heater or dew shield. I made a dew shield for my SN8 out of 10" aluminum flashing and duct tape.

David E