Yeah, it can be so easy to overspend on eyepieces and gear. I have a 12mm Omni Plossl, it Barlows quite well I think. I also have the 15mm Omni Plossl and the Omni Barlow. I've had these a while but they still get used sometimes. They're pretty good quality, basically standard GSO with a different finish, although I think the Omni Plossls and 2x Barlow can be a little over priced.



I've modified the Barlow by swapping the entire draw tube for a separate draw tube with a Synta made detachable element from another Barlow.



The 15mm Omni Plossl is almost identical to this very much used 17mm Celestron (GSO) Plossl on the left.


The Barlow and the three eyepieces plus a 19mm TeleVue Panoptic are basically the MightyMak grab'n'go kit now.



I mostly use the Panoptic with the 90mm Mak so I just take the Omni EP's and the 17mm Plossl along for variety. They all fit snugly into the Omegon OTA bag and I only have to carry the tabletop Dob mount separately. I can get a pretty wide range of magnifications with a 2x Barlow and four EP's (52.6x ~ 166.6x). I rarely Barlow the Panoptic. I think I've got the collection bug too lol!

 

I have a lone Orion-RACI in my stable at present. It lives on my 200mm F/4 Newt. Rich-Field telescope. It does seem prone to more problems than any SW-RACI I've got - I have 2 at present. The Antares is a nice RACI, living on my 127mm F/9.3 Refractor. The Antares' claim-to-fame is it uses actual 1.25" eyepieces. But it comes with a crosshair one with an adjustable diopter-setting. Very trick!

If any other one dies, I'll get another SW-RACI without hesitation.

Have too much fun,

Dave

 

Yeah, it's weird, but the SW RACI seemed much easier to set up out of the box than the Orion RACI. I'm still pretty convinced they're made at the same factory. I originally put it down to the fact that I have made a lot of progress in physiotherapy and have much more dexterity and range in my right arm and fingers than a year or so ago. But I'm not so sure. TS Optics also make one.

I think it's a little different though and 8x50 instead of 9x50. Could be GSO as I know TS Optics rebadge a lot of their stuff.

I'll have too much fun when my 7mm Fujiyama ortho's delivered hopefully, unfortunately all the tracking information is in German lol.

 

Yes - the SW-RACI is a GSO - Guan Shen Optics. I buy the generic 'GSO'-branded ones. Which go for $75.00 total. If all you can get easily across-the-pond is branded 'Skywatcher' it's one-in-the-same. So Agena has the GSO over here, as well as other outfits.

What I especially like about these is the ease with which you can make tiny adjustments to it's accuracy while you're using high-power on a target you have centered in your eyepiece in the main scope - without jolting the image in this eyepiece. This is a key factor to me in giving the SW/GSO my top-choice award.

Your mileage may vary,

Dave

P.S. - MTN, if you can fire me a PM with your documents in German, I can likely translate them for you. I learned technical German many years ago. Needed it for reading chemistry-papers.

 

The Sky-Watcher 9x50 RACI's could be GSO Dave, but I'm not so sure. It's incredibly complicated. The Suzhou Synta Optical Technology Co., Ltd. is a Chinese company located in Suzhou, Jiangsu, China which is a subsidiary of the Synta Technology Corporation of Taiwan. The Sky-Watcher brand was established by Synta Taiwan to sell optics produced by Suzhou Synta.


Above; an 8x50 RACI from Guan Sheng Optical's homepage, and below, the same finder on Agena's page. This is virtually the same as the TS Optics finder which I'm convinced is also GSO.


However, the Orion and Sky-Watcher finders appear slightly different and are supposedly 9x50 instead of 8x50. To make matters more confusing, Sky-Watcher claim on their (US) page that their finders are 8x50!


It's possible they have Synta 9x50 optics and the GSO have their own 8x50 optics. Other parts, such as the mounting bracket, may be outsourced from the same Chinese factory for both companies.


