Esprit 120 on the way!

codemonkey (Lee) · #1 12-08-2015, 04:17 PM

Well, that all happened a lot more quickly than I expected. As per usual, Peter from Astro Petes hooked me up with a great price and I now have a Skywatcher Esprit 120 on the way, expected to arrived tomorrow or Friday.

The question is, will the lowly EQ6 handle the Esprit with the GT-81 I'm using as a guidescope. Poor GT-81, one day it'll get some serious use.

Slawomir (Suavi) · #2 12-08-2015, 04:23 PM

Great news!

I will look forward to your impressions with Esprit.

As for guidescope, why not use OAG?

codemonkey (Lee) · #3 12-08-2015, 04:29 PM

Yeah I may end up going back to an OAG.

I've used a couple of OAGs. One was the Orion Deluxe, which was junk. The other was the TS 27 which was much better (but came with nothing, unlike the Orion which came with a bunch of spacers, making life much more simple).

When I was using OAG it was with the RC8, which was slow and had a decent focal length. I found it difficult to find stars sometimes. The other thing was that I found PHD seemed to guide better on round stars than on the misshapen ones you get with an OAG. Honestly don't know how much merit there was to that, but that's what it seemed like.

I only bought an OAG originally because I got the RC8 and everyone seemed to say that once you hit 1.5m of FL, OAG is the way to go, but below that a guidescope is easier. So when I went down to 900mm, a guidescope seemed like a good option, and I've had no problems since doing that.

Somnium (Aidan) · #4 12-08-2015, 04:37 PM

Great purchase! so we can blame the next 3 weeks of constant cloud cover over the east coast of Aus on you ?

codemonkey (Lee) · #5 12-08-2015, 04:42 PM

haha, the forecast was already looking less than great before I ordered, honest!

Slawomir (Suavi) · #6 12-08-2015, 05:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by codemonkey

haha, the forecast was already looking less than great before I ordered, honest!

The heavens "knew" about your decision before you ordered the scope!

But honestly, I am sure it will be a great scope.

Atmos (Colin) · #7 12-08-2015, 06:20 PM

I was seriously looking at one of those about 2-4 weeks ago, ended up going with a 130 instead of the 120.

At F/7.5 and a 0.8x flattener, you'll have a real ball with that

codemonkey (Lee) · #8 12-08-2015, 06:45 PM

Cheers Colin :-) I assume your 130 is the Sky Rover? Keen to see how you find it!

The Esprit is F7, 120mm so 840mm. I've seen no mention of the flattener also being a reducer, and I sure hope that's not the case because that would bring it down to 672mm and be useless for my intended purposes.

Atmos (Colin) · #9 12-08-2015, 06:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by codemonkey

Cheers Colin :-) I assume your 130 is the Sky Rover? Keen to see how you find it!

The Esprit is F7, 120mm so 840mm. I've seen no mention of the flattener also being a reducer, and I sure hope that's not the case because that would bring it down to 672mm and be useless for my intended purposes.

It is indeed the Sky Rover. Picking it up tomorrow in fact

You'll have to double check but I have a feeling that most refractor flatteners tend to also be a 0.8x reducer.

codemonkey (Lee) · #10 12-08-2015, 07:45 PM

Awesome! Hope it's everyone you want it to be :-)

Probably a bit too late for me now, it's already ordered. I'll be pretty unimpressed if it's also a 0.8x reducer since nowhere in any specification including advertisements or the product manual does it say anything about being a reducer. I guess we'll see!

Atmos (Colin) · #11 12-08-2015, 07:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by codemonkey

Awesome! Hope it's everyone you want it to be :-)

Probably a bit too late for me now, it's already ordered. I'll be pretty unimpressed if it's also a 0.8x reducer since nowhere in any specification including advertisements or the product manual does it say anything about being a reducer. I guess we'll see!

Hopefully I am completely wrong then!

codemonkey (Lee) · #12 12-08-2015, 09:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atmos

Hopefully I am completely wrong then!

I certainly hope so :-) The flattener on my GT-81 only reduces by about 5% and I'll accept a nominal reduction like that, but if it's actually a 20% reduction without any mention in the docs/ads I'll be most unhappy.

