My little Eagle Optics Celestron 80mm f5 refractor arrived this PM. Actually, it was waiting for me when I got home from work (balky TACAN unit on a destroyer delayed me for a while). The delivery driver had left it with the neighbors. As I trotted it back across the street I was somewhat pleasantly surprised about how heavy--at least 20 pounds--new baby was. Almost in spite of himself telescope-jaded old Rod was getting excited--over a 3 inch refractor! Before long, I had this little bird unpacked and assembled (20-30 minutes, tops). I must say I was impressed. I've used Orion Short Tube 80s before and am quite fond of them. But the extras in this package make it a really nice deal. For example, the scope doesn't attach to the mount with the plastic under-tube-mounting block like the Orion and other versions. Instead, it is mounted via a pair of nice metal crackle-finished tube rings. The forward tube ring even sports a ¼ 20 tpi bolt for mounting a piggyback camera. But it gets better. Eagle has also included an adapter block that allows mounting scope and rings on any ¼ 20-tpi device. Remove the tube rings from the GEM, attach them to the block via the provided holes, and voila, the scope can ride piggyback on a scope or be attached to a camera tripod. What the all-important mounting itself? And the accessories? The 80's GEM mount is a typical small German-style model. As Ed Ting states in his review of this telescope (at http://scopereviews.com), it's almost overkill for this little scope. The tripod's made of wood, and, while a mite spindly, it's definitely OK. A nice 30rnm finder is also included. I've heard that some Celestron (and other) "Short Tubes" are being sold without finders. I've yet to see an 80 being sold without a finderscope, but I did notice that the telescope pictured on the box my 80 f5 came in does not possess a finder. The finder does feature a tube baffle which stops it down slightly, but this can be removed if desired (I don't notice much difference before/after, though). The main scope's included 90-degree Star diagonal appears to be the same inexpensive unit included with the other current and less expensive Celestron telescopes. I decided to give this plastic bodied diagonal a try, but I was prepared to replace it if necessary (given what I've heard about cheap star diagonals). I've got a good Celestron 1.25 or two around here. The final accessory in this package is an eyepiece, a Celestron 1.25" 25mm "SMA." SMA, if you haven't heard, is Celestron's name for its inexpensive Kellner design line of eyepieces. Holding this one up to the light, though, did show that it had a substantially larger apparent field of view than some of the better Kellners I've seen (including a Vixen manufactured 25mm Kellner from the 1980s that I have around here). Later that Evening… As you CAN CERTAINLY IMAGINE, the act of carrying a new scope into the backyard, even a rather small one, brought a sudden flood of clouds into the sky (no kiddin'). Despite what you may have heard, the "new scope curse" is very real! I was able to give the 80WA a quick once over, since Vega and the Double Double were in the clear near the zenith. The little scope easily split the DD at 120x. Nice and sharp at this magnification, too. I did note, however, that one of my good diagonals provided a substantially better image. With the stock unit at this power, a bit of flaring (a sign of misalignment) was noted. Vega did, of course, show a bit of in-focus false color, but certainly (and rather suprisingly) not a distracting amount by any means. And remember, this assessment is coming from an SCT user (fanatic) who hasn't touched many refractors since you know what rolled off the Celestron assembly line in 1970! Nice airy disk and diffraction rings were visible at 120x, and the in and out of focus diffraction patterns looked good. Dislikes? Other than the diagonal (come on, wadda ya want for a couple hundred bucks?) not much. With a bit of adjustment the focuser was smooth and easy enough. The little GEM does its job, with 'the shakes' dying out in a second or two at 120x. I haven't used many GEMs in recent times, so I spent a large amount of time hunting the 'a little too small' locks for both axes. The 25mm Kellner did a good enough job that I didn't trot inside for a Plossl (I used an old University Optics Abbe Ortho and an Orion 2x Shorty Barlow for high power, however). Slow motions on both axes worked well with minimal backlash. In just a few minutes this little refractor gave me a great deal of joy. It really takes one back to get out in the backyard with a