I'm pretty sure you will Ray. Santa's a decent bloke. I think he's related to Father Christmas. They could both lose a few kilo and stop hitting the port if you ask me lol.

Plus, those bloody reindeer leave an awful mess.

 

Congratulations, Ray! I hope you enjoy the ST80 - I love mine!

Now I'm off to leave my 'present' for Santa in the fireplace.....




HO! HO! HO!

Dave

 

Yeah, I'd like to see a picture Ray. I opened my Solstice present as I couldn't wait for Xmas lol.



It's a 90mm Orion Apex.



Comes with a couple of Orion Sirius Plossls of 10 & 25mm. They're both pretty decent.



Plus it comes with some cool software (you have to download it).



It hasn't crashed my computer yet anyway lol.



It's far better than the 90mm Omegon MightyMak and is pretty obviously Synta-built. My own Orion Amici diagonal is in the pictures, it was supplied with a standard Synta mirror diagonal. The 25mm Sirius Plossl is quite decent, possibly GSO or Synta. The 10mm has surprised me, it's quite good and I didn't expect that.



This (above) is the pants Kellner that came with the MightyMak. The eye-lens is plastic! Apart from the doublet everything else is plastic or Bakelite lol.



Above; a comparison of the 10 & 25mm Sirius Plossls with the standard plastic bodied reverse Kellner giveaways with most Sky-Watcher stuff.

I'm in anorak (geek) heaven at the moment with the Starry Nights Orion software. Had first light with the Apex on a setting Venus.

Have a good Xmas Eve!

 

It's 90mm aperture with a 1250mm f/l. Making it f/13.88.


The spec's above are for the terrestrial OTA version. It's very well made and whizzes over the Omegon. The smaller FOV is noticeable though. It fits the Vixen mount perfectly with the finder bracket in the correct place. It's great for high magnification and seems like the Skymax. The Orion Nebula looked fantastic with it, I could easily see the Trapezium stars. It wouldn't be too good for DSO's though.

 

Well, they're different animals really Ray. Both are highly portable small telescopes. The ST80's doublet is excellent for an achromat. The OTA is well made, although the focuser isn't as smooth as I'd like, hence why I recommend the WO diagonal with it. It makes a difference. I think Dave added a Crayford to his, WO make some that should fit. They cost more than the scope though I think lol.

Synta Mak's are very well put together, the primary and the meniscus can't be faulted. The Apex performs like the Skymax for clarity. The focuser is nicely smooth and the visual back is well engineered.

The ST80 has a wide field of view, nearly 3° I think, excellent light gathering at f/5 and gives a sharp image. I've got 171x on the Moon. The whole 80mm aperture is used. Downside is some CA and you'll definitely need a Barlow for medium to high magnification. Perfect for deep sky but pretty good on planetary/lunar.

The Apex has less than one arc degree FOV and is akin to looking down a *Smarties tube. At nearly f/14 it is slower than my 102mm Skymax, yet nearly as powerful (a 10mm EP gives 130x and 125x on the Skymax and Apex respectively). Yet the obstruction is a gnat's member over 32% of the primary/aperture size! Perfect for planetary/lunar but a bit limited for DSO's. Some globulars and bright emission nebulae are good. It vignettes more with a reducer than the f/11.1 Omegon 90mm Mak.

As we say here, it's 'horses for courses'. Personally, overall, I think the ST80 is more flexible and if I had to choose one it would be that. I just have a thing for small Mak's.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smarties

 

There's a wide gulf in the views from a Maksutov to an ST80. A Mak has a very narrow field-of-view, whereas the fast f5 optics of the ST80 takes a wide bite. And while the ST80 excels at lower-powers, the Mak's beg for a very high-powered view. So ST80's are at home in diffuse-nebulae and stars. Maks are happy at getting up-close & personal with planets & comets and such.

One, or the other? The only logical answer is: Both!

You'll soon have a 'family' of telescopes, Ray!

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!

Dave

PS - We both just replied!

Yes - I added a GSO Dual-Focuser Crayford to mine. WO Crayford's are a bunch more money, and these GSO's are GREAT!! I also highly suggest the GSO 8 X 50mm RACI. They're the best, and easy to adjust 'in-the-field' without disturbing the view in your main-scope, the ST80 in this case & my 150mm Mak & my 127mm F9.3 Achromatic Refractor (a Meade AR5).

 

It might be worth just swapping the one off the Meade for now. I think you'll find the ST80's probably easier to set up. I think Dave's right though, eventually you'll want a small Mak lol.

https://www.amazon.com/Orion-10022-...2536057&sr=8-2-fkmr0&keywords=orion+apex+90mm

 

I was writing in another forum, and one guy got one of those, Mak. 90mm Maksutov from Orion-USA. He raved about how fun it was on the Moon. Soon most everyone caved-in and bought them. Except me - I bided my time (and $$££).

When I finally did decide to - it was the 150mm one from Skywatcher-USA. I mostly use my ST80, though. I LOVE the wide-open starfields around Cygnus & Vulpecula! So many things there abouts.

Dave

 

Yeah, I'd like a big Mak but decided to go for the Big Cat instead. The 90mm Apex seems tailor made for my Vixen mount. I've yet to catch the Moon with it but I bet it's great. Those Synta Mak's are really good whatever the size. The Orion/Starry Night software impressed me as much and it is a replacement for Stellarium for me. $50 worth for a free download! You just enter the code they give you with the scope and register it. I stopped running Stellarium on Windows a few years back when its new rendering engine borked the BIOS clock. I like CDC a lot but it's so nice to have a geeky realistic planetarium again.

 

I used to have Starry Night on my other computer - which was stolen. Not sure where the CD's for it went though. But I did like it - very nice maps/charts and all. But I am quite happy with my Software Bisque TheSkyX - Serious edition. I've had that for the longest (one of it's editions, they do change). It's better IMHO than all others. Costs around $150.00 US. Every seen this? Used to have the top-end SkyTools, which was alright.

I'll leave a screenshot to show you how it looks, on mine at least. Lots of settings & objects one can load. They also have a 'Pro' edition for about $350.00. That can be set to do just about anything - might even go to the store and pick up a pizza for you...

Dave

 

SkyX looks very good. It should be for that money lol. It runs on Linux as well which is good.

http://astronomy.starrynight.com/starry-night-7-comparison-chart.html

I'm not sure if the Orion package is exactly the same as any of the Starry Night 7 regular versions.



It seems to be the 'CSAP' version but with some of the 'Enthusiast' version features added. It would be interesting to know.

 

Merry Christmas Ray. It's nearly Boxing Day here lol. Tho Orion ST80 looks great. I like the colour. It's probably fortuitous that you got the one with rings anyway. You can rotate the finder where you want it. Did you get the Starry Night software with it?