300p Ethos 13mm 0.5 light report

[dharma66]

I can't call it first light, because the viewing was so poor.

I ordered the 12" goto skyliner just over a month ago, and it turned up last week, the day before I went to North Wales for a week. I couldn't get a roof rack or box sorted in time, and so the scope stayed behind. As it happens, it mattered not at all, as we had no clear skies at all for the whole week.

I also bought a 13mm Ethos from Astro Mart a couple of weeks before going away, and this turned up whilst nobody was around to take it. The post office held it, and I went down to pay the £35 duty and collect it yesterday. That cost £275 + £30 postage + £35 duty = £340, and it really is like new, with all paperwork etc, so I'm quite pleased with that! (Thanks Damo for pointing me to the add!).

So, last Thursday the scope arrived, and I had planned on doing a full unboxing and building piece. But I also wanted to make sure that I put it all together and at least checked the optics in daylight before going away for a week, so in the end, I didn't take any photos etc. I just followed the instructions and went from two big boxes to one big scope in about 40 minutes.

The build was really easy, with everything fitting nice and snug. I'm still convinced I could have just about managed a 14", because to me, the 12" doesn't seem overly large, and in two pieces, it's a very easy one person carry, even through doorways etc. The heaviest part by far is the base, and this is also the most awkward. It just about fits through the narrow door to it's storage space without having to tilt and manoeuvre, so I guess really it's an ideal size.

The first shock putting the scope together was the mirror. 305mm of mirror is astonishingly large to someone used to 4.5"! Not only does it look large, it also looks incredibly vulnerable. I will definitely be investing in a shroud - not just to keep out light, but also to keep out accidentally dropped items (more on this later)!

So I put it all together, and pointed the finder scope at an electricity pylon on top of a hill about six miles away, and used this to align. Looking through the 25mm eyepiece, I was quite happy with the eyepiece itself, and very happy with the absolute clarity of the optics. Both mirrors are, as far as I can tell, utterly flawless (in terms of marks and dust - obviously I can't judge the figure by eye!).

I then spent a couple of hours collimating. I felt that I got it pretty close. This is my first time collimating anything, as 25 years ago when I had my little Tal, collimation wasn't invented. Ok, it was probably invented, but I'd never heard of it.

Finally, I plugged in the electrics and skewed it about a bit. Then it get it's 0.25 light. It was still daylight, but the 3/4 moon was looming large in the southern sky, and it would just have been rude not to.

This was about 8PM, so it really was full daylight, but even so, the moon was really a pretty amazing sight. I managed about 30 minutes before the need to pack for hols became truly urgent. Pat had a quick squint, and was pretty amazed. First time she's ever looked through a telescope and she thought the view was incredible. Then it went into its new home for a week until last night.

My first impression of both eyepieces was that they were both pretty good. Very short eye relief on the 10mm, meaning I had no option but to remove my glasses, but that's no biggie. I didn't have the Ethos at that point...

Yesterday we arrived home having driven through some truly foul weather, with me thinking there was no chance of getting the scope out that night. Being an early riser, I retired at about 9:30, and as I lay reading, I noticed I could see blue sky out of the window. A quick look showed the sky had in fact cleared considerably. Nothing for it. Get up, get dressed, and get the scope out!

The sky was not as clear as I'd first hoped, but the drifting cloud presented many opportunities, surely? I had to wait an inordinately long time for a few stars to appear, and it was 10:45 before I could see anything other than bright sky. The sky here is awful.

Anyway, it took me about 10 minutes to get the scope out and assembled, and by 10:45 I was able to attempt my first goto alignment. I encountered a couple of difficulties. Firstly, I tried the 'brightest star' method only. I pointed the scope 'roughly' towards what I was pretty sure was arcturus, and the scope told me it was Mars! Thinking the scope would know best, I accepted this and selected Vega as the next alignment point. The scope went off in completely the wrong direction. I aborted and started again. This time it told me Arcturus was Saturn, which I knew for sure wasn't right.

