Posts Made By: James Barnett

Hi Tim. Currently I have a Televue Pronto, Takahashi FS-78, Orion 100 ED, Meade 127ED, and D&G 5" f/10 refractors. The Takahashi has the sharpest images of the lot, though not by much. Were the decision mine I would opt for the Orion 100 ED over the FS-78 or 80 ED. The price for a new 100 ED is about the same as the price for a used FS-78, and it has over 50% more light grasp. It is also extremely lightweight for a 4" scope coming in at just 7 pounds. For reference the Orion 80 ED comes in at 6.5 pounds. It's no harder to mount than the any of the 3 inchers, has a nice f/9 focal ratio and 900mm focal length so it can go wide or high as you wish. The extra inch of aperature makes a huge difference in terms of handling magnification, showing dimmer stars and pulling in subtle details on the moon and planets. Also, 4" of unobstructed aperature is where deep sky just starts to get interesting. The fuzzy blur of M10 in the FS-78 starts to show distinct resolution in the 100 ED.

"Orthos and Erfles are still made by University Optics and Antares, but are rarely seen. Who's buying these?"

I think a large percentage of amateurs have at least one and many have complete sets of the University Optics Orthoscopics. In my neck of the woods (Northern California) these Orthoscopics are about as common as the Televue Plossls, and are only slightly less common than the modified Plossls that in the past were bundled with many new telescopes (Meade Series 4000, Celestorn Ultima, etc.). Almost anyone you meet at a local star party has one or two for planetary and lunar observation, and for sharing at star parties. Although they have a narrower field of view than a similar focal length Plossl, they have better eye relief and are actually easier to use for extended periods of time at high magnification.

University Optics also still sells Japanese made Kellners in 12mm, 20mm and 40mm focal lengths for about $50 each. Unlike their Orthoscopics which are "multi-coated" and their HD Orthoscopics which are "fully multi-coated", the Kellners are merely "fully coated".

I've never used the University Optics Kellners, but I have owned Meade MA made in Japan eyepieces and Edmund RKEs, so I can't tell you how the University Optics models stack up to the others you mention.

- Jim

Mark:

If you want to keep costs down and use your current photo tripod and slo-mo controls, I think a 102mm refractor is too much OTA for your mount.

You would probably be happier with something in the 66-80mm range with a relatively short tube.

There is a new Stellarvue Nighthawk 2 "blem" on the SV website for $295. That's a pretty good deal for a new scope, and it would be worthy of a later mount ugrade.

Jim

Howdy Paul.

On a lark, in the wake of the Synta acqusition of Celestron, dicountinuation of the Ultima eyepiece line, glowing reviews of these oculars from Todd Gross and in Sky & Telescope a few years back, and my own multi-year enjoyment of the 35mm Ultima and 15mm Ultima Wide Angle (pre-Axiom), I decided to snap up as many of the focal lengths of the Ultima line as I could from those few retailers that still have inventory. My intention was to hae an affordable, mid-grade, high-quality set for star parties, public viewings and the like.

I am now the proud owner of 5mm, 7.5mm, 12.5mm and 35mm Ultimas, with a 10mm, 18mm and 30mm on the way. I used the 5mm for the first time last night. It was absolutely wonderful. I was expecting short eye relief and only good, not great, contrast. It easily surpassed my expectations. I used it in both a Takahashi FS-78 and Orion 100 ED on the moon, Jupiter and Saturn.

It was so good all alone that I decided to pull out the 5mm University Abbe Ortho, 5.2mm Orion (Vixen) Lanthanum and an old school 6mm University Plossl I used with great success for the 1988 Mars opposition. It was the best of the bunch. It had eye relief slightly longer than the 5mm University Ortho, considerably longer than the 6mm Plossl, and a whole lot shorter (obviously) than the Lanthanum. It was sharper than any of the others which suprised the heck out of me, given that it had one extra lens element and the widest AFOV in the bunch (the University Plossl oddly has a dinky 45 degree AFOV).

I recommend it as there are a few new old stock units left in the channel if you hunt for them.

Good luck,

Jim

Hi Herbert. I think the answer is a conditional "yes." The condition being that all other things (aperture, quality, etc.) are equal. This may be overly simplistic, but here goes. Lets say hypothetically you have 1000 photons of across the entire visible spectrum. To yield maximum resolution, contrast and detail a "perfect" refractor would focus all 1000 photons at one point. For the apochromat, perhaps 950 photons focus at one point. For the achromat perhaps 750 photoms focus at a single point. The weightings may be off, but the point is there's more visible light in focus in an apochromat than in an identically sized and f.l. achromat.

Change any other variable, however, and all bets are off. A so-so apochromat (miscolimated, poorly figured or something else) might yield less resolution, contrast and detail than a much better quality achromat.

