Posts Made By: Kevin Beebe

I would check out Rod Mollise's website, if you haven't already. He has a large PDF file for download called, "Uncle Rod's Used SCT Buyer's Guide". It's very informative, organized chronologically, and details all the different models Celestron, Meade, and others have come out with over the years. You can find it hear:

http://skywatch.brainiac.com/used/index.htm

How about the Hardigg Storm Case?

http://www.stormcase.com/StormSizeList.htm

The article says that the majority of the eleven claims were dismissed. Doesn't that mean that as many as five of the claims are still to be decided upon?

It looked awful tempting, but I thought the price was a little high. Do you like the Pentax's in that focal length better than Naglers or Radians?

Well, I don't have a Meade mirror. But I do have a 16" Orion mirror. It's about 1.6" thick, f/4.5, and Pyrex. It actually measures slightly larger than 16" in diameter, like 16.125" to 16.25", if I remember correctly.

The weight is 26.5 lbs.

Hope this helps. I don't know how accurate you need to be. If you're building a scope, you don't need to be as picky about the weights on the bottom of the scope as you do on the upper end.

I made a slide out of mine. It goes from the kids' bunk beds down to the floor.

Here's another good looking product. Very compact!

http://homepages.accnorwalk.com/tddi/tech2000/page7.html

I did a comparison a couple years ago between Astronomik, Lumicon, and Televue O3 filters. I liked the Astronomik the best.

The differences were small, but I thought the Astronomik took magnification a little better than the Lumicon. This was important to me because I use a filter slide, which makes the optical imperfections a little more obvious because the filter is farther from the focal plane.

I thought the Televue filter was more like the Astronomik UHC filter.

my 2 cents,
Kevin

LOTS of great advice here. I don't have much to add. I played EP roulette for a couple years, too, and eventually ended up with mostly Naglers with a few others. I use the Naglers the most by far, mainly because the T6 are parfocal and "play well" with a fast dob.

One thing I found out, though. Usually when I find a good deal and buy an EP used, I can usually sell it for the same price I paid. I might have to pay for shipping, but $5 or $10 to "rent" an EP seems like a pretty good deal. And to justify it in my mind, it's an even better deal for $200+ Naglers than for $50 EPs!

Kevin

Floyd Blue said:

...

So the question is, [COLOR="Blue"]Do you feel that the wider FOV and longer eye relief is a necessity or a luxury that you can do without?[/COLOR]
Next question is, [COLOR="Blue"]If the FOV is wider, must it be all usable or is it ok for a percentage of the field to be soft or astigmatic?[/COLOR]
Finally, [COLOR="Blue"]Is it acceptable to have any color at the very edge of the FOV?[/COLOR]

Interesting topic. I'll give it a try.

1) I think a wider FOV is a necessity to some extent for most of what I like to do. The wider field makes finding things much easier when you don't have DSC's or Goto. It also lets you keep things in the field longer, if you don't have tracking. And it makes the views more pleasing, except maybe when looking at planets or splitting doubles, because you can either fit more into the field or use a higher magnification.

2) For me, yes. Especially when panning, looking for fuzzies, the extra FOV is wasted if it's soft because stars at the edge of the field looks like a faint fuzzies and a galaxy or nebula gets smeared out and may be invisible.

3) Are you talking about the "ring of fire" in some EPs like the 16mm Nagler T5? If so, it doesn't really bother me. If you're talking about chromatic aberration in the FOV where stars look sort of stretched with blue on one side and red on the other, then yes, that bothers me.

I'm looking forward to reading other people responses,
Kevin