Posts Made By: Vladimir Fedosov

Ok after searching around the net I found the adapter that is needed. It is a SCT Large Accessory Ring that you can see here: http://www.pisanoopticians.com/Astro/scopetronix.htm Next question is what effect will the small rear opening have on the performance of 2" eyepieces such as the 31mm Nag and the 20mm Nag. Thanks.

Ok thanks for the replies so far. Here are the pretty accurate price layouts of the two scopes. ETX 90EC(with UHTC, tripod, autostar)= $580shipped + Made soft case $40 + scopetronix Red dot finder $25 + Meade 45 degree prism $45 + Made Dew shield $25 + Shipping charge for the above accessories ~~~$20 + Meade eyepiece set $110 --- Made eyepiece set(I'm planning on selling it) $325 ==== A total of ~~~ $520 for the ETX and probably all the accessories I will ever need for it. Now the Pronto: TV pronto + TV mount: $850(without diagonal, including case, dew shield... seen several sell for about this much in the past few months) + Red dot finder $25 + 45 degree prism $45 ==== a total of ~~~$920. So the pronto would cost ~~~ $400 more then the ETX. The ETX has 20mm more apertures... The thing that is making me lose sleep is that I will not be able to use my good eyepieces. But then when I think about it in the situations where I would use the grab and go scope I probably would not bring my good eyepieces anyway. Like for instance: if I go camping I don’t want a case full of eyepiece laying around in the back of my car that is worth $1500. Also the other place where I would take the grab and go scope is to star parties. Not to crazy about bringing my "A" game equipment there ether with all the kids running around and all. I don’t know.... would appreciate some more comments. Thanks.

I have been in contact with a gentleman who has a Tak FS78 with tak ring on a TV Panoramic mount that is in exhalent condition. He wants $1300 for the entire setup+ shipping. Do you guys think that this is a fair price? Also how would the Tak 78 compare to the ETX 90 and the pronto. Thanks.

Hi folks, me again. It appears that astronomics had shipped out the EXT-90 before I called them on Monday and today my credit cart was charged. I had king of made my mind up on a APO now(see Thread Tak-fs78, tv-76, tv-85) but with the ETX 90 coming in.. I don’t know. When I was on the phone with astronomics they did tell me that they might have already shipped out the ETX and in that case all I would need to do is tell the UPS guy that I did not order it and UPS would send it back to astronomics with no charge to me. But I don’t want to put astronomics out of $60 for shipping there and back just because I "changed my mind". Or do they have a contract with UPS so that it won’t cost them anything. Once again I would appreciate your comments.

Ok so it does appear that it is just me and you all are happy to pay the big bucks. But what got me to post this post is the comparison of this: TeleVue - 4.8mm Nagler $155, TeleVue - 5mm Nagler Type 6 $280, TeleVue - 7mm Nagler $190, TeleVue - 7mm Nagler Type 6 $280. Prices are direct from astronomics. But yah as some of you have said it does look like the new type 6’s are all made the same size like the radians and thus the same price.

Well here is the problem. My father managed to do what I could not(got to love your parents) and got the focuser to come out. There was an impact probably during shipping on the left focus knob and the gear rail that is on the focus tube got bent from that(see pic). I got into contact with the guy that I bought the scope from and we are trying to work out a solution. I will keep you all posted on how this works out and I will have a mini review of the scope up ether late today or tomorrow. Thank you all for your help.

I do not yet have a higher power eyepiece for this scope so that limited me greatly. Right now the highest power eyepiece that I have is a 8.8mm Meade UWA. This gives just under 70x magnification(I just purchased a 5mm Nag t6,its on the way for 120x). Jupiter looked small at this low power but I decided to see what detail I could eak out of this small picture. First thing that was of course obvious is the two central bands. Very sharp and contras that I have never seen. After about a minute of observing I made out one more band on the lower part of Jupiter, and the upper “fat” band on the pole. I was amazed at this point at how much detail I’m seeing at only 70x. Well I decided to see if I could make out some more detail on Jupiter. Soon I thought that I saw the GRS showing up on the very far right of the disk. Checked it on starry nights and sure enough it was the GRS coming into view. Then after some more examination I made out one more dark spot on the upper band. Overall I was amazed. This is detail that I’m used to seeing in my 10” LX-200 at 120-180x and here I was seeing all this with a 85mm scope at 70x. Next I split some doubles. Very nice. Right now I’m not much of a double star observer so I did not look at too many of these but that’s why I got this scope, for doubles, moon , planets. Well by now it got completely dark and it was time for some DSO observing. Keep in mind that I live in about Mag 4.5-5 skies and on this particular night the transparency was not very good. To add to the trouble I had gone to my dark sky site just the night before with my 10” LX-200 and was a bit spoiled by the absolutely picture like images I saw of the brighter galaxies, nebulas, and globular clusters looked exponentially better then any pictures I have ever seen. So how did the 3.3” stack up to the 10”? Was it like reviews that you have seen where the 3.3” shows better and more contrasty images of DSO’ then the big SCT(cough, chough cloudy nights – (Tele Vue 85 and a Celestron 8" SCT))? Continued on next post.

Me to. I'm probably going to end up buying one when a nice local deal shows up on astromart.

This is just a suggestion but if I was you I would sell the 26mm Nag and buy a 31mm Nag and a 20mm or 22mm Nag. I think you would be very happy with this setup, I know I am.

Basically no scope at all in average seeing. I was at a star party a few nights ago and looked thro a LOT of scopes from my TV-85 to a 22in DOB. It all depends on seeing not the scope. On a particularly steady night I have seen close to what is in the second image but on a much smaller scale in my TV-85. Remember that to see a image as large as image #2 thro the eyepiece of your scope you would probably need a magnification of 1000x and in order to use that you would need to piggyback the Hubble.