Has anyone used a Skywatcher Synscan 12 GOTO Dobsonian?

[DJ N]

Originally Posted by Jen

Daniel im glad you decided to keep your scope it is a beautiful scope I LOVE MY JOHNNY im just getting ready to try and take some pics with mine too (as soon as the weather gets better)
The only problem i do have with the scope is that it is a bit too heavy for me to get outside by myself so looking at your trolley looks just like what i need what did you make your dew shield out of and where did you get that cover from i need one of those too

Hi Jen,

The dew shield material is some foil backed foam insulation I purchased from Clark rubber. As for the shroud, I purchased it from Astrozap in the US. It is the specific model for the Skywatcher 12......

http://astrozap.com/scripts/prodList.asp?idCategory=35

As for the weight of the scope.......it is a bit heavy. The stacker trolley method seems to work quite well, but my next step is to possibly build a little insulated shed (1m x 1m) and have the scope on a wheeled base such that it is even quicker to setup.

Cheers,

Daniel

[asimov (John)]

Perhaps my 14" SW has issues, because I simply can't get her to track nicely. The more FL/FR the worse it is of course. At F22.5 (5X barlow) I had to manually correct like the devil to keep Saturn on the chip.

It's fine for low mag. DSO viewing in the tracking department naturally.

[DJ N]

Originally Posted by asimov

Perhaps my 14" SW has issues, because I simply can't get her to track nicely. The more FL/FR the worse it is of course. At F22.5 (5X barlow) I had to manually correct like the devil to keep Saturn on the chip.

It's fine for low mag. DSO viewing in the tracking department naturally.

When I have the 5x powermate in, I find there is a tiny bit of what seems like backlash on the 12 incher when you are using the arrows to centre the object. However, once I have centred the particular object, it seems to track quite nicely. Now that is on the moon, with lunar rate, I have not actually tried it on a planet. Might need to give that a trial next time.

[Jen]

cool thanks Daniel

[von Tom (Tom)]

Hi Jen, there's no need to adjust the tube for prime focus with a DLSR. There's about 5mm still to spare for inwards focus. When I put the 5x Powermate there is even more room to spare. No problems whatsoever with Prime focuse DLSR photography, which was my first concern when looking at the Sky-Watcher.

Using the 5x Powermate with DSLR for planets (which needs good seeing), Jupiter almost fills up the 640x480 frame in video crop mode (see attached single frame, stacked frames, and processed frames)). I find I need to adjust manually for drift, and there is some backlash when the motors are tracking. However there is no backlash when manually tracking alone, which I have gotten more used to doing and I have found that more reliable to keep such a large object in the frame.

For collimation I got some of Bob's Knobs for the secondary. I can collimate quite quickly with these which provides even more flexibility with using the scope.

Cheers,
Tom

[Jen]

cool Tom so you took those pics with the Canon 550D
How do you do that

[von Tom (Tom)]

Those were done with the 550D, 5x Powermate, at 640x480 video crop mode 60fps. I think the settings were ISO400 at 1/60th sec. Best 1000 frames out of 8000 or so. I use Landscape Picture Style with increased saturation and contrast (which also brings out alot of noise).

I use Avidemux to convert the MOV file to bmp frames, then Registax to stack them.

Tom

[Jen]

doh u lost me when you got to 5 x powermate i need to do some more homework me thinks lol

[Chillie (Henry)]

Originally Posted by Jen

doh u lost me when you got to 5 x powermate i need to do some more homework me thinks lol

Or another Snake Valley astro camp.