jrkirkham wrote: ↑Wed Aug 05, 2020 1:40 pm My worst ever scope was not my first scope. In fact I was middle age when I bought it. It also turned out to be my most expensive scope.
I've enjoyed astronomy since I was in grade school. When I graduated from college and started my family I confined my observing to binoculars, which totally satisfied me. One day, after my children were grown and gone I followed my wife to a yard sale where I saw a small off brand reflector on a wobbly tripod for only $20. How could I go wrong? I hadn't had a telescope since college.
The thing was so wobbly I could barely view the moon. My wife eventually sold it at another yard sale for much less that $20. It was so frustrating that I had to replace it with a 6" used dob, which I replaced with an 8" dob, which I replaced with a 10" dob, etc. etc. etc. That's how it also became my most expensive telescope.
My worst ever scope
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Re: My worst ever scope
Senior Embedded SW Designer
Telescope: OrionOptics XV12, Mount: CEM120, Tri-pier 360 and alternative dobson mount.
Grab 'n go: Omegon AC 102/660 on AZ-3 mount
Eyepieces: 26 mm Omegon SWAN 70°, 15 mm TV Plössl, 12.5 mm Baader Morpheus, 10 mm TV Delos, 6 mm Baader Classic Ortho, 5 mm TV DeLite, 4 mm and 3 mm TV Radians
Cameras: ZWO ASI 294MM Pro, Omegon veLOX 178C
OAG: TS-Optics TSOAG09, ZWO EFW 7 x 36 mm, ZWO filter sets: LRGB and Ha/OIII/SII
Explore Scientific HR 2" coma corrector, Meade x3 1.25" Barlow, TV PowerMate 4x 2"
Some filters (#80A, ND-96, ND-09, Astronomik UHC)
Laptop: Acer Enduro Urban N3 semi-rugged, Windows 11
LAT 61° 28' 10.9" N, Bortle 5
I don't suffer from insanity. I'm enjoying every minute of it.
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Re: My worst ever scope
Second worst: Meade Classic LX 200 10-inch Schmidt Cassegrain computerized controls on loan from the local club. Heavy. Not just in lifting it out of the box at 65 lbs (30 kg) but putting it back without dropping it was even harder. I pulled muscles. The computer software was vintage 1995. I aligned it for practice indoors twice knowing pretty much where the stars are in the daytime. Of course, the telescope fought me over that, insisting that I not be allowed to use it while the Sun was up. Navigating the vintage software at night was even harder. I just used it in passive mode and aligned manually.
Tie for Second: Meade Classic LX200 8-inch "improved" (fake) Ritchey-Chretien on loan from the local club. The computer had failed so that was not a problem. And I used it well enough for splitting doubles like Castor. But I never got down to the Airy disks. When I turned it on Mars, there were no features. I tried Mars over two nights to make sure that it and Earth had both rotated. Nope: no features, just an orange circle. OK... So, it needed collimation and a catadioptric is even harder to collimate. I returned it to the club equipment chair and he said that he was surprised that I was able to use it all. "When I used it," he said, "I got two Jupiters." I did not say anything. But why did he give it to me in the first place if he knew that it was so far out of collimation?
Michael E. Marotta
Astro-Tech 115 mm APO Refractor Explore Scientific 102 mm f/6.47 Refractor Explore Scientific 102 mm f/9.8 Refractor Bresser 8-inch Newtonian Reflector Plössls from 40 to 6 mm Nagler Series-1 7mm. nonMeade 14 mm. Mounts: Celestron AVX, Explore Twilight I Alt-Az, Explore EXOS German Equatorial
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Re: My worst ever scope
Refractors None
SCT C5 on a SLT mount
Mak 150 Bosma on a EQ5
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