Eventually I remembered a few people on SGL having similar issues. The instructions do not mention that the scope should be initialised in the 'parked' position (0 alt, pointing North) for goto setup, only for tracking setup. But, as others have, I tried turning the scope off, and parking it before turning it on. I then pointed it to Arcturus, and selected brightest star, and bingo! It recognised I was pointing to Arcturus. Over to Vega, successful alignment followed by a quick 'goto' to Mizar to check it was right, and we're away!

One thing had already become apparent: to 10mm eyepiece is utter garbage. For a while, I had a but of panic because looking through the 10mm during alignment, there were all kinds of aberrations, including coma within just a few degrees of centre! For a minute I thought I had a truly dodgy primary mirror. However, I carried on the alignment, and then, after waiting 10 minutes for the clear patch of sky to be in the right place, 'goto'd ('went to'?) Albireo. Fairly nice field with the 25mm, no massive concerns, but off axis viewing quickly lead to comet tails on stars in the centre of field. Still slightly worried I decided to try the Ethos.

Now, trying the Ethos meant removing the 1.25" adapter, and inserting the 2" adapter. It was at this point that the vulnerability of the primary I'd noted earlier almost lead to disaster. I unscrewed one of the retaining screws a bit too far, and it dropped out. As it fell, it caught the back of my hand, and was heading for the primary! I just managed to swipe it away before it disappeared into the lower tube. Instead, it disappeared into the garden, so I'm missing an adapted retaining screw, but rather that than a scratched or chipped primary! The shroud will be ordered in the next few minutes!

After a few minutes deep breathing, and convincing myself that one screw would hold the eyepiece firmly enough, I popped in the Ethos. It was immediately apparent that this is a far superior item to either of the supplied eyepieces, as all traces of aberration vanished entirely. The sky was still disturbingly bright, even at almost midnight, but the stars were pin sharp, with two stars of the double showing some nice colour. I basically spent about half an hour on that view, checking out the eyepiece. The width of the field is absolutely staggering, and even with the awful conditions, the star field was really awesome. I'm not sure where they get 15mm of eye relief from though, as I still had to remove my glasses and press right up against the eyepiece itself to get any kind of decent view. Trying to view with glasses on was very dissatisfying, with a small, distant image, compared to the truly immersive effect of getting up close.

I had a quick go at detecting the Hercules cluster, but at mag 5.2 (iirc?), I reckon the sky even at that elevation was quite a bit brighter than that. Similarly with M81/82. I definitely don't have a deep sky site as my back garden!

So, I'm really looking forwards to getting this thing out to some darkness. The build quality of the scope is really high. So far there's nothing I can point to and think it needs improvement from a mechanical perspective, and from what I've managed to do so far, I've no reason to think the optics are anything other than top notch either. At least on the scope. In reality, I don't now think of myself as having three eyepieces, but one.

The Ethos is amazing, but to be honest, I'm not sure yet how I feel about the massive field. It's not a case of just being able to move your eye around, you can actually look into the eyepiece at an angle, and you still can't see the field stop! It feels like looking round a corner! I need to get it to some dark skies to see for sure, but I suspect I would be happy with the slightly lesser field of the Delos.

So there you go. I can't call it first light, because I was battling a bright sky with constantly shifting cloud, and with an unsteady atmosphere too. Even Albireo kept twinkling out of view for seconds at a time just from disturbance, but, I couldn't resist getting it out and doing the alignment etc. I reckon now that I know to start from parked, I can have the scope setup and aligned in 15 minutes easily, and that's short enough to justify grabbing a quick hour when the opportunity presents, which is very pleasing.

First impressions then are entirely positive - except for the 'ok' 25mm and useless 10mm eps.

Proper first light will follow when we have some decent weather!

Now. Off to order the shroud...and then to convince the wife to pop down to Go Outdoors...I definitely feel a few star parties on the horizon!

[Moonshane]

wait until you get darker nights and things like the double cluster in view. you'll be gasping for sure.

