Telescope Reviews: First FLIGHT: Traveling with the Stellarvue SV115T

While I was in San Antonio, I took the advice from a member of the Stellarvue Yahoo Group and drove about an hour north of the city to Guadalupe State Park. For $16, I was able to get a “camping site” which allowed us to stay in the park after dusk. It was a fairly good elevation and only the southern portion of the sky was impacted by the light dome of San Antonio. I had two guests with me and we had several hours of pleasant observing. They had never experienced observing at higher powers. Saturn at over 300X really blew their socks off!

The mount and the wooden legs worked great. Solid, no wobble, smooth operation. Going up to the Zenith did require a “one-knee” stance but one of the hard foam pads from the telescope case gave excellent padding and saved our knee caps!

The next day I was all packed up again and getting on a plane to head to San Juan, Puerto Rico then drove down to the southern part of the island with a co-worker. This was to be the most exciting part of my observing as Puerto Rico offered the unique opportunity to observe at 18 degrees latitude. But clouds or rain in the evening thwarted my attempts until my last night on the island. Even then I had the harsh reality that there as a lot of moisture in the air and I had a town to the south of me throwing a large light dome into the sky – preventing me from getting any good viewing into the southern hemisphere! Arrrgh! I only picked up a few targets. Still it was great public opportunity to show more people what could be seen with a telescope – and I always enjoy doing that.

So was it worth it?

SOME PROS:

+ Through a lot of weight management and making some special tripod legs I was able to take a larger refractor and a fairly large “package” at no extra cost.

+ All airport security personnel and flight attendants were fully supportive of my traveling with a “Fragile Optical Instrument.”

+ The customized Stellavue C7 bag worked very well and fit into all the overhead compartments – even the smaller express aircraft. A larger bag would not have fit in the smaller jets overheads and would have had to go into hold baggage during the trip (very scary).

+ It was great having the larger aperture to capture more light for Deep Space Objects.

+ It was great having an APO triplet for high power planetary viewing with no false color.

+ The wooden legs and mount worked exceptionally well.

SOME CONS

- Carrying the larger scope (and hence, the larger scope package) was definitely “noticeable” for this “50ish” year old man.

- You need to be in good shape to haul a 25 pound telescope case around the airport. In the future I may consider purchasing a lightweight dolly that could be attached/strapped to the case or get a custom case made to the same size as the Stellarvue bag but with wheels and a collapsing handle – if possible.

- Although the tripod worked great, it could have been taller. I will make some extensions that can go on the bottom of the legs but still pack easily in a suitcase.

- The scope is an expensive scope. I didn’t get a chance to call my insurance company to make sure that the scope would be covered if it was damaged. That is ALWAYS something that must be considered – especially when traveling to different countries.

- The reflex finder worked very well but I wish I would have had room for an optical finder, a larger wide field 2” eyepiece or a small pair of binoculars when cutting through some of the light pollution.

Final Comments:

It was very unique to travel with a larger scope. I definitely enjoyed the extra “horsepower” from the increased aperture.

I’m now very interested in putting my SV115T in a side-by-side comparison with a good 90mm triplet to see how well the smaller scope would perform – and if it would be a substitute consideration for a travel scope.

I still love my small refractors! I have several 50mm-80mm refractors that I often travel with. Depending on what I am planning on observing, they all have a role!

The question that has to be asked is “How many bags can you effectively manage?” Obviously you want to carry-on your scope. If you are bringing a laptop, you will have to hand carry that on to the airplane as well (TSA has identified on their website that laptops should NOT be placed in checked baggage).

I will have my scope at NEAF – and will be looking to try it on some of the other Alt-Az and GOTO mounts that might work well for traveling.

And now, please stand by for a shameless plug:

If you are coming to NEAF… stop by and see my short presentation on “Traveling with a Small Telescope” – it should be on both Saturday and Sunday afternoon in the back of the display area! Come and share your interests and/or experiences of traveling with a scope!

The photo below was taken in Baghdad at Sather Air Force Base in 2007 through night vision googles. It was a great opportunity to bring observing to the troops. Vic Maris at Stellarvue donated the scope to our deployed unit.

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Preston

Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. Isaiah 40:26

SV115T,NHII,SV70,SV50 and Tele Vue Ranger

Vintage Refractors: Asahi-Pentax, Edmund Scientific, Tasco, Unitron

60mm Telescope Club

Edited by Preston Smith (04/01/09 08:33 AM)