Hello From Montana

[bigsky]

I'm Mark and I live in Montana. I've ordered and will be taking delivery on a Perseus 150-12. Everything from the positive reviews of the company to the functional aesthetics of their telescopes to the 5-year warranty influenced my decision.

I'm a purely visual amateur astronomer. This instrument will sit atop a G-11 equatorial mount with a 12" tripod extension. My other refractors are a 6", f-8 Celestron (Synta) achromat and a 4.3", f-7 WO APO.

My impressions of the Synta focuser caused me to upgrade it immediately to a Moonlite focuser, and my new iStar scope will also be outfitted with a Moonlite focuser.

For visual use, I'm hoping the Losmandy mount will be up to the task with the iStar. I'm planning to use this scope for mostly lunar and solar system observing, binary splitting and eventually, spectography.

Mark

[jamesling1000]

Hi Mark....

Welcome to Istarscopeclub.....

Great to hear that you are going for the Perseus 150-12, and seems that both you and myself also have the G-11 equatorial mount with a 12" tripod extension and the 6", f-8 Celestron (Synta) achromat refractor.

I hope to see your review on this ISTAR 6" F12, against the Celestron 6" F8, so that members like us can really know how much the next level we can be expecting, when we are acquiring ISTAR refractors....

As for you, you probably just need to wait for the raycorr, and turn this ISTAR 6" F12 to a triplet quality.....

REgards

James Ling

[Mike]

Hello Mark and welcome to the world of Istar Congratulations on a great purchase. The 150-12 is the first Istar scope I looked through. It's the first Istar scope that Eric of OPT looked through also. Two nights with it and OPT became a dealer. They still have that original scope in their showroom. I've got the scope all together and just need a few hours to star test it. In the meantime I ordered the dovetail and it will be here in a couple of days. The decision to go with a Moonlight is a good one. Very nice well engineered pieces. The original scope I talked about and OPT ended up with had one as well. However, we don't use a Synta focuser. We manufacture our own focusers here in the US. They are quite nice. 100% CNC machined down to the thumbscrews for tension and braking. I'm a big Moonlight and Starlight fan but I could be happy with the stock Istar focuser no problem. We are constantly making improvements on it and keep inching closer to the Moonlight quality. Your G11, especially with the extension, will be great. Your choice of the 15" ADM was another good choice. The combination of this good dovetail and our Pro style rings will support the scope quite well with a minimum amount of vibration. I use the same ring and dovetail setup in testing all but the F5 Istar scopes.

[bigsky]

Thanks for the reply from Singapore. I was there around 1979.......beautiful city!

What I like about the f-12 Perseus is that I think my mount can handle it for visual use. Also, I did the math and the eyepieces I have seem to be more useful in the f-12 and less so in the f-15. That, and f-15 is a lot of leverage to be putting on any mount.

Mark

[Mike]

Mark, don't forget to send us a good picture of your final setup in the field. Preferably with the "Bigsky" in the background.

[bigsky]

Thanks, Mike. Yes, I'm aware that you don't use Synta focusers and I'm sure yours is a good one. But I am so impressed with Moonlite that I had to go with it on this scope. I'm convinced that this scope in this configuration will rock!

Mark

[bigsky]

I like the math of the f-12 design. For example, with steady skies I'll easily get good eyepiece relief with my 9mm Radian eyepiece at 200X. At 33X per-aperture-inch, those numbers should do well at splitting binaries without straining the optics. With a 24mm Panoptic at 75X, those numbers look really good, also.

Mark

[boomboom]

Hi Mark,
Congrats on a great scope. I'm an owner of a pretty decent synta 150mm f8 with a GSO linear bearing focuser. Any chance of a quick comparison between the istar and synta? A bit unfair I know. I'm wanting an 8" f 8-10-12...not sure which yet just waiting for the right time to jump, soon I hope.
Matt