Posts Made By: Vladimir Fedosov

I agree with Bill that to do some serous planetary work you really need at least an 8" scope. I have a 10" LX-200 for that job. But really my TV-85 is special or something because the views I get in it of planets really rival that of the 10". Oh and Ron attached are two sketches I made at the eyepiece of the TV-85, just to give you an idea of what the trained eye should be able to see on the average night.

You don’t need a big scope to see spiral structure in m51. All you need is a really dark sky. I have seen spiral structure in that galaxy with both my 10" LX-200 and TV-85. Same thing goes for m104. The 10" of course throws up a much brighter image and one that is more detailed when it comes to DSO.

From a dark sky with a UHC it is a VERY easy object in the TV-85 + 31mm Nag. I have seen it many times with this combo and it nearly fills the entire 4.5 degree field of view. Reason you are probably having trouble spotting it is not aperture it is FOV.

You can never be sure that it was not a plane. Is there a air force base anywhere within several hundred miles of your home? I'm no expert at this stuff but it seems to me that it could have been a jet fighter that hit the afterburners and was flying directly away form your line of sight.

That was not m57 that you where looking at. M57 regardless of your scope aperture(and 140mm is plenty to see m57 really well) will look as a somewhat round to football shape(if you are a more experienced observer it is clearly not a circle) at anything over 100x. Keep on trying. If you are trying to guess your way from Vega that’s kind of far. Look at a star atlas and you should notice that it is between two ~3.5 mag stars. You should be able to see them naked eye unless you are observing from downtown San Francisco on a foggy night. M57 is almost exactly in the center of these two stars. First try to spot it with just the 7.5mm without the barlow. Good luck and please let us know if you have look finding it.

Hi Sol, I too was observing Mars this morning at about 4:45 pacific time and made this sketch with a TV-85 and 3.5mm Nag T6.

Hi all here is the update on the situation: Believe it or not only was the scope damaged but after I checked the mount last night the declamation encoder was also wacked. OK at this point I was pissed to death and swearing over and over that I will never buy a single Meade item again. So I call up Meade tech support and after like 30min of waiting this 16 year old picks up the phone. I explain the situation with the dec motor, and he tells me to send it in at my own cost to Meade. I was like he** no that aint happening. I called up the dealer in San Francisco pissed as he** and explain the situation that has also come up with the mount. To my surprise he was even more pissed about this then I was as he spent a good deal of time the day before trying to get Meade to ether send me a new scope or fix this one. They did nothing. He calls them up on the other line and basically puts the smack down, gets the manager or someone like that of Meade on the phone and after a while arranges for them to ship me a brand new scope and mount. Meade had to reroute one that they where shipping to some place(sorry if this is someone’s scope). So basically I'm supposed to get a new scope ether on Friday or Monday. Me and the dealer are good buddies now I guess(hopefully Meade gets the scope out today). The dealer is a good guy to deal with as I found out, at least he helped me out and this was the first time I purchased something form scope city.

Wow this is great news. At the same time I don’t see this as a threat to any of the "real" APO's. I'm a proud owner of a TV 85, and to tell you the truth just the build quality and finish of the scope is worth the price. I constantly have friends that come over and comment on how good the TV looks. When they ask how much it cost I try to change the subject or something because I think they will take me for a crazy man paying that much for a scope. In reality we will all need to wait for some reviews to come out to judge how the optics are. But ever if the optics are close to on par to say a TV-85 we all know the build quality is going to suck big time in comparison. Reason I know is that I just got an AR6 and while it is a beautiful scope when setup it in no way compares to the ultra polished TV. For one the focuser is pretty rough, the due shield sucks, and the paint on it is not as good at is on the TV. Just thoughts....

All depends on how you look at really. It’s kind of like the people who buy a Civic and mod it up to look and perform(well...) like a BMW. By the end if done right the Civic will have cost you the same as a BMW but some people like to tinker with there gear. I don’t know about the new GPS scopes but the classic LX200's had metal gears and they where really ready to go right from the factory. I think a more appropriate example is the LXD55 scopes. You really need to crack that mount open and do some major overhauls basically out of the box. But you know what, I kind of enjoy doing that kind of stuff. It is defiantly not for beginners and the sad part is that beginners are the ones who buy the cheaper gear. If you are not happy with the LX200 then what are you happy with? AP? To get setup with an AP scope and mount that will even approach the performance of a LX200 you would likely spent $15,000. How many of us have $15k to spend on a scope and mount? I know I don’t.

WOW you really think that it is good on mars Paul? I just bought it about a week ago and have tried it two times on big red and did not find it all that good. My setup is a AR6 with the filter threaded on to a 2" TV everbright diagonal and Nagler T6 eyepieces. Man I gota go out and give that little guy another run. Perhaps I'm missing something.