Hi all
After getting some advice here on what new scope to buy
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...hlight=mak+150 , I thought I'd give an update on how my first light went with the Skywatcher MAK.
It was a good first night for the scope (very frustrating time with the new mount though - I've not used a GEM in some time). I looked at a few objects before I tried aligning the mount:
Saturn - Low on the Sydney horizon but even at higher mag (15mm and 8mm eyepeices) the image was surprisingly stable. It showed a high level of contrast with improved colour (quite a yellow colour) than I've seen in other scopes and esp my LX200R. Eq bands very prominant as were four of the moons. The rings were very evident even edge on as they currently are.
Omega Centauri. I used a 1.5" Utra wide field Meade 20mm and the view was very spectacular - stars are tack sharp right to the edge of the field and it gave quite a good level of resolution down to the core with that nice 3D feel you just don't get from a CCD image. Resolution was certainly what I'd expect of a 6".
Jewel Box in Crux - Again using the Mead 20mm, The stars were very sharp with a high level of contrast with the background sky that showed up the star colours brilliantly.
Overall the optics are (to my lay view), seemingly perfect and the FOV really quite good with the 20mm - less constrictive than I thought it might be at f12. I've not observed much with my LX200R but on comparison the MAK is a really great scope and about 100Kgs lighter!
OK the single downside - I do see however quite a bit of mirror flop on focusing - more than I would expect. I'm going to talk to Bintel about this but I also saw this great thread that gave me some ideas about adding a crawford:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ht=mak+adapter
I should have also noted my Black Diamond came in the box with a 2" 28mm eyepiece (it has a 2"visual back), diagonal and a finder scope. I mostly used my 1.5" Meade Ultra Wide eypiece though as I found the 2" EP supplied to have fairly poor eye relief ie: had to move in and around quite close to see the image. Not a fault with the scope though.
The finder scope is OK but I may replace it. Overall I'm very happy with the new toy!
The rest of the night - The HEQ5 however gave me a lot of trouble (or may I should admit to the fact that I was the problem). I spent the rest of the evening doing contortions but just could not get good gotos after a rough polar align and variations on 1, 2 and three star calibrations.
I really must spend more time working out what I did wrong - and any tips will be gratefully accepted from the rest of the HEQ community
. I also had one incident where I reset the mount and it forgot my Long and Lat --> it hasn't happened since though - no idea what brought that on.
The illuminated polar scope is useless - you can't see sigma octanis in Sydney (at least I can't) and the illuminated reticle is really really illuminated --> its way too bright for sensible use. Did I mention its useless?
A couple of pics here to show what the rig looks like. I'll try to put some more details up later if the clouds ever clear up.
Cheers
