Posts Made By: James Idone

Hi Adam, the c102hd is not a bad set up but suffers a little on deep sky but the mount is well matched to the ota. The C150 I would not even look at and for $600 I would llok at OrionsSkyview pro 8 EQ or the Konus 8" F5 reflector on there mount which gives dual drives for the same price. If you mean the CR150HD refractor, well thats not a bad scope and if yoi replace the tripod on the CG5 mount its even better. That 8" newt will be the biggest bag for the buck.

To both Rod and Jeff, I did purchase the Scoptronix barlow over the Owl services one, they aro both made in the same optical shop but the 2" Scoptonics is a 3 lens barlow, I found this out after I purchased it while tighning the iner retaining ring plus after I called scoptronics up as well which they also stated that it was as well. So that must be were the $20 is made up. My compliments to the optical house that builds these barlows, they add nothing at all except more power to any eps that I have tried so far and both under $100 places these in the biggest bang for the buck product list. James..

They are so slow at Celestron CS, I called them about 4 weeks ago and finally heard from them last week, still have not recieved a manual for my 9.25GT. I always had much faster service from Meade, it seems to me if they want to get back in the game they have to work on promt turn around.

It might be that many of the older 9.25 owners might want the newer XLT coatings or carbon fiber with XLT coatings on there 9.25. I am very pleased with the 9.25 I recently bought with the XLT coating, its performance is much better than my 10" dob, excellent contrast and planetary detail plus does very well on deep sky, a good scope for a very modest price.

I have the 9mm, my wife gave it to me for my birthday and its a very nive ep. I also have a TV radian 8mm which I have only compared once to the 9MM Bo/TMB and it was close. On doubles the Bo/Tmb was slighly better also on detail on mars but the moon was a dead match. The TV is more robustly built but thats a $240 ep compared with a $100 ep but I like the way the Bo/Tmb eyecup works over the TV radian. For the asking price of $99.95 its one of the best buys in an all around plus planetary ep. I would like to see more FL ep's from Bo/Tmb, I think they have a winner, James...... 8)

Hi Mark, I have had like yourself a Celestron scope,C9.25 on a goto mount,what I have found is that too big of an ota means you dont seem to you use as much(to much time for getting out the scope and setting it up). I was going to build a observatory in the back yard but a new kitchen is coming instead. I found the scope to be excellent in DSO's and for planetary it was sharp but the time we had good enough skies here to use that size scope were few and it did take way over an hour before the tube cooled down before the scope could be used for good observing. I didn't want to sell it but ended up doing so. I had a 3" and 4" ED refractors, I ended up selling the 4" and keeping the 3" for my grab and go, also the 3" cools down real fast so its perfect for fast easy observing. I am now looking at a MCT around six inches, this size if the optics are good will give outstanding views, I know this from owning in the past a Intes 6" MK66 which I had before the C9.25. It was much more portable than the big cat, colled down in about an hours time and gave refractor like views that out performed all of the 4" apo's I have observed threw, compared with most 5" apo's and only the big 6" apo's would do better but not by much. I have found that the russian MCT's are better built and there optics will surpass the china imports coming into the US. They do take some time to cold soak like SCT's but in the 6" range you can get optics in the 1/8 wave spec with the deluxe optical package(Intes Micro 603). You will find in planetary,lunar,even on most brighter DSO's these scopes hold there own. You can use a CG5 mount with the newer SS legs that would be a solid mount for that size scope and be portable and easy to set up. Hey the larger scope are nice but they take more time to st up and they really need to have better sky conditions to really strut there stuff. I hope this may help you and on the 6" achros well I hate false color, and the wide variances in the quality control make them a turkey shoot, good luck, James.

Hi Mike, there is no problem selling the TV blems as long as the buyer knows there blems. A few years ago Gary Hand from Hands on Optics was sending some of his customers over to buy the blems and then selling them on e bay afew days latter, now thats not a good practice to get into even for a dealer :C :C :C . Good Luck, James....

Both DBA or Antller optics mod up there GSO scopes, go to both there web sites and see, they make a good scope better, James...

Hi Michael, the Discovery is a split tube model if that helps.

Vixen sell a 5" reflector on a porta mount for $399 plus shipping, I wanted the pota mount for some of the small refractors I own but getting a F5 5" reflector which looks like the orion 130ST but Vixen does the QC might be a better way to go. The Porta mount sellls for $399 by itself and you get a nice 5" scope as well for the same price is a no brainer. The mount does have slo mo controls which is a very nice perk plus its very portable. This package was a promo for xmas and not found on the old vixen site but the new inporter of vixen does have them listed on there web site. Good luck for what you may decide, Jim.