Regards,

Jim

You'll have to yell much louder now. The shots are being called in Shanghai rather than Torrance. That's why I am considering getting my Celstron SCT OTA from Orion rather than Celestron. Let Orion exchange the unsatisfactory unit and then hassle with Celestron on their own account.

Tom:

The 35mm Celestron Ultima, now discontinued but remaining stock is still available from many online dealers, gives the widest true field of view available in a 1.25" eyepiece. These are very high quality eyepieces and are made in Japan.

It is similar to the Orion Ultrascopic 35mm, but having owned both at different times, I think the Celestron Ultima is a bit more contrasty. It looks to have better coatings than the Orion unit had as well. It should be in the price range you specified.

Regards,

Jim

I'm with you Timothy - $1999 for a Chinese-made, ED apochromat OTA is astronomically high. Recall when Orion debuted the 100 ED it was priced at $999, then retreated to $899 after the novelty wore off. The same reduction will likely take place for the 120 ED, but even at $1799 I think it's an awfully high price for a sub-5-inch Synta OTA.

I have a 100 ED OTA and it's a wonderful scope optically, BUT mechanically it's only adequate. It lacks a collimatable cell, suffers from a crude Crayford focuser and has sloppily finished metal work such as a crude, unfinished edge on the dew shade. It's a good value at approximately half the price of a TeleVue 102 OTA.

I also have a Meade 127ED OTA. While that scope features an FPL-51 equivalent rather than FPL-53, and is therefore not as color free as a doublet made with FPL-3, mechanically the OTA is many fold superior to the Synta-made 100 ED's OTA. The Meade R&P focuser is excellent - as good or better than an Astro-Physics R&P unit I have on a D&G. The metal-work is far superior to the Synta as well and the scope has a collimatable cell. The Meade OTA was ~$1600 new from Anacortes and I've seen used examples for as low as $1275 on Astromart.

Given the above, to represent a "value" (at least to my sensibilities) the 120 ED would have to be priced at $1300-1400.

Put another way, I'd rather drop another $1000 on a Vixen ED115S than pay $1999 for a Synta 120 ED.

Regards,

Jim

Zack Aderan said:

I will be visiting Henry W. Coe State Park (http://www.coepark.org/) this month and had a few questions for people who have visited there:

1. How dark are the skies?
2. How are the horizon's?
3. How is the park in the day?
4. Where is the best place to observe in the park?
5. Is observing suitable from the campsites?

For people who haven't visited the park:

1. What are some semi challenging DSO's?
2. What are other good observing sites in California?


Thanks,
Zack

Zack, Coe has very good dark skies for observing. The park is the second largest state park (by acreage) in California. Anza Borrego being the largest. The San Jose Astronomical Association (SJAA) has (or at least used to have) events there from time to time. I've camped here a half dozen times over the years. In summer it is hot, hot, hot, dry and dusty.

Camping comes in two varieties - close to the parking lot and HQ walk-in "group" campsites, and primitive back country hike-in campsites. Most observing takes place at the HQ lot or at the group campsites. The hike-in sites are fairly remote and the terrain is very steep and rutted. If you're fit and have a lighweight backpackable rig, you could go for it, but you'd not be taking a big Dob to any of the primitive campsites.

In the same general area, the preferred dark sky observing site is Fremont Peak. There's a 30" Dob in an observatory there owned by one of the regional astronomical groups, drive-in campsites, and astronomy-friendly rangers and staff.

I've given a couple of links for both parks, below.

http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=561

http://www.coepark.org/

http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=564

http://www.fpoa.net/

Lastly, here's another good resource for northern California observing is "TAC" or "The Astronomy Connection", linked below.

http://www.observers.org/

Regards,

Jim

Hi Vince. I guess to answer that question I would need to know whether by "wide field" you mean true FOV or apparent FOV? Assuming that you mean low power, maximum true FOV, I have a few 2" eyepieces in my kit that serve up plenty of TFOV: University Optics 40mm MK-70, Parks 50mm Plossl, Siebert 34mm Observatory Series, Televue 27mm Panoptic, Meade 32mm Reserach Grade Wide Angle.

At f/4.5 I would avoid the University MK-70 and the Meade Research Grade as they get pretty soft near the edge. The Siebert is nice on DSOs, but has minorly distracting coating/ghosting/reflection issues if there's anything bright in the field. The Panoptic is a very good performer in faster systems. It doesn't have *perfect* edge correction and has some field curvature (worse than the Siebert on both counts in fact), but it has much better edge correction than the University or the old Meade Erfle design and great brightness and contrast (which I chalk up to top quality multi-coatings and superior polish).

In your 18" f/4.5 the 27mm Panoptic might not give you as much TFOV as you want however. I use it in a 12" f/5. In your scope it would give you 76x and less than 1 degree TFOV. The 35mm Panoptic would be a likely equivalent at your longer focal length, but it's well above your $300 price target.

Regards,

Jim