Telescope Reviews: Zooms for TMB 92ss ?

Astronomics informed me before purchase that the 92ss will NOT work with a BV'er.

That seems surprising they would make that comment. I actually have three BV's and all work. I don't have the official "visual extension" for the TMB92SS that was back-ordered, but which supposedly has now shipped to everyone. I just picked up a 2" extension from Scope-Stuff and have been using that for the past several weeks (actually a perfectly serviceable solution).

My Burgess C BV is a bit battle-scarred, but works fine with the standard OCA that Burgess provides. The StellarVue BV3 works fine with the 1.95 OCA screwed into the BV. The Denk II's have a power Switch and require a very wide range of focus. It works at all three magnifications, but I haven't found the magic formula that would get all three to work without any adjusting. With the low range OCA screwed into the BV (rather than the diagonal), it works fine in Barlow mode, but requires me to remove the extension or switch to the higher-powered OCA to get it to work in normal and reduction mode.

But certainly binoviewing works fine on that scope - and one would expect it to as well since without the visual extension, it provides a huge amount of in-focus (in fact that is one of the reasons I purchased this scope).

My first night with the 92ss was poor, Jupiter at 80x was fuzzy.... not a good start.... but we try again.

Certainly wait for good seeing - Jupiter was pretty good tonight even under slightly below average viewing. In addition to the SEB and NEB, both the NTB and NNTB were readily visible and as the GRS swung into view around 12:30am, that was also clearly seen (and it's not that easy to see in a small scope). Gannymede was transitting, and I was quite surprised to see it as a crisp tiny dot sliding across the NTB.

Since I ordered the 3 - 6 zoom, I now feel cheated at only 170x power.... what do you recommend for a lower fl EP, 2.0 / 2.5?

I have the Nagler 2.5T6 which works extremely well. There are no fixed length 2.0mm EP's that I'm aware of in regular production. At a lower price-point is the TMB/Burgess 2.5mm EP which I had at one time - it's an extremely good value, and while it won't match the Nagler, it comes very reasonably close in the central area. Another serious possibility would be a high quality 2x Barlow like the TV Barlow. The 3-6 zoom barlows well, and at 1.5-3mm effective - you would certainly have all based covered!

You seem to be very experienced observer.... how do you rank the 92ss with other scopes you have used?

One of the finest scopes I've ever used. The larger FT focusser is a pleasure to use. I think it may well push the TMB105/650 out of my collection as being a bit redundant and that's saying a lot as that scope has a Strehl of 0.988 and gives my NP-127 a run for its money. But the smaller size of the 92 and the fact that this will also be a great photographic scope will likely win out. It is also my Grab&Go as it can be out on the deck in seconds. I have it on Lapides-modified Teegul mount on a Gitzo 5530S tripod - a rather expensive set up to be sure, but one that this scope well deserves. The sub-1-second settling after even a sharp rap and the fact that one can hold onto the focusser at 200x without the image jumping around is a huge plus for convenience.

--------------------