AlexN · #13 12-08-2015, 09:25 PM

Just as a note bud, I ran an eq6 with an 11" SCT and a 4" Williams Optics Apo for guiding. Handled it fine. Your 5" and 3" Apo setup won't even come close to the limits.

rustigsmed (Russell) · #14 12-08-2015, 11:31 PM

Hi Lee,

Congrats on the purchase, they look like awesome refractors, looking forward to a review. As for a flattener how about:

http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/...efractors.html

hang on if you got the SW one you should be ok
http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/...cts_id=6743#cs

this says it doesn't change the FL

Russ

codemonkey (Lee) · #15 13-08-2015, 06:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlexN

Just as a note bud, I ran an eq6 with an 11" SCT and a 4" Williams Optics Apo for guiding. Handled it fine. Your 5" and 3" Apo setup won't even come close to the limits.

That's good to hear, thanks Alex :-) I figured with ~10kg for the Esprit, ~4kg for the GT-81, ~2kg for the imaging train I'd probably be getting to the point of it being too much, but if yours managed with an 11" SCT and a 4" WO APO, I don't think I need to lose any sleep over it lol.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rustigsmed

Hi Lee,

Congrats on the purchase, they look like awesome refractors, looking forward to a review. As for a flattener how about:

http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/...efractors.html

hang on if you got the SW one you should be ok
http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/...cts_id=6743#cs

this says it doesn't change the FL

Russ

Thanks Russ! That's a relief. I was pretty sure it wouldn't as that seems a big thing to omit from documentation, but you never know.

Camelopardalis (Dunk) · #16 16-08-2015, 08:45 PM

Lee, congrats on your new purchase, you're going to love it

I recently bought a 100 and have been blown away by the quality of the images I've got from it so far.

Just be prepared...the 120 is quite a big scope...the friendly Tasco/Skywatcher chap at AstroFest had one on display. Substantially larger than the 100, and they come in well padded travel cases.

The flattener is just a flattener not a reducer.

AlexN · #17 16-08-2015, 09:22 PM

Dunk, I would love a chance to have a look at the 100 one time. I'm considering a fast apo for wide field work and specs wise, that Esprit 100 looks on paper like a fsq106 at half the price. Definitely interesting.

Lee posted pics of the 120 yesterday in another thread. Makes the gt81 look like a finder scope.

Camelopardalis (Dunk) · #18 16-08-2015, 09:36 PM

Ah yeah I noticed that, just catching up on IIS after AstroFest

Drop me a line when you're free and the weather looks like cooperating, Alex. I was surprised by the size of the 100! I've been using my WO Zenithstar 71 as a guidescope recently...

codemonkey (Lee) · #19 17-08-2015, 07:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Camelopardalis

Lee, congrats on your new purchase, you're going to love it

I recently bought a 100 and have been blown away by the quality of the images I've got from it so far.

Just be prepared...the 120 is quite a big scope...the friendly Tasco/Skywatcher chap at AstroFest had one on display. Substantially larger than the 100, and they come in well padded travel cases.

The flattener is just a flattener not a reducer.

Cheers mate. How're you finding your 100? And yeah, the 120 is a beast! I wasn't expecting it to be so chunky.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlexN

Dunk, I would love a chance to have a look at the 100 one time. I'm considering a fast apo for wide field work and specs wise, that Esprit 100 looks on paper like a fsq106 at half the price. Definitely interesting.

Lee posted pics of the 120 yesterday in another thread. Makes the gt81 look like a finder scope.

Hey mate, just make sure you do your research on these. When I was looking around for info on the 120 I saw mention on some of the other forums that the 100 was known to have issues. I'm not sure what the issues were and how wide-spread. Obviously there's some good ones around, 'cause Dunk has one, but definitely worth checking it out I think.

Camelopardalis (Dunk) · #20 17-08-2015, 08:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by codemonkey

Cheers mate. How're you finding your 100? And yeah, the 120 is a beast! I wasn't expecting it to be so chunky.

Hey mate, just make sure you do your research on these. When I was looking around for info on the 120 I saw mention on some of the other forums that the 100 was known to have issues. I'm not sure what the issues were and how wide-spread. Obviously there's some good ones around, 'cause Dunk has one, but definitely worth checking it out I think.

The 100 shows great promise. I've just got back from AstroFest so once I get around to looking at some of my data we'll see how good it is

The dew shield is HUGE...all the times I've used it so far it has not dewed over once. My Zenithstar that I was using as a guide scope was not so lucky

But hey, what are these issues with the 100? It'd be useful to check mine for these...