little GEM-mounted scope and spend the evening moving it around the backyard looking for breaks in the trees (and clouds). Above all, let me emphasize as Ed Ting did in his review, that this is a REAL telescope, capable of real work. I think that for me it's certainly the beginning of a beautiful friendship! This is a lot of telescope for $228.00. Maybe there is such a thing as an almost free lunch. The Very Next Night.... My stepdaughter, Beth, is in her high school's marching band, and as usual, Dorothy and I spent our Friday evening at the Big Game. Strangely for down here, a COLD FRONT had passed through, moderating the temps and cleansing the sky. By the time we got home it was around 11pm. Jupiter was well up, Saturn was tagging not far behind, and there was a real and unmistakable hint of Fall in the air. Naturally, I grabbed my new little friend, the 80mm "Short Tube," and headed for the back yard. What a joy to be able to grab a scope on the spur of the moment and trot it to the backyard! In short order, I had the little GEM set up and the scope pointed at Jupiter. Based on my experiences the night before, I used a good Celestron star diagonal, the 1.25" which came with my 1995 Ultima C8. Didn't know quite what to expect. Would the little refractor recreate that Jimi Hendrix oldie-but-goodie, Purple Haze?! Well, there was some color, but it was, amazingly enough, quite unobtrusive. And at 120x (6mm Orthoscopic, 2x Barlow), MUCH detail was on display. Including, by 1 a.m.--could it be?--the Great Red Spot! The GRS, being as pale as it is, was noticed more as the "hollow" until it had rotated well onto the planet. But it was then easily recognizable, especially with filters, which helped reduce the glare (and eliminated The Color Purple). Earlier on, I'd watched a shadow transit of Io. Nice! Little, hard, black BB crossing Jove's face. I also noted that the moons showed as tiny but recognizable disks. I hadn't expected a heck of a lot on the planets from an inexpensive 80mm f5 achromat, but I was seeing an image that looked pretty good. About as good, I'd say, as what you'd see in any scope in this aperture class--this side of a TV85, anyway. On to Saturn. Sharp. Cassini's Division was easy, with some banding on the planet obvious. Considerable other detail--brightness variations in the rings, etc.--was also visible when the seeing really steadied down (not that it was bad at any time this evening). As an experiment, I replaced the 'good' diagonal I was using with the stock unit. YUCK! At high power, the image really suffered with this unit. Before I knew it, it was 2a.m., and I was feeling a bit weary. As a last treat, I turned Little Bird (I name all my telescopes, and this seems to fit this tiny mite) toward M45. How wonderful to find all the Pleiads framed in one field! Edge sharpness was more than adequate, especially considering the f5 speed of this telescope. I compared the included SMA 25mm Kellner to a good Celestron black-top Plossl, and concluded that it's (the SMA) not a bad eyepiece at all. Better, I thought-much better--than the "MA" eyepieces Meade used to include with many of their scopes (I've got several of these 'wonders' floating around here). I wound up staring at the Sisters for some time. Any other issues than the diagonal? Only thing so far has been the RA gear. It worked fine most of the time last night, but would occasionally tend to bind. The worm is adjustable, so I fiddled with it a bit the next morning, and managed to eliminate the binding without much trouble. I could probably adjust it a bit further to eliminate a bit of slop, but it is now working well. Again, this small GEM is well suited to this scope, with a sharp rap dying out in about 2 seconds at 120x. I was, in summary, bowled-over by the scope's planetary performance. Unfortunately, a user who didn't know to change-out the el cheapo diagonal would never realize this. I suppose it's possible that I just got a bad one, but from what I'm hearing from the purchasers of a number of Celestron's scopes, poorer star diagonals now, unfortunately, seem to be the rule rather than the exception. And the following night… The skies were not perfect last night, but I did get out with my little C80WA for an hour or so. Earlier in the day I'd finished adjusting the RA worm on the little German mount. It needs to be just right. Too tight against the gear and the RA slow motion will bind. Too loose and RA slow motion becomes sloppy with lots of backlash. With the gear overly loose, a small turn of the control will occasionally send an object "coasting" right out of