Luna with 114 f7.8 newt

[nightfisher]

I picked this little (long) Skyhawk up from astroboot, for little money, seeing as its a good clear sky with a nice Moon, decided for first light, very impressive for its size and price, it out performed a new scope that cost four times the price, okay the focuser is a little vague, but it does snap to focus nicely.

The image is very sharp, goes a little dim at high power, but with a 12.5mm ortho stunning, and with a 20mm plossl really nice detail. I set it up on my new to me Skytee 2 with CG5 tripod, a little over kill but this is a long newt so it gets caught with the wind, first impression is very good indeed, would be nice to improve the focuser if i keep it, but my track record is not that good for keeping scopes, other than my lovely TAL100

[spaceboy]

Sounds good Jules. I see these have spherical mirrors, did you notice any overly distracting aberrations to the views ??

[Ruud]

The corrector compensates for the sphericity of the mirror.

Maksutovs are great scopes for planetary observation at high magnification. Good luck with the scope!

[nightfisher]

Sounds good Jules. I see these have spherical mirrors, did you notice any overly distracting aberrations to the views ??

Spaceboy, viewing the Luna surface i can honestly say the views were crisp and sharp across the field, very pleasing

The corrector compensates for the sphericity of the mirror.

Maksutovs are great scopes for planetary observation at high magnification. Good luck with the scope!

There is no corrector in this, its a proper straight forward newt, like a smaller version of the explorer 150pl

[John]

Sounds a great buy Jules

It's very satisfying to be able to get great views despite spending relatively few £'s - feels like you have "beaten the system" somehow

[Moonshane]

sounds like a great buy mate

[Alkaid]

The long focus newts deliver very sharp views. Got 2 of em' myself. You'll like this though Jules - ones a TAL!

[