I can't detect any difference between my Orion and Sky-Watcher RACI's apart from the colour of the mounting bracket. That and the reticule cross hairs are a '+' shape rather than an 'x' shape (if you don't unthread and rotate the eyepiece from the diagonal) on the Sky-Watcher. It's all so bloody confusing ROTFL!

Thanks for the translation offer, but I've discovered the translation button, and if I can get my head around directly translated German syntax, my 7mm Fujiyama is in Cologne and due to be shipped to Exeter very shortly.

 

Any 6 X 30mm Finder and that would be your fate in my book! Those have too small an aperture to be worthy of putting on a telescope I know and LOVE. The only one's worse I've seen are those that come as stock on the Orion ST80 scopes. I believe they are 4 X 24mm. Worthy of setting the sights on a rifle with - but little else.

When I recently replaced my old ST80 (due to an imperfection in the glass on one of the lenses), I had a GSO 8 X 50mm RACI ready & waiting for it before it arrived. Then I apologized to the ST80 when it got here, and gave it the new Finder - promising it would never be so ill-treated again!

As for the SW v. GSO debate, when my SkyWatcher (US - format) 150mm Maksutov rolled-in, it had a GSO - identical to my others, but it was a straight-through 8 X 50mm model. So I swapped this with another GSO 8 X 50mm RACI. So now I have a Skywatcher straight-thru 8 X 50mm finder with their sparkling, black paint-job on it to sell. Also has a white painted base. I'm sure it will make someone very happy.

So I have no idea what it all boils down to. I think this subject has run it's track and I'll let it die.

Ah yes - I'd forgotten people can now punch-a-button and get a Google App. to translate German-To-English (sort of). All those years I wasted in the basements of Harvard, learning to translate all the technical-versions of all the languages of continental-Europa into English. Geeeze! All I had to do was twiddle-my-thumbs (for 40+ years) and wait! Boy! Do I feel like an idiot!



On that note - time for me to haul my gear out. CLEAR SKIES!

How's the weather down your neck of the woods, Ray? Hope you have it, too!

Dave

 

It should be fine on a 102mm scope. I might even get a 6x30 for my 102mm Mak. I have a 6x30 on my 90mm Mak and it works very well.



The 9x30 was a tad big for the 4" Mak IMO. The 6x30's have a wider FOV anyway.


It wasn't so bad on an EQ2 mount with a 2kg counterweight, but the finder aperture size was only just under half the size of the Mak itself lol. The 6x30 has a 7° FOV, 2° more than the 9x30 I believe. 7° is about 14 Full Moons.

 

It took me a while to figure out 'De' stood for Deutsch lol.



The 7mm Fujiyama is somewhere in the UK now I believe.

 

I figured you were joking Ray lol. Maybe Dave doesn't like small finders. Ostensibly you could put a 50mm aperture finder on a 102mm scope, I used one with my 102mm Skymax. I just think it's a bit of overkill though. The weight factor is also a thing to consider. With my disability I can only really use my left arm/hand normally.

It's only recently I've recovered enough movement on the right side of my body to effectively use the Bazooka again, and I'm limited with what I can do with that. I very nearly ordered a 6x30 finder for that too, but I'm getting used to the weight of the 9x50 on the objective end of the OTA now so I just replaced the Orion 9x50. I do try and keep the size and weight of the eyepiece/Barlow combinations though.

I've more or less unborked the Orion 9x50 after seriously stripping it down and cleaning it again. It all started when I stupidly tried to clean dew off the objective with a microfibre cloth. Plus, the O-ring had shifted and had got a bit kinked which seemed to cause collimation with the main scope problematical.

I'll keep it as back up and eventually set it back on the Skymax. The Orion 9x50 did change the weight dynamics on the Skymax though. I could get away with it because of the stability of the EQ mount and the fact the Skymax is a compact scope. There's no way I could put a 9x50 finder on the 90mm MightyMak with a tabletop Dob mount. I just about get away with the 6x30. I know your mount's alt-az, so won't have a counterweight, so I figured that a smaller finder would work better even though refractors can be heavy anyway.

