Re: I need some consoling.....

From: RichA (none_at_none.com)
Date: 12/05/04 

Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 20:15:49 -0500

On Sat, 4 Dec 2004 17:10:07 -0500, "Stephen Paul"
<spaul219@hotmail.com> wrote:

>I sold my Ultima 8-PEC today, along with all the bells and whistles that I
>had added to trick the scope out. I sold it to a local New Englander,
>astronomer, and school teacher. Turns out he has three Ultima 8's for his
>students now, an SBIG ST7e, a couple of 8" F6 homebuilt Dobsonians, and a
>small wide field refractor for those who struggle to find stuff. Luckily for
>those students, their new Ultima 8 has DSCs, which while I know is somewhat
>taboo among die hard amateurs, is certainly more likely to turn those
>students who have difficutlies, "on" rather than "off".
>
>That said, I'm a bit heartbroken over selling, but it just had to go. Deep
>sky imaging is a big comittment in enduring New England night time weather,
>setting up a lot of equipment, managing the difficulties of setting up the
>"shot", checking your results, and possibly having to shoot again and again,
>and then later on breaking down a lot of equipment, all on a "chance" of
>getting good weather to start with.
>
>For now, I'm going to leave deep sky imaging to you folks with backyard
>observatories, and who live where the weather is less "chance" and more
>"prediction".
>
>Hopefully I'll get some clear skies tonight, so I can go and console myself
>some more with my newly aquired 102ED F9 refractor on GP mount. Saturn is
>getting well positioned for my prefered observing hours of 10PM to midnight.
>
>If nothing else, I've learned It's good to have options, and to find a few
>that suit you, in case you find one overly taxing.

Of course a 12 lb tube (your Vixen) and light mount of course
initially seem to be a Godsend compared to the Ultima which probably
weighed around 30lbs, plus tripod and wedge. However, I had the 11"
Ultima and it was my most-used large aperture scope, and I've owned
them all. Initially, if you do planets, the pristine images of the
ED will probably seem like a major step up from the Ultima. But, when
seeing is at it's best, the 8" scope would have prevailed. If you
aren't a big deepsky viewer, the loss of the inches won't be as acute.
The Ultima
was a major improvement over what came before, mostly due to stability
and the fact it could run for about 8 hours on a 9 volt battery.
Oddly enough, I saw an Ultima 8" and a used Celestron one-armed
Nexstar 8" in a local store and the price for the used Ultima was
higher. I guess Goto isn't always the most desirable feature.
-Rich

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