My long awaited scope (1200 x 150 skywatcher refractor on an EQ 4/5 mount) arrived yesterday. Eagerley picked up from the courier to find the substantial wooden box broken out in the bottom and one end punched off.
With some intrepidation it was carefully unpacked and luckily no damage was evident - still left nerves as to the condition of the optics.
Assembled in the evening and whisked outside about an hour after sunset. The moon in the west was the most obvious first target - thrills looking at the terminator (?) seeing just how high some of the mountains are. Second object spotted with naked eye was Mars. Wound the scope around and eventually found it - a little dissappointing with a 10mm eyepiece - just a faint yellow/red blob. But it did have it's uses for aligning the spotting scope. Seemed logical to look back east and pick up Pleiades - the wifes favourite spot in space. Dropped in the 20mm - lots of oos and ahs as she looked around there. Of to M42 (?), bit of hassel focussing but kept us happy for half an hour. Further East and we picked up Saturn, knocked my socks off when I first pulled it into focus! Back to the 10mm and this kept us amused well into the evening.
Sadly there seemed to be abot 3-4 /8 cloud so we had to keep chasing around the sky for a clear view - but hey we were lucky to see anythin at all!
Impressions of the scope - Hard to say, focus seems a bit soft, never really crisp but I think the viewing conditions were far from ideal. Light blue edge to stars - but that was expected. Collimation from my newbie point of view seems ok. With the 20mm the FOV is clear and even all the way across.
The mount is a strange thing. Skywatcher Eq 4 /5 (supposedly the same beast). The bracket holding the lattitude adjusting screw stops the mount being setup below 30 degrees (mentioned in another thread in Beginners forum). No cable extensions so driving the mount is ok for those built like a Gibbon - and a pain for normal folks - I'm ok thogh
The alloy legs in my opinion could be heavier yet surprisingly the mount holds steady at 120x .
Came with a moon filter, 2 eyepieces, collimating eyepiece (still to find out how that works) and 90 degree diagonal.
Can't wait for tonight! Will recheck collimation and then see what we can find. Looks like sleep deprivation is something you just have to live with
An OIII filter is what is known as a line filter. It only lets thru light emitted by a particuar isotope of Oxygen (missing 2 elecrons I think) which is prominant in certain Emmision Nebulae (eg Orion nebula) and most planetery nebulae. In short it dramattically increases the contrast of nebulae making them easier to see.
