Reviews

Chinese Optics... Dynamite or Dud?

GOTO Dob

Go figure.

Two inexpensive ways to widen the view of an 8" SCT

Guiding is one of those necessary evils for high quality astro imaging. One camera company, SBIG, offers cameras with a built-in guide chip, but some of their cameras and all others require some kind of external guiding. The two main external guiding options up till now have been 'guide-scope guiding' and 'off-axis guider guiding'. The ONAG (on-axis guider) from Innovations Foresight provides a new third option with unique features that combines the best qualities of both guide scopes and off-axis guiders. I was looking for a better guiding solution and was very interested to see if this new guiding product would work out.

Testing Orion's claim: "Never search for a guidestar again!"

The Apertura AD12 may sound unfamiliar to most, but I'm betting it won't be that way for long. This is a review of the 12" f5 Dobsonian with the "Tweaker's Dream Package".

A matter of trust

A 28" telescope with a 70" eyepiece height at zenith? If you thought that the big Dob revolution had hit its plateau, wait until you meet the largest, fastest Dob on the planet.

Need a reasonably priced and elegant tripod for your mount? Your old tripod or pier is starting to feel more like a set of barbells? Are you tired of taking it apart, storing all the parts, lugging it around and putting it all back together only to find that you left the knobs that hold the legs on at home? Check out Rob Miller’s new series of tripods.

Out of a 125 mph wind comes a telescope!

While this structure possessed much potential, the lack of field testing, setup, and the presence of poorly corrected optics, resulted in lackluster performance and frustration. A long road had to be traveled before this scope and optics reached their full potential.

Super product for the money