Who Already has Their Dream Scope?

For years I tried various scopes looking for two or three - one could not do it all - scopes to cover the "perfect" planetary, travel/DSO and grab-and-go scopes. Looks like I have them, actually too many of them:

Planetary: TMB 175, Tak FS-152 and Royce Dall-Kirkham 10" F/20

Travel/DSO: 12.5" Portaball

G&G: Tak FC-78 on Vixen Great Polaris (soon to be an FC-100)

Now I have to cut back a little as I have more than I need and while I enjoy them all, can not use each enough to justify having them sitting around. It would be interesting to know who else has "arrived" and why?

I am lucky enough to have two dream scopes. One is
a 20" Starmaster, the other is a 160 AP on a 900 mount.
However the scope I use more than all the other scopes I
own put together is my 14.5" Starmaster. This scope just
hits a sweet spot for me. Big enough to show me what I
want. Fast setup and take down, and doesn't take up to
much room. Oh and most important, the Zambuto optics
are as close to perfect as you can get.

Best, John

PS, I also happen to have a wife who loves to
observe as much as I do. I am a very lucky guy.

larry thaxton said:

For years I tried various scopes looking for two or three - one could not do it all - scopes to cover the "perfect" planetary, travel/DSO and grab-and-go scopes. Looks like I have them, actually too many of them:

Planetary: TMB 175, Tak FS-152 and Royce Dall-Kirkham 10" F/20

Travel/DSO: 12.5" Portaball

G&G: Tak FC-78 on Vixen Great Polaris (soon to be an FC-100)

Now I have to cut back a little as I have more than I need and while I enjoy them all, can not use each enough to justify having them sitting around. It would be interesting to know who else has "arrived" and why?

I find the jpastrocraft.com "sweet sixteen" just about ideal for me. Seated observing in all positions, easily removable mirror for transport, integral wheels, Wessling mirror, modest weight of the heaviest component are the biggest factors of importance to me.
Others may have very different priorities.
Bill Meyers

larry thaxton said:

Now I have to cut back a little as I have more than I need and while I enjoy them all, can not use each enough to justify having them sitting around. It would be interesting to know who else has "arrived" and why?

Almost NOBODY...for most of us, the Dream Scope is always "the next one." And yet...and yet...maybe I already have my dream scope if I were to be honest about it. The good, old C8. Plenty of aperture to make stuff look sweet from a dark site. Small enough that it can almost qualify as a grab 'n go. Able to do lotsa things from imaging to spectroscopy to photometry to lookin' at the dadgummed Moon for 15-minutes.

I think that I would be happy with a 150mm f4 triplet made by Takahashi. It would also need an optional focal reducer. The tube must be of carbon fiber. Nice grab and go, eh? Now, how to convince Takahshi.

Some combinations are greater than the sum of their parts. The C14 + Vixen 102 f/6.5 on an AP900QMD shows me the sky in many different ways. It's main downside is the setup time and the "heave ho" to load the thing into the saddle.

My runner up is the FS128. I've had lovely times with it. The planet performance is excellent but side-by-side with the C14, you can see more in the c14. It's got a lovely wide field but not as wide as the Vixen.

I tend to save the FS128 for short nights when the moon is coming up or the weather is uncertain. The C14 + 102mm is such a versatile sky tool that it's hard to settle for a five inch aperture when I can use a four inch and fourteen inch in tandem. The addition of the four inch to the fourteen inch changed my appreciation of the sky.

regards
Greg N

I lived in rural Kentucky where the skies were very dark in the 70's. As a farmworker and student, all I could afford was a used pair of B&L 7x35 binos. But they were enough for me to discover, on my own, the Great Orion Nebula.

I dreamed of having a 6" reflector, but that was completely out of my reach. I knew about 6" reflectors because a friend of my Aunt had used one to see that the 'UFO' that a National Guard P-51 pilot died chasing in the skies over Louisville in 1948, was actually a weather balloon. So I knew that a scope like that could do marvelous things. And provide esoteric knowledge. I believe the guy ground his own mirror. I think most people did in those days.

By the time Halley's Comet came around, I was living in the city with my new family. After studying the ads in Sky and Telescope for weeks, I ordered a Telescopics 6" 1/20 wave F5 reflector that came with a Televue 26 mm Plossl and a wooden Dob mount for $290.

I have a TOA 130 and a 11" Zambuto Starmaster now, but the Telescopics is still my dream scope. I have had more memorable views with it than the rest combined. Storms on Saturn, the quasar in Virgo, Jupiter looking like a plate of spagetti on a morning of extraordinary seeing, the Leo Trio in the same field of view, Mars' apparition in the Fall of '88, which I sketched, the bow waves of Hale-Bopp, and I believe I saw the flash of the comet impact on Jupiter. Certainly, the black eyes.

So, these incredible new scopes may come and go, but the 6" Telescopics was and always will be, though I seldom look through it anymore, My Dream Scope.

Good Seeing, Walt

larry thaxton said:

For years I tried various scopes looking for two or three - one could not do it all - scopes to cover the "perfect" planetary, travel/DSO and grab-and-go scopes. Looks like I have them, actually too many of them:

Planetary: TMB 175, Tak FS-152 and Royce Dall-Kirkham 10" F/20

Travel/DSO: 12.5" Portaball

G&G: Tak FC-78 on Vixen Great Polaris (soon to be an FC-100)

Now I have to cut back a little as I have more than I need and while I enjoy them all, can not use each enough to justify having them sitting around. It would be interesting to know who else has "arrived" and why?