Hi Howard !

Yes, I has allot to learn and the best way is ask or read and in combination to own observings.



I think this is a good forum as I’m all in to visual deep-sky and like info on objects and optic limits.
Most in Sweden are into astro photo and that’s not my cup of tea at all.
I learned it’s natural as we has so bad sky, so to own & use a 18” Newton ( or bigger ) don’t make sense here.
But office or ’computer astro’ is not my style.
I want to be out under the stars and use my own eyes.
Good sky ( and not freezing cold ) really make me on a good mode !

As I’m rather new in the hobby it took me some time to just learn me the sky in the bigger picture, but that was a real fun time to just go out and walk and use the Sky Safari, and get new objects from from friends to check up where to find them.
It took me some time just to understand the size up there to locate them and own experiance vs EP and telescope design and pupil, magnifications and FoV.

I really enjoy bino objects and ’eye-candy’ objects in telescopes so I’m not into chase ’lists’, so astronomy for me is more that I observe what I like and I will chase a good optical quality ( and sky )
So more quality than quantity.

I has my hat off on observing experiance.
This things will take time and it’s a process ( but fun )

But I really enyoy the ride and it’s been ’steps’ as last out in LaPalma it was Trapezium and the ’horse head’ on the agenda vs EP and magnification and sky quality and filters.

But even if not at the moment are into faint galaxys, I know I will be there.

Actually right now I struggle why stars is so blurred most often when jack it up.
Is it some kind of a ’Newton’ phenomenon ?
People talk about ’easy’ 30-50X in China telescopes in mediokre Sweden sky and say to me if not ; ”bad optics or bad sky or a bad observerer”.

The guy I bought the 18” mirror from ( long time in astro in Sweden ) told me it’s so bad here that 200X will be all the sky can handle.
That’s my own experiance to so far.
In ex Australia we had it dark but it was hard jack it up. ( 14” to 30” scopes )
That happens to me in LaPalma to.

I guess it’s the sky quality but I also seen very nice wievs in not that good sky, as in a Kennedy 28” at Stellafane ( owner of Spectrum Coatings ) and as I said in Jorges 25” Lomo, and we was not that far from Frankfurt !
We had not that good sky at OSP last year but we had some nice wievs in your scope at around 600X, so I’m into it’s also design and optic related.

Right now I has very hard to think one can get perfect stars and jack it up that much I heard in not very expensive telescopes and EP.
-But ?

I’m not that sensitive to some coma at the very end but I’m more into deep contrast and ready to walk some extra miles for that.
( in telescope design and optic quality and ’try’ to get the sky )
But today even going faster the paracorr and quality EP has solve the coma issue.
( needed at ex f/4 -4.5 ? )
-Guess depending on object, magnifications and personal thoughts.

My 18” is build to use the TV paracorr in use all the time and I has parafocal EP ( only Ethos & the 102 degree Nikon HW’s )
Corrector lense end is 18 mm from mirrors edge so I go traditional set-up.

I could get the corrector tube in the primary light path and had a smaller diagonal ( to gain under 20% obstruction )
I could also might go less the coma corrector and ex the Delos EP.
But I want that scope will be good for overall low-mid-high power use and like no spikes etc.

How much obstruction effect good star quality I don’t know yet.
I has the Ethos 3.7 mm and a Powermate x 2, so I can go high. ( 568X or 1.136X )
568X is 32X/inch.

I guess it will be vere few time I can reach 32X/inch and has nice stars in my CZ 18” f/4.
But here they say 30X is daily easy.
I don’t see more than clouds ;-)
But it might be experiance related or just good wish ?

Good thing is not all object’s need that high powers.