Celestron C80ED-RGT Refractor

Hi,

Do you see where I'm coming from?

If I may just expand briefly on this. Firstly I would give a lot of weight to Gordons opinions on a product, even though I have not read this review. However if Gordon was to write a positive review of a similar Meade product (if there is a good comparable Meade product), would that get published in A&S? I doubt it, because rather than being an unbiased club magazine giving honest advice it is going to help sell what A&S sell.

Anyway, on portability. Does the scope come with a means to attach it to a regular camera tripod? equatorial mounts are not the easiest things to transport on aircraft, so the ability to mount it on a good camera tripod when necessary would be a major factor for me; hence owning a 4" Mak that will go onto a tripod, and also having O-rings for equatorially mounting it.

Cheers,
~Al

Hi Al,
There's 2 keith's posting here . Keith g is talking about a german equatorial. The one I am talking about for portability is a fork arm.
Keith

Gordon, It was your review that caught my eye in the first place, I have to say congratulations on a thorough review of this scope I'm still very keen, and it will be interesting to see if A&S will introduce the 'pricematch' offer. The 100ED looks great also, must check the budget though

As regards the SLT series, are these achromats?, though a major plus on these is it's portability. It's nice to hear the cg5 mount is very solid, i'll take your word for it Dave, you seem you were impressed

Time to think about it methinks while the bright nights are here....

By the way, Have any of you had any problems bringing a scope on board an aircraft as part of your 'hand luggage'? I'm bringing the etx70 with me next week on hols, so it should wrap up nicely in that bag supplied with it.

Keith..

I think you're overreacting to a reasonable point made by Mick.

Shane,

I have to disagree. Michael's remark was made in direct response to the Celestron 80ED review mentioned by Keith and I wrote that review. I will not sit idly by and let my integrity be attacked in that manner. I suspect Michael did not even read the review. If he had and disagreed with anything said, I would have expected reasoned arguments on points made in the review rather than dismiss it so presumptuously.

Do you honestly believe though, that if you had an unfavourable experience with the Celestron and wrote a scathing, though fair, criticism of it that the review would have been published?

I've no idea. I've nothing to do with editing or publishing the magazine. The Editing staff decide what is published and what isn't. However, I do not allow editing (except to correct grammatical and other errors of course) of my articles - period. The fact is, the Celestron 80ED is a super little telescope and my review was published, criticisms and all, as submitted.

This board has provided a place for a free expression of ideas and opinions (within reason) for over two years.

So why are you taking issue with my reply to Michael?

If we can't express concerns about any entity involved with our hobby then this board is useless and should be closed.

!!!

Gordon

If I may just expand briefly on this. Firstly I would give a lot of weight to Gordons opinions on a product, even though I have not read this review. However if Gordon was to write a positive review of a similar Meade product (if there is a good comparable Meade product), would that get published in A&S? I doubt it, because rather than being an unbiased club magazine giving honest advice it is going to help sell what A&S sell.

Albert,

Thank you Albert. I think you're touching on two points here. One is the integrity of reviews within the magazine and the other whether the magazine should review other telescope makes. I can only review what I'm asked to review. On the subject of integrity, if you recall, I criticised Redshift 5 quite severely on its release and even though A & S sell Redshift 5, my review was published intact as submitted.

Anyway, on portability. Does the scope come with a means to attach it to a regular camera tripod?

The scope I reviewed was the 80ED spotting scope model (the equatorially mounted versions were only announced while I was writing the review). The spotter can be turned into a astronomical scope by replacing the diagonal (and preferably a larger finderscope). It can be mounted on a tripod or on to a Celestron/Vixen equatorial mount with the integral dovetail. It looks like the astro models have the same ring assembly with dovetail so I should imagine they also have 1/4-20 tripod fittings but I don't know for definite

Gordon

I'm in no way questioning your ability to review a product. My concern is how the whole thing is perceived.
It's nothing personal to you Gordon whatsoever. Does that clarify where I'm coming from on this Gordon?

Michael,

I see where you are coming from but I still believe you should have at least had the courtesy to read the review before making a judgement on it on a public forum. If your personal experience with telescopes, and in particular small apos like the 80ED, leads you to think the review is biased in any way, then by all means take issue with it and I will try and answer you here.

(FWIW, I would actually be interested to see the review, especially if it has notes on how it compares to the Orion. If you want to post it up here, I'm sure it would be appreciated by all.)

My brief by A & S was to review the Celestron 80ED. The comparison with the Orion 80ED was a private matter but it's still on my computer somewhere so I'll dig it out.

Gordon