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Hi all
Last night I managed a more formal first light with the new Skywatcher 150ED. I set up just after 7pm and was out there for around two and a half hours. I haven’t had a session this long with a scope for some time!
In terms of conditions, clear skies with temperatures in the very low teens (Centigrade) with a light northerly breeze. Seeing was not the best, I imagine around 5 or 6 out of 10. The moon was up with around 30% illumination, so not the best nights for deep sky target.
I had the 150ED mounted to my Discmounts DM6, which I recently purchased secondhand.
To summarise first light… WOW!
I left the telescope out for about 20 minutes to acclimatise. My first target for the night was Omega Centauri with the 31mm Nagler. Even with the glow of the moon, I was mesmerised. The stars were pin pricks of light….. I bumped up the magnification with a 24mm Panoptic and then with my 13mm Ethos. This certainly darkened the background and clearly resolved the stars into individual components.
I am far from an optics expert, however I performed a couple of star tests to ensure concentric airy rings. I decided on the XW5 (240x) as with the XW3.5, it was too mushy because of the seeing. I used Spica, as it was fairly high in the sky. In focus, with the XW5, I could not detect any ‘spurious’ colour. Intrafocus, I could make out distinct airy rings with a slight purple haze. Extrafocus, the rings were not as distinct, but with a yellowy-green haze. I put this down to the seeing conditions.
By this time, Jupiter was high in the sky. With my first glance, I was captivated. At 240x with the XW5, there was no purple flaring. I have recently been using a 150mm f8 achro, and the purple is unmistakeable. With the 150ED, it was a f-word moment. The seeing was shimmering in and out, but in the moments it steadied, I could clearly make out the red spot…. It was very distinct. It literally gave me goosebumps. I could also make out different bands of browns and creams on the planet, and I swear at times I could see the festoons and ‘stuff’ people talk about. In my excitement, I went inside and got my 15 year old daughter to come out and have a look. She has only looked through scopes a handful of times, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to get some unbiased comment. Her first comment was… “wow, what is that blood red spot?”
As a side note, this was also a perfect opportunity to have unbiased feedback with regards to hand tracking with my recently acquired Discmounts DM6. At high magnifications with XW5 and XW3.5 eyepieces, I have not found any difficulty whatsoever in keeping objects in the centre of the field of view. I explained to my daughter that she will need to nudge the scope to keep Jupiter central. She sat there for a couple of minutes looking at Jupiter. I asked her if she had any problems with continually moving the scope. She replied that it was very smooth and easy. This certainly reinforced my own experience with this wonderful mount.
By this time, my daughter had had enough. I got her to quickly have a look at the moon and asked her if she could comment on any shades of colour she could see. We tried a range of eyepieces including the XW5 as well as the 13mm and 8mm Ethoi. Certainly no purple.
I now had the scope back to myself. I spent awhile looking at the moon at various magnifications, along the limb and terminator, and the scope certainly ‘snapped’ into focus. In focus, there was no apparent CA.
With the XW5 in place, I had a high powered look at Alpha Crux. I could clearly split this system into the three components at 240x….. I assume this is a positive?
Following this, I did a bit of a tour of the sky. I viewed some of the usual suspects in Sagittarius such as M8, M20, M16 and M17. With the NPB filter in place, very distinct nebulosity, even with the moon up. I then spent some time chasing a few globulars such as M69, M70, Pavo and a few others. Then onto a few open clusters.
I finished up with Saturn with the XW5 (240x). By then the seeing was a bit worse that what it was before, and I decided to call it a night.
In summary, this is a killer scope. Sure, I would love to have a TOA150, but for the price I paid, this was certainly worth the wait and risk. The focuser is your typical Skywatcher focuser as found on the other ED variants, but I had no trouble using my 2 inch Baader click lock diagonal and 31 Nagler, which in total, weigh around 1.4kg. In the future, I will more than likely replace this focuser with a Moonlite or Feathertouch to pimp up the scope, and bring some additional weight to the eyepiece end of the scope.
There you have it, quite a successful first light.
Cheers
Daniel
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