Go To setup time

I don't know much about these, but I saw a Celestron Nextar 6SE at a star party that I was pretty impressed with. A brief star test showed it to be well collimated, and it produced some nice star images. It doesn't weigh much, you can probably keep it assembled in the house and carry it out in one load when you want to view for a few minutes. But to me, when you only have a few minutes to spare there's still nothing like a small refractor on a good quality grabbengo altaz mount.

David E

Greg,

Among my favorite "quick set up" scopes is a 6" f8 Newt on a Vixen Sphinx mount. I leave the mount assembled in my living room. I take the scope off ahead of time and put it in the garage to cool down some (about an hour). I take the weights off then carry the entire mount and tripod outside. The weights and scope come next. Controller, wires, battery next. Takes about ten minutes.

I rotate the Dec head contrary to the manual so that the alignment marks on the Dec and RA line up for me, then take a an eyeball gander through the dovetail plate slot at Polaris and it's ready for visual use. Ain't hard at all.

Also use a Stellavue 85mm APO on 'er. Love it!

The DOB is too much to lug outside when I've only got 10-20 minutes. I was thinking of a used, medium sized (maybe 6"-8") Newtonian on an Alt/Az mount, but decent mounts for a 25lb. Newt seem pretty expensive.

Here's my two cents, pretty much based on experience.

- 80mm is nice but a bit small to be satisfying. A 4 inch refractor like the various 102F/7 ED scopes is a nice step up. Since I acquired a AT102ED, my WO 80mm FD has seen little use. Not much bigger than an 80mm but enough more capability to be satisfying. For a 20 minute session, a refractor is really your only option as nothing else will come close to cooling down.

- A 12.5 inch DOB is a bit to lug around but it is a quick setup, there is not much out there that sets up more quickly. But if it is the lug factor that gets you, consider a 8inch or 10inch Newtonian on an ALT-AZ mount, ie a DOBSONIAN mount. I keep a 10 inch DOB to go along with the 12.5 inch and 16 inch and it sees a good deal of use simply because it is so handy.

- The best way to rid that 12.5 inch of the lug factor: Find an old 16 inch TUBE DOB. I used to dread moving my 12.5 inch Discovery until I happened upon a 16 inch Starfinder. After that, the 12.5 inch seemed like an easy move. Barring that, get an old water heater and fill it up with about 10 gallons of water. Lug it outside a few times and try to set it on a table.

- My two cents: a larger refractor and/or a smaller DOB. 6 inches is to small, 8 inch or 10 inch is about right. If you want help finding stuff, get the intelliscope...

jon

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the replies. I especially liked the idea of lugging around an old water heater so the 12.5" DOB doesn't seem so heavy!

The comments were all good. I hadn't considered cooling but should have. The schmidt-newtonians are supposed to require less cooling time...perhaps that's something to consider too.

Thanks again, Greg