Re: Jason 60mm

Sandy:

Here is my thinking, having owned similar scopes...

1. Money has to be relevent, otherwise, you would just replace the mount, the eyepieces and the scope itself....

2. The mount has wooden legs, better IMHO than the modern extruded aluminum legs. Probably adequate for wide field views.

3. Normally the 60mm F11 objectives are pretty decent on these scopes.

4. The finder is pretty flaky. The cheap solution is to just remove the optics and use it as a sight tube. The expensive option is to replace the finder with either a red dot or a 6x30.

5. Eyepieces, a Hybrid diagonal will be allow the use of 1.25 inch eyepieces. Add a Hybrid diagonal and some eyepieces and the scope will be actually quite nice...

On the practical side, reality speaking...

If you do/did end up with the 4.5inch Short Tube Newtonian and if it is anywhere near as bad as the 6 inch I tested from the same source, then you will have an extra mount, a couple of decent eyepieces as well as a finder.

I think the mount would handle the Jason rather easily, though rings would need to be bought. The eyepieces are normally actually not so bad and the finder much better than the 5x24 that comes on the Jason....

So, my suggestion is wait and see what you get...

Jon

Oh, wow! I just found your thread. I can't believe I missed that whole firestorm surrounding your telescope purchase.

A guy over on CloudyNights reviewed a similar, but slightly larger, generic "Baytronix" telescope purchased off the same auction site. Here is his review:

http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=1105&pr=2x6x26

He thought that the mirrors and corrector lenses were of poor quality. But, see what you can see, and let the world know. Try comparing the Jason and generic scope.

There is very little information out there on the no name scopes. Since most consumer product brands are simply marketing companies sending specs to China, I too was tempted to try one of those scopes before I lucked out and found that review. I think it's probably safest to stick with Celestron, Orion, and Meade.

Since, your incoming telescope is a lot heavier than your Jason, the mount for it might be pretty stable when used with your Jason. You probably have to get 60mm scope rings to attach it. There are a also a lot of bb-gun derived red dot sites on the market that are cheap and they actually work pretty well. www.apogeeinc.com has a lot of them (just avoid those Galileo scopes ... they also get really bad reviews).

Good luck!

Question:
If the finder scope, mount and eyepieces on the new scope are good enough to use with the Jason, what exactly is it about the new telescope that makes it inferior to the Jason?
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Did you happen to take the time to read the Cloudynights review on the 150mm Scope? Someone posted a link to the review I did of the 6 inch version, the Baytronix 150/1400. I did that review because I wanted to see if the scope was actually useable or if it was junk as is often reported. If it was decent, then it would be a bargin. If it was junk, then it would be a waste of money.

Unfortunately, it seems that optically these scopes are very bad, amazingly bad in fact. The 4.5 inch version that you are getting has also been discussed on the Cloudynights beginners forum.

One fellow bought one, when he found out how bad it was, he tried to return, couldn't do that and so he left some bad feedback. They deleted his account and the bad feedback on a technicality...

Here's the link to my review:

http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=1105

As I previously said, I get two kinds of emails regarding this review. Most thank me for helping them avoid buying one, I got one of those this morning...

Others thank me for the review and say they wish they had read the review before they wasted their money...

So...

How do I know... I don't...

But based on my experience with the 6 incher, the experiences of others with both the 6 incher and 4.5 incher, your scope will be disappointing and not capable of showing star images that are at all sharp, comatic blurr is as good as I could do. It's in the design and excution of that design. Even a well made short tube Newtonian is marginal....

Jon