the field In this small GEM design (which has been around forever in small imported mounts), the worm engaging the RA gear also provides stability. If the worm is too loose against the gear, the mount will develop play in its RA axis. Nevertheless, a few minutes with the mount, a ratchet set and a cup of coffee were sufficient for me to get things close to 'just right.' As I carried the scope outside, I was again struck by how nice it is to travel light--once in a while, anyway. The scope, a couple of eyepieces, an Orion "Deepmap" star chart and a miniature version of David Chandler's planisphere could be carried out in one trip. Amazing! There's something to be said for minimalist "QRP" astronomy! This being a work night (I have to get up at 5:25am every morning), Jupiter and Saturn were out of the question. That left double stars and deep sky objects. In addition to living in the extremely light polluted historic Garden District in Mobile, I also have the area's prime attraction (in addition to the Victorian/Ante-bellum homes), towering oak trees, to contend with. The 80 is really proving its worth here. I can move it around the yard to take advantage of the few open spaces available to me. Being in the clear, Beta Cygni was an obvious and beautiful target! I never tire of looking at this golden/sapphire duo! And the C80WA didn't disappoint! Colors were beautiful and the pair displayed nice airy disks/diffraction patterns at 116x. I stared at the pair for quite a while, using a variety of powers to admire their majesty. Again I was impressed by how nice a combination the scope and mount make. Without being too heavy, it's nice and stable. What else to see? Not much around tonight. Oh, M15 was lurking in the east, but it was in the midst of a light-pollution 'enhanced' layer of haze/fog growing in that direction. But I wanted to try my small wonder on a real deep sky object. Well, M57, near the zenith couldn't be much better placed. I slewed over that way. Located the position in the finder (my scope's little 30mm finder's nice and bright, by the way), and then refined my position with the main/scope 25mm SMA combo. Being able to use such a wide field for object location was a pleasant experience, for sure. In the right place, and able to make out a wee and fuzzy star which I knew was M57, I went to higher power, 57x, using a 7mm Orthoscopic. There it was, faint, but unmistakable. Hmmmnm. Since it was looking this good, I wondered what an OIII filter might do on this little telescope (OIIIs usually seem at their best with larger apertures)? In it went. Nice job. M57 with the help of the OIII revealed itself as a little smoke ring (no, I DIDN'T see the central star). Again, I stuck with the object for quite a while, trying a variety of eyepieces. With the tripod fully extended and the C80WA pointed near zenith, the eyepiece was at just the right height for comfortable viewing while seated in a handy lawn chair. When I finally pulled my eye away from the eyepiece it was clear that the conditions had degraded further. Seeing was very good, but the haze and fog was thickening dramatically. I was also being eaten by Asian Tiger Mosquitoes, despite having sprayed myself with OFF (be very careful with DEET repellents around scopes). It was definitely time to shut down before I keeled over from anemia. Interesting if short evening...I'll be out there again tonight if the sky gods cooperate. And, FINALLY, Little Bird flies to a semi-dark site… Even though there was a mess of tropical weather sitting in the Gulf, the skies way down south here were reasonably clear last night, Saturday October 2. Some drifting fog-tendrils occasionally, but not too bad. I had promised my friend and observing companion, Pat Rochford, that I'd come by and help him do some rewiring on the cooling fans of his 24" dob, so, Little Bird (my Celestron 80f5) and I headed for Fairhope, Alabama. Fairhope is a 30-minute drive from Mobile and is a small bedroom community on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. It ain't exactly "dark" anymore, but it is tremendously better than home, with the Milky Way being at least faintly visible on average nights. I set LB out on the observing floor of Pat's Stargate Observatory to cool down while I tended to rewiring the big 24's fans. That finished, and with the Sun gone, it was time for Little Bird and me to start touring the deep sky: M22: This fantastic, large glob was gettin' awfully low, so this was our first stop. At magnitude 5.1 and 24' across this big thing ain't exactly hard to find, and it wasn't long before I had it in the field of a 15mm TeleVue Plossl. While M22 looked nice at this power, boosting things to a bit over 100x with a 7mm ortho and a 2x barlow provided definite resolution (not much of a challenge, really, since in addition to being big and bright, this glob is also quite loose). Can't wait to try this from the dark skies of the Deep South Regional Star Gaze next week! M13: Over to M13, which was still nice and high at this fairly early hour. Sorry. M22 wins in an 80f5! 