| Primary Diameter | 6 inches |
| Focal Length | 22.8 inches (F/3.8) |
| Secondary Diameter | 2.25 inches |
| Tube Length | 26.5 inches |
| Focuser | Orion 2 inch low profile helical |
| Primary Mirror mount | Edmond Scientific Cast Aluminum |
| Eyepieces (2 inch) | 29mm World War II Erfle 27mm Televue Panoptic |
The scope excels at wide field (3 degree) low magnification (x19) viewing. It is superb at viewing extended Nebulas such as the Veil, the California, the North American the Great Nebula in Orion. It's not so good at seeing small objects such as planets and small planetary nebula. Because extended objects tend to be faint the scope requires dark skies to be really useful. For viewing in light polluted skies I much prefer my 8 inch F/7 Newtonian.
At last summer's (1998) Table Mountain Star party I was able to observe the Veil nebula in both this scope and in a 20 inch F/4 scope. I was surprised by how comparable the images were between the two.
The Erfle eyepiece has a stunningly wide apparent field and great eye relief. With this combination a portal effect is created; you feel as though you're looking at the stars through a window rather than an eyepiece.
The sewer pipe mount on a tripod is very user friendly. The eyepiece is always at a comfortable height and with a Telarad 1x finder objects are very easy to acquire.
For my short telescope tube this design worked well. I'm not sure how this design would work for longer telescope tubes. I'm sure that it could be extended to at least a 6 inch F/6 scope. I suspect that at F/8 the tolerances of positioning of the trunnions and drilling the trunnion saddles in the plastic pipe would be so server that it would be impossible to keep the two tubes from against each other.
Another idea that I've had is to get a length of 10 inch diameter sewer pipe to act as a carrying case. The entire telescope and rocker box could be slid into a larger internal padded tube for transportation.