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View Full Version here: : First Light, First slew - SN10 & EQ6


Mark
20-10-2007, 09:55 AM
I've calmed down slightly and had a few hours sleep, so here's my thoughts re the Meade SN10 and the EQ6 Pro mount.

The EQ6 Pro is a solid mount with lots of bang for the buck. Aside from the obvious let-downs (like the bendy altitude screws), I think this mount has heaps of potential, and as I like to tinker, I foresee endless hours of gleeful modification to entertain myself.

The EQ6 was in my possession for about a week prior to using it to move a scope, and in that time I did all the usual set up jobs, like centre the polar scope reticle, update the hand controller to the latest firmware etc. The first time under the stars (no scope) was to try the polar scope for its alignment application. The moon was down and so this made seeing the Octans asterism relatively easy. With a pair of binos and a bit of up/down and east/west with the altitude and azimuth screws the asterism was centred within the reticle. Job done & that'll do.

The SN10 arrived yesterday in a rather large box. I was amused to note the the OTA is not much heavier than the packaging. The scope was easier to man-handle as well.

First impressions: The OTA is easier to handle than I imagined. There's some foreign material stuck inside the the tube between the corrector and the corrector cell assembly. The primary mirror clips are huge and will have to go. The tube rings are barely adequate and the supplied dovetail is rubbish. The focuser is rubbish too. A rack & pinion focuser with huge slop between fixed and moving parts, heaps of backlash and not a compression ring in sight. Oh well!
I popped a laser collimator into the focuser. The laser was hitting the centre of the spot on the primary, but the return beam was out. Collimating was easy if somewhat futile (more on that later). The secondary has Phillips head screws which were quite easy to adjust. The primary had large knurled knobs (with locking screws) which are also easy to adjust.

That evening, the OTA went outside to stabilise, and I set up the EQ6. Utilising the tripod divots from the previous sortie, and a quick eyeball of the the SCP, the very rough polar alignment was achieved. The polar scope was no use as the moon was on high. An hour and a half later I plonked the OTA on the mount.

During all this I couldn't help but feel there was something wrong. Nonetheless, I proceeded with the alignment. I selected the 1 -star alignment due to the rough polar alignment and expecting a 3-Star alignment to fail. The SynScan chose Achernar as the first alignment star. The mount slewed happily to where it thought Achernar was. When the hand controller beeped to tell me had finished slewing, it was then that I realised what was wrong - I hadn't attached a finder. D'oh!

A quick peek through my cross-hair eyepiece anyway. There was Achernar, on the edge of the FOV! No way! Centre and hit enter. I selected NGC104 as my first target. Slew slew slew and then beep. Holding my breath I looked. Nothing. Ok, so I then slewed back and forth with the Dec & RA keys until I found it. Nothing but a fuzzy blob in the cross-hair ep, I inserted my 16mm T5 Nagler. Oh yeah! I was astounded. Brighter than I had ever seen it, fully resolved and simply superb at 63x. In went the 12mm T4 Nagler. Phwoar! I'm sure bugs were flying in and out of my mouth as I stood there gaping for about 1/2 an hour.

Next up was NGC2070. Again, brighter than I had ever seen, the Tarantula held me in thrall. The detail of the nebulosity was more than I had ever seen before.

I noted that Orion was rising and was high enough for me to view M42. It was brighter and more spectacular than I could have imagined. With the detail I could see in the nebula I was simply gobsmacked. The 16mm Nagler framed the nebula perfectly. I'm pretty sure more bugs went in and out then.

I decide to call it a night after that. With all sorts of goodies rising in the east at that time of the morning, I was tempted to stay out all night.

In summary, the SN10 is well endowed with coma. The horrid stock focuser didn't help, as the collimation was out as soon as you changed eyepieces or moved the drawtube, exacerbating any aberrations. In fact, the focuser is so bad it has to go soonest. There is no way to maintain collimation at all with the stock focuser. Using well corrected eyepieces helped. I can only imaging what horrors you would see with an uncorrected UWA eyepiece. Given that the scopes intended use is mainly for imaging with some a visual DSO use thrown in, I am quite satisfied with the optics. A coma corrector is now on the 'wanted' list.

Overall, I am very happy with the scope and the mount. Despite the rough alignment, the mount tracked perfectly for the few hours I was out and I never had to use the hand controller to re-centre any object. Maybe the alignment wasn't so rough after all. The scope was everything I expected despite the items on the 'upgrade' list. I'm really looking forward to the new moon.

I would like to thank Chris at Star Optics for looking after me (even with whining I did). Top people. They will get more of my business.

Clear Skies,
Mark

Addendum: The centre 30% of the FOV is tack-sharp, with noticeable but bearable coma at 50%. I believe the Pentax XW's work well in these scopes. Might have to get me one!

dugnsuz
20-10-2007, 09:26 PM
Looking forward to 40D images from this setup once you get all the Meade hardware foibles sorted. The 10" looks huge on the EQ6 - WOW!!!!
Great review - thanks.
All the best...
Doug

citivolus
20-10-2007, 09:34 PM
Doug is right, the SN-10 really does make the EQ6 look like a "toy" mount :)

I'll be interested to see how well this setup works for you with a bit of tinkering.

Mark
20-10-2007, 10:16 PM
In the flesh it doesn't look so disproportionate. It's the cheapy kit lens on the camera. Here's another shot where it doesn't look so big. Note the distortion of the OTA.

dugnsuz
21-10-2007, 07:56 AM
Looks even bigger in that pic Mark!!!:lol:
I'm just jealous:sadeyes:
Cheers
Doug