Intes-Micro Alter 715

I'm thinking about buying an Alter 715 from ITE. From the specs, it seems that they should be better than the 705. Does anyone own one, or has anyone, had experience with one, that could give me some feedback. I've had a couple of MN-76's, that had great optics, however looking for something more portable. Comments would be appreciated.

Dave

Thanks for your feedback, Jim. Do you have the standard or deluxe optics? Just curious. Bill Burnett told me that the only difference was "bragging rights". If you take some photos through it, I'd sure like to see them.

Thanks.

Dave

I've had one for a week or two only used once I had to borrow a mount from a mate as mine is on the way.

Optics are very nice from what I saw I used it for 3 hours in average seeing.

Very portable and superb baffling the emission nebula around the LMC and SMC really stand out. If you are unaware there are dozens of distinct emmision nebula around both clouds including the amazing Tuarantula nebula.

Found a 40mm Pentax on Orion was pushing it with very slight sky flooding evident at the edge of the field. I expected this with the small obstruction.

The fan worked well and the cooldown was surprisingly reasonable in about 40-50 minutes with the fan on it was stable.

I needed to tweak the collimation a whisker also.

I suspect your're right re the bragging rights I was more interested in the fact the fan and ceramic mirror should be a faster coolerdown.

In saying that a startest should show the difference between 1/6th wave and 1/8th wave P-V and in the very best seeing I would expect to detail a little easier.

I recall reading somewhere the ceramic optics potentially have a better polish I took a punt and decided an xtra 500US was'nt too bad under the circumstances.