Posts Made By: Rob Moerschel

I currently own an AP 130 EDT for viewing planetary objects (not photography/CCD). However, I'm looking into an Obsession 15". Has anyone compared these two instruments for just viewing planets? Is it worth it to sell my AP to buy the Obsession? How often would the atmosphere affect the Obsession views since it has much greater light gathering capability?

Thanks,

Rob

I'm looking to purchase a new good quality 10" tube DOB that is light weight. The Discovery 10 inch PDHQ is nice but too heavy. The Orion XT10 only has a total weight of 58 lbs, but the optics are not as good as I'm looking for. Is their any manufacture that offers a good quality 10 inch tube DOB weighing less than 60lbs and costs less than $1000, or would I have to make my own?

What happened to the great deals on NEW top quality astro
products like Televue, AP, Tak, Pentax, etc. Below is an ad in Orion Telescopes from 1992 having a great deal. I haven't seen anything like this lately. How about buy a 26 and 31 Nagler and get the 20mm Nagler free!

Just wondering, has anyone compared the Celestron C9.25 to the C11 visually on deep sky? Is it worth spending an extra $800 for the C11 OTA for the ~40% light increase?

Thanks,

Rob

What's up with this scope? Is it for a beginner, advanced or
a mentally challanged individual? What are we paying $600 for? Its definitely not the optics since they only have 88% reflectivity and just recently have been made of pyrex. It must be the all new important exclusive collimation cap, navigation knob, and 2"/1.24" eyepiece rack. According to the catalog, this scope is for a level 3 or advanced person. I can tell you I don't need a navigation knob to move a tube in both RA and DEC. It started out as a 3 vane now its a 4 vane spider. I'll attempt to restrain myself from purchasing one until the 5 vane spider is available. Instead, Orion should concentrate on incorporating enhanced coatings on the primary and secondary for maybe an extra $200... then I'd purchase one, as I really like the appearance and light weight design for a scope of this aperture. So, where's the market?

Can anyone explain why the prices for TeleVue, AP, TMB,
Pentax etc products are exactly the same every where in
the US? For example, I checked every retailer and no matter where I called, the TV Naglers where always the same price.


Rob

Here's my new setup. A 12 inch f/4 apochromatic refractor w/
no spherical and chromatic aberration on a standard G11 mount. The OTA is less than 4 feet long, weights only 37.25 lbs and has a 7" focuser to hold 6 inch eyepieces. I went from a 30 mm (which has 4 ft eye relief) to a barlowed 3mm (6 inch eye relief) without any loss of light and sharpness. No need for a binoviewer...just place my head into the punch bowl sized rubber eyeguard as the eyepiece lens elements are wide enough for both of my eyes to observe. When the bad seeing occurs, I'll just pop in my atmopsheric turbulence polarizer. And when the objects are low to the horizon...no problem...time to insert the adjustable dispersion prism corrector into the optical path and set it to the current object altitude. This makes me feel like I'm looking at objects at zenith. Best of all, this entire package is extremly portable, cools down in minutes, and cost less than 5 grand. Can't wait until tomorrow night.

I was wondering those of you who have a newer C11 how the images are on deep sky?

Thanks,

Rob

My first scope was a 60mm Tasco refractor on an equatorial mount w/ wooden tripod back in 1987. It was of low cost and also came with 2 or 3 eyepieces, barlow and solar screen. The mount was pretty stable, lightweight and highly portable with a wooden tripod. The scope even came with a poster of the Halley comet path...even though it was a year after its return. Well, the lens looked like it was made of the same material as the optical tube...only transparent. The 4mm eyepiece had a lens diameter that can only be seen through a microscope. The plastic focuser was very smooth and the finderscope was a nice decoration. Enough talk about the pros... From what I can recall, Jupiter had more of a yellowish color than today and the moon's craters were sharply defined. I loved cranking the power up to 450X. The images were somewhat blurry (when the object was in the field of view!), but it was the fun that counted. There was also less light pollution in my area at the time, and to be honest, I can not remember atmosphere turbulence affecting the image...even when I got my 6" Criterion within a year later. Maybe its because my eyes were not trained w/ the experience. All in all, I was very satistfied w/ the scope at the time, had alot of fun, and enjoyed its views that brought me into this wonderful hobbie.

Rob

Has anyone used these for non-astrophotography. I thought about purchasing the Celestron 12.5 microguide for measuring angles, crater diameters, separation of double-stars, planetary angular sizes, etc. Are these accurate? I would think this depends on the power you are viewing. I also see Tak has a 5mm reticle eyepiece, but I can't find much information one this product. Any help or suggestions would be great.

Thanks,

Rob