[alan potts]

Very nice piece of writing. Something makes me think if the weather was better you would have written a book. I enjoyed it.

Alan.

[John]

Good report and very interesting - thanks for posting it.

I tend to feel that 15mm eye relief is likely to be borderline for viewing with glasses, not that I wear them personally. Maybe a Delos or Pentax XW would be more comfortable ?.

[estwing]

nice report,well done on the ninja screw swipe!

[swamp thing]

Nice report, enjoyable read. A 12" is a big lump of glass ain't it?

Roll on those longer, darker nights eh?

Good stuff.

[Damo636]

Great report Phil & a great save with the screw! I was wondering had that 13 Ethos turned up The fov of the Ethos can be a bit of a shock first time out but give it a few sessions, I think you will feel differently about it under darker skies. I have a hunch when you see the double cluster for the first time through it and your new 12" dob you will be blown out of your socks

[russ.will]

Regarding the 300p; How's the consistency of the slewing, in Azimuth in particular. Mine (prior to blowing up the motherboard:( ) was like wading through treacle for half the of the revolution, whilst the other half was like greased lightening.

Russell

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[dharma66]

Damo: yes I'm prepared to be blown away. To be fair, I already am blown away. I'm really glad you and a few others suggested that a 13E would be a good move. All I need to decide on is whether I invest in further Ethoi, or go for the 'cheaper' (!) Deloi in a couple of other focal lengths.

Russell: slowing in azimuth is fine right round the whole 360 degrees, clockwise and anti. At one point I managed to get the power supply wedged under the base, which made it moan and groan a bit, but other than that it slews fine at all speeds.

How come your motherboard blew up!?! Was it in warranty, has it been replaced?

[russ.will]

It's a bit of a long story, but it broadly comes down to a bloke multi-tasking. I set up the base to work with SkyFi driven by Sky Safari+ from an iPad. I should have left it there. I then decided to sort out the slewing issue. Whilst adjusting the Az motor tolerance, I reached round the opposite side of the base to reconnect a cable. I plugged the cable from the SkyFi into a port that should only ever receive the Synscan Handset. It fried a component (or two) on the motherboard. It's not in warranty.

That's the simple part of the story.

The frustrating bit is that OVL, the Skywatcher importer, are next to useless in terms of spares backup. Not only do they not hold stock, but they struggle to even predict it's arrival. In late May, I was told mid to late June. In late June, I was told late August. The concept of getting one posted from Taiwan/China seems to have alluded them, which, considering I'm happy to pay, seems odd.

My local dealer (Scope and Skies) have been far more helpful. First, they explained the bizarre situation under which Skywatcher gear arrives and they have unique insight, as they receive OVLs seconds, returns, etc - Hence Astroboot and the specials they have on OTAs, the reason for which is...

Apparently, OVL place orders, but are largely at the mercy of what Synta 'manage' to fit in any given container. If they find that they fitted in (for example) a number of Dob OTAs, but couldn't fit in enough bases, then that's your luck. OVL get OTAs and they have next to no redress, as Synta couldn't give two hoots. The last shipment was due to have some spares, but now I'm waiting on the hope provided by the next shipment....

S'n'S have provided a solution that will result in a motherboard from the current shipment, thanks to my status as a regular. Nuff said, but it's not as a result of OVL's support, suffice it to say.

What I have learned, is that there is a price to pay for the low initial expenditure of buying Skywatcher. Fair play, it's stunning kit for the price, but the service/backup available to the importer and hence their dealers is, by the standards of other industries, pitiful. I roll around in the world of Audio Video/ Hi-fi, which encompasses everything from multi-national corporations to bloke-in-a-shed cottage industry. I've messed with CD only players from £25k, to multi format disk spinners for £200 that you can buy in a supermarket. At all levels, warranty and service backup makes my Skywatcher experience look laughable, but that is an industry with real competition.

I love the cost/performance ratio that the far east has given us, but it is the last Skywatcher product I will buy.

Russell

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