I still stand by what I recommended for your scope. It doesn't mean you couldn't put a 9x50 or 8x50 on it at a later date, it's just that in my experience the 6x30 does the job just as well.

 

I just simply don't like 6 X 30mm finders, Ray. At 30mm they lack the light-gathering ability needed to clearly give me a detailed view of dim objects I am often hunting for. It's all a matter of what details you'll be needing. Rather in the way of: "It's better to not need something you have, than to not have something you need."

'De' stands for Duetch, which is 'German.' 'NL (or nl)' for Dutch(Netherlands). 'Jp' for Japanese. And many more.

But that's my 2¢ -

Dave

 

Thanks Ray. I try my best lol. Dave's probably got a point about the larger finders having better light gathering, but if I'm looking for something I can't see with the naked eye, the finder usually gets me into the general area where I then use a wide angle eyepiece looking through the telescope itself to find the target.



For some bizarre reason this inexpensive Celestron Kellner works the best as a finder on the Bazooka. I think the eye lens is nearly 2 centimetres and it has a huge field stop. A few weeks ago I spent at least half an hour looking at the Moon with this before realising I was still using the finder! It gives me 60x on the Bazooka. I’m not sure of the FOV, but it seems like it’s over 60 °. I think they sell them Stateside as bino pairs. The upper body is plastic but the drawtube has no undercut.

EDIT:


I'm pretty sure these are the same as my 15mm Kellner. Mine was from the AstroMaster Kit and I haven't seen them for sale in the UK otherwise. The blurb on the site says the 'body' is aluminium and internally blackened. If they're referring to the detachable draw tube, mine anyway, is chromed brass. I'm also pretty sure the upper body is plastic.

 

I'm guessing 'Kl' is Klingon lol.

 

Using your 'bazooka' as a finder has one flaw in how-to. You can't look at anything else if you miss the intended target - or fine-tune it for the next finding. Though it would work - if you're used to it. Interesting.

I have an eyepiece that would be perfect for this approach - my custom-made 2" 50mm. It is a Plossl-design, so it has a limited FOV. But it, in practice, has more than ample FOV. The thing is a monster! That Gary Russell guy makes/made some truly amazing pieces-of-glass. But his supply-line of top-end lenses has about dried-up. He would get the lenses from a firm in Japan that made super-high-end lenses for electronic microscopes which would have applications that require 10,000X and above and could not be used if it had even the slightest imperfection. At magnifications that were staggering to think about!

But now they've all gone nuclear and electronic - so no more glass is required. But it should give you an idea of how good Gary's eyepieces were - quality-wise.

Phaw! At least I got the 50mm before these, too, dried-up.

Enjoy!

Dave

 

Well, it's a technique with limitations, but it can work. I usually get within 1 to 2 degrees of the target before the Kellner approach anyway. The custom 2" 50mm sounds pretty awesome. Mind you, I can often see the obstruction with a 40mm Plossl on the Bazooka. It only gives 22.5x but is a useful eyepiece to collimate the finder to the main scope. I have two 40mm Plossls, a TeleVue and a Celestron. The Celestron was a give-away with the Big Cat, you can see it in the focuser in the picture I took of the Bazooka with the new Sky-Watcher RACI. I was collimating the finder then.

 

The 50mm only works well in some telescopes. It seems to like refractors the best, but it doesn't like any of my CATS. I think this may be due to it's giving too low a magnification for the optics to function properly. As regards field-stops, it has lenses across the full I.D. of the plastic-barrel it has instead of metal.

I'm not sure of which polymer this is, but it's almost as tough as metal - but it has less weight. Which is a good thing! The glass already tips-the-scales.

Back to my perch,

Dave