Last night was the first opportunity to have a quick peek at the skies.
Transparency was not the best as there was high cloud haze present throughout the day with numerous clouds about.
Thankfully the clouds began to dissipate as the sun went down, but as I said, it was noticeable that clarity of the heavens was not going to be first rate............5/10
Seeing was about 6/10 and there was only the slightest hint of a breeze now and then.
Setting up the scope was surprisingly easy. I found that picking up the EQ6 tripod, with legs folded together, with the head already attached(less counterweights), and slung over my right shoulder was a quick and effective method of getting the mount outside.
Next was the weights themselves and another chunk of steel Gaffa taped to the weights to enable balance.
For last nights quick view, the mount's electronics were not connected.
Another surprise was how easy it was to grab hold of the handle on the OTA, hold the other end and simply lift it up on to the dovetail head.When positioned and still holding the handle(!!),the screws were tightened and the scope was mounted.
.............love that giant Losmandy dovetail bar!
I expected this to be a two man job, but it wasn't.
I used a Bintel 2 inch quartz SCT star diagonal and an ordinary 2 inch, 26mm 70 degree Chinese eyepeice. This eyepeice is a mystery. It was sold to me as a Skywatcher brand, but there is nothing on the e.p. to indicate this
.It looks exactly like a PROSTAR I saw advertised in a magazine recently, so who knows?
Down to business...................ORION NEBULA..........
wow!
Keeing in mind that the scope had barely an hour to cool down, seeing and transparency were lousy, yet what I saw through that ''questionable'' e.p. was nothing short of staggering!
The nebula was crystal clear and just hung there in space with numerous pin point stars surrounding it. There was a hint of pale green and some pink around the edges. The trapezium was easily resolved and looked better than ever.
PANNING AROUND : this was also an eye opener. A large aperture scope with coma free optics is something that I'm not used to. I found myself constantly stopping, looking at open clusters in awe. The views were spectacular showing colours in the stars themselves effortlessly.
CENTAURUS GLOBULAR CLUSTER : say no more!
..........amazing... .....but it looks good in most medium - large scopes doesn't it?
THE EQ6/MEADE 12 INCH LX200 ACF COMBO: I know that many of you out there would be waiting on my opinion of this, so here it is:
At no time during my 30 minute, short lived (those clouds
!!) viewing session did I feel that the mount was inadequate to hold a 12 inch SCT.
Being fair, the scope did not have any photographic equipment hanging off it or any large guide scopes sitting on top of it.
I found that vibrations caused by adjusting the focus knob were minimal and settled very quickly...........no dramas here. The slight breeze experienced now again did not cause any visible image vibrations as far as I could see.
Focussing itself wasn't as coarse as I had anticipated............nothing like a standard rack and pinion job that's for sure
. I found it easy to bring an object into focus with minimal if any backlash.
Image shift?................ummmmmmmm?... ......can't comment on this as I did not notice anything unusual at that power in such a short time.
Well, that's about as much as I can report for the moment.
The Meade is one hell of an instrument..........you guys were right!
If it performed this well in very poor seeing, I can see that it will even be better when temperature equalised and the seeing better than that watered down pea soup last night
Until then!
Rob.
