Re: How do Orion Telescopes measure up


Message posted by Lone wolf on January 30, 2005 at 19:02:10 PST:

It's a work of art, but overkill for Tikaboo.

What you want is an APO between 3 to 4 inches (75mm to 100mm, more or less), with a focal length less than 700mm. Remember, you need to carry this thing in a backpack. You need the OTA, not the whole setup. Telescope mounts are motorized to track the stars, and a good mount costs as much as the scope. With the OTA, you need a clamshell mount or a saddle with rings. You still need either a barlow or eyepiece projection setup since you need at least 2000mm of equivalent focal length to shoot from Tikaboo.

Quite a few telescope fit the bill.
Takahashi FS78, FCL-90, fsq106
Televue TV-85, NP101
William Optics Megree 80 ED

http://www.takahashiamerica.com
http://www.televue.com
http://www.william-optics.com/index-product.htm

Really, this should be closer to a grand, not $6k like the AstroPhysics. [That is why I mentioned the sale on the FS-78.] You go to a star party, and everyone wants to look through the AP scope. But this is way overkill for Tikaboo.

You probably would want to get an erecting prism or diagonal and some eyepieces for viewing, though you could leave the scope&camera set up. It's just that looking through an eyepiece is so much better than the camera viewfinder. The erecting prism corrects the image, i.e. you could read text with it. The diagonal is better quality, but everything is backwards.

One scope I left out because I never saw one in the flesh is the Borg 80 series.
http://www.sciencecenter.net/hutech/borg/80a-sys.gif
This is an interesting scope from the point that it really is modular. They have a 77mm and 102mm APO in the series. I saw a photo of a Borg setup in a transit box where all the components were taken apart to make it more compact. It looked like a James Bond set up.


In Reply to: Re: How do Orion Telescopes measure up posted by Hawkeye on January 30, 2005 at 17:28:41 PST:

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