13 is bright and easily visible in both the 80f5 and its 30mm finderscope, but it is really just a bright BLOB! It's attractive, but its tighter nature prevents the 80 from providing even a hint of resolution from these skies. M11: Back south for this treasure, the Wild Duck Galactic Cluster. This object was simply outstanding. I looked at it for a very long time, Little Bird flapping along with those distant fowl. What makes it so nice in this little scope is that it shows off both 'sides' of its nature. At low power with a 26mm Celestron Plossl, it takes on that famous triangular 'flight pattern' shape. At higher magnifications it assumes the appearance of an incredibly loose globular, with the reddish star at the heart of the cluster being very prominent. M27: And what a treat the Dumbbell Nebula was. The "apple core" shape was blatantly obvious to me at 15x, and a terrific view was provided by a barlowed 15mm Plossl. An OIII worked very nicely with this combo as well. I did think that the view was better without than with the OIII filter in a 4.8mm Nagler. M31: Was climbing now. Not bad, not bad at all. The less than perfect skies prevented it from showing its full extent. But there was 'a lot of galaxy' visible at 15x. M32 was extremely prominent. I even convinced myself that I could see M110 (which was very apparent in Pat's 8"f7 Newtonian). Double Cluster: Stupendous! Looked best in a 15mm Plossl. For once, I thought really low power (26mm Celestron Plossl or 32mm TV) gave this pair too much 'space.' The 15 also brought out some additional stars. M45: The Pleiads were up. Pat and I marveled at how well this little scope did at low power on the Sisters. Many, many pinpoint sparklers, and they were reasonably sharp to the edges of the field. M57: Looked much more 'Smoke Ringy' than it does from the city, OIII or no OIII. M15 in Pegasus is a very tightly-wound glob with a strange, bright core. No hint of resolution in this aperture, but beautiful nonetheless! Jupe and Saturn were very nice when they climbed a decent height into the skies. Just to make sure I wasn't foolin' myself, I called out to Pat: "Hey Pat, GRS just now rotating onto the disk?" Pat: "Yep!" While the little scope provided very pleasing amounts of detail on both worlds, I must admit that one of the best looks at Saturn I've had in a long time came from Pat's 8" f7 with a binoviewer cranked to about 300x. Whoa! Back to the little bird for one more look at Jupe and M31 (it was around 2 am by now, but I was still goin' strong). What's this? Jupiter suddenly looked like you'd THINK it "ought to" look in an 80 f5! M31...not so good either. What the hey?! A look at the objective showed that dew was stopping me down to about 40mm. I had neglected to bring a dewzapper gun or my 3" Kendrick heating element. Pat, who mainly uses Kendrick heaters, had an old gun handy, but plugging it into one of the observatory's 12 volt receptacles brought only a bad smell as the old windshield defogger bit the dust. But it had been a wonderful evening, and it had at least given me a taste of what's possible in an 80 under dark skies. And how was YOUR Saturday night? The Lastest Little Bird News: I still haven't gotten my brave little 3-inch refractor to really dark skies. I had been looking forward to our area's big star party, the Deep South Regional Star Gaze, as an opportunity to find out how the 80 would do under black skies, both visually and photographically (piggybacked on my C8). But clouds and torrential rains prevented me from getting in even a minute of observing this year. I'm hoping to get my "littlest Celestron" to a local darksite this month (November), however. I also had the opportunity to check out the poor performing star diagonal which was supplied by with my 80f5. It turned out that the bad views were due to miscollimation of the diagonal's mirror. I disassembled it and fixed most of the misalignment by the simple expedient of reinstalling the mirror with it rotated 180 degrees from the original position. It's still not 100%, but is now capable of delivering nice views, even on the planets at fairly high powers.