Hi Tony,
There is an ad on Astromart right now for fiberglass tubing that you can check out. For what it`s worth, you probably won`t get any reduction in weight from fiberglass, as it has to be thick enough not to flex under the weight of the optics. The other alternative, carbon fiber tubing, is very expensive and I couldn`t find it at all when I was building my 8" scope. The manufacturers who use it in their scopes wouldn`t help me at all. Must be some kind of company secret. A tube as short as yours will probably benefit from upgrading other components. I`ll bet your tube weight is mostly in end rings, spider, focuser, mirror cell, and optics. At any rate, 16lb. is a darn good weight for an 8" scope. My all aluminum 8" f/5 is 22lb. By the way, I have a brand new Orion f/4 coma corrector for sale if you are interested. It was designed for the Orion/Vixen RS200 8" f/4 newtonian. I hope this info helps! -Jason

• Coma Corrector - warpcorp - March 18, 2003 - 23:31 UTC