HCR32
31-05-2012, 11:06 PM
Mewlon 250 31/05/12
Though the weather has been absolutely dismal in Melbourne for the last few weeks I finally got a break in the weather. I was afraid that there may have been a chance that the sky could have suffered from evaporation reducing the seeing conditions. Well as I predicted the seeing was affect to some extent. Planetary visual was limited to about 180x before the views became mushy. Deep sky was affected by a 78% waxing gibbous. *What a night I hate setting up for nothing!
Back to the Mewlon. The scope took some time to settle down, the clear sky's where allowing a lot of the days heat to escape quite quickly making the scope find it difficult to keep up with the dropping temps but eventually it settled down (2hrs). Tube currents where an issue but as time ticked on they reduced and disappeared. As we know the scope has an electronic focuser, I'm not one that has ever like this feature on a scope but Takahashi well thank you for making me a believer. The finder scope is the finest finder scope I have ever looked though on any scope it's better then some proper refractors that I know of, lol.
First target was Mars.
Earlier in the session the planet was completely over whelmed by the poor seeing which kinda made the views a pointless exercise.
Saturn. This planet held up a lot better with the Cassini division easily seen.
The planets banding was also visible.
I paused the session for about 1 hour and returned back to Mars.
The seeing was much better with moments of fair to good seeing syrtis major was visual evident but you had to really look to make it out, by the end of the night this surface feature was clear with the polar cap easily seen. My persistence for the night had payed off the seeing was improving by the minute. The Mewlon has been rated as a great planetary scope by many and even put to comparison against the C14 which in the real world is a physical mismatch in weight class, but seeing that I have own both scopes I have to admit the C14 does pull in planetary detail a little easier than the Mewlon, but the Mewlon sure does a great job for a 10inch scope if I had to have had a stab at the size blindly I would have suggested a excellent 11 to very good 12.5 inch. Diffraction spikes where an issue on this planet but I have to agree with people that have made similar observations that the diffraction spikes become no existent, it's as thou your brain cancels out the spikes because the scope throws a transful (if that's a word) amount of detail that your too busy processing what you want to see more then what you don't want see. The Mewlon lives up to it reputation and just asks for magnification. I pushed it up to 500x I'm guessing the seeing had become pretty good and the optics stable. Wow what a telescope I can say enough about this scope. It's worth every penny.
I'm sure one day I'll get better seeing and find the true limits of this scope as a super planetary killer. I have owned many scopes and as some of the people that know me on this forum I have had ants in my pants trying to find a keeper, I think I've found it, unless I get collimation issues and can't get it right, I don't know how hard it's to collimate this scope but I know they stay put if they don't get bumped around.
Observation site: Melbourne
Scope: Takahashi Mewlon 250
Mount: G11
Eyepieces 16mm, 10mm & 6mm ZAOI on aTEC turret (awesome turret must have for all visual ppl)
If anyone has any questions on this scope feel free to pm me I'm more then happy to help answer them.
Though the weather has been absolutely dismal in Melbourne for the last few weeks I finally got a break in the weather. I was afraid that there may have been a chance that the sky could have suffered from evaporation reducing the seeing conditions. Well as I predicted the seeing was affect to some extent. Planetary visual was limited to about 180x before the views became mushy. Deep sky was affected by a 78% waxing gibbous. *What a night I hate setting up for nothing!
Back to the Mewlon. The scope took some time to settle down, the clear sky's where allowing a lot of the days heat to escape quite quickly making the scope find it difficult to keep up with the dropping temps but eventually it settled down (2hrs). Tube currents where an issue but as time ticked on they reduced and disappeared. As we know the scope has an electronic focuser, I'm not one that has ever like this feature on a scope but Takahashi well thank you for making me a believer. The finder scope is the finest finder scope I have ever looked though on any scope it's better then some proper refractors that I know of, lol.
First target was Mars.
Earlier in the session the planet was completely over whelmed by the poor seeing which kinda made the views a pointless exercise.
Saturn. This planet held up a lot better with the Cassini division easily seen.
The planets banding was also visible.
I paused the session for about 1 hour and returned back to Mars.
The seeing was much better with moments of fair to good seeing syrtis major was visual evident but you had to really look to make it out, by the end of the night this surface feature was clear with the polar cap easily seen. My persistence for the night had payed off the seeing was improving by the minute. The Mewlon has been rated as a great planetary scope by many and even put to comparison against the C14 which in the real world is a physical mismatch in weight class, but seeing that I have own both scopes I have to admit the C14 does pull in planetary detail a little easier than the Mewlon, but the Mewlon sure does a great job for a 10inch scope if I had to have had a stab at the size blindly I would have suggested a excellent 11 to very good 12.5 inch. Diffraction spikes where an issue on this planet but I have to agree with people that have made similar observations that the diffraction spikes become no existent, it's as thou your brain cancels out the spikes because the scope throws a transful (if that's a word) amount of detail that your too busy processing what you want to see more then what you don't want see. The Mewlon lives up to it reputation and just asks for magnification. I pushed it up to 500x I'm guessing the seeing had become pretty good and the optics stable. Wow what a telescope I can say enough about this scope. It's worth every penny.
I'm sure one day I'll get better seeing and find the true limits of this scope as a super planetary killer. I have owned many scopes and as some of the people that know me on this forum I have had ants in my pants trying to find a keeper, I think I've found it, unless I get collimation issues and can't get it right, I don't know how hard it's to collimate this scope but I know they stay put if they don't get bumped around.
Observation site: Melbourne
Scope: Takahashi Mewlon 250
Mount: G11
Eyepieces 16mm, 10mm & 6mm ZAOI on aTEC turret (awesome turret must have for all visual ppl)
If anyone has any questions on this scope feel free to pm me I'm more then happy to help answer them.