Maksutov telescope for birdwatching.? (1 Viewer)

[Granpoli]

Hello.
Has anyone used a Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope for long-distance bird watching?
Not to carry the telescope and tripod on your shoulder but for static position in wetlands, lakes, ponds...
I have sometimes been able to look through one but in terms of astronomy at night and the images were fantastic.
Greetings
Gpoli.

 

[Hermann]

There's a difference between astronomical scopes and birding scopes. For instance, birding scopes are usually waterproof, astronomical scopes aren't. Birding scopes are usually quite tough for use in the field, astronomical scopes aren't. Birding scopes are usually better shielded against glare. And so on.

The only advantage Maksutovs (or other catadioptric scopes) have is that they are fairly compact and allow large apertures. They're also cheaper than, say, a big Swarovski or Kowa. By no means all Maksutovs, but many. That's it.

There was a time when the Questar was hyped a lot, but that was when most terrestrial scopes were still "simple" achromats. IMO nowadays no serious birder would seriously consider using a Questar anymore. I know there are some people who use big catadioptric scopes for birding, sure. I wouldn't bother.

Hermann

 

[wllmspd]

Dirt cheap, I got a second hand 127mm Skyeatcher for less than the cost of an eyepiece. I flocked the insides, especially the inner tube where reflections can hurt the image contrast. I have carried it about with a heavy duty carbon tripod before. I use a 45degree erecting diagonal. The issue is that the lowest power wide eyepiece (24mm) gives a minimum power around 60+x. Finding stuff is tricky, I modded a red dot finder to enable me to drop the scope on targets. No real
Chromatic aberration, though the contrast isn’t the best. I wouldn’t want to carry it around too much, but for sites with very long vistas on days with little heat haze it can be fun. I have a friend who uses a 180mm mak. For general purpose scope use I would go with a proper birding scope, lighter and better fit the varied observing situations.

Peter

 

[DRodrigues]

Not used a Maksutov-Cassegrain but still have an old C5: - besides the limitation of lower mags too high (the reason I opted for the C5 instead of a similar aperture Maksutov-Cassegrain...), the other limiting factor is the erector image quality that isn't good over 60x... See Test of image erectors
Now there is a binoviewer alternative, that might be good, when used with also a focal reducer LBV FOV increase, but I still didn't tested well it with the C5, although a short test produced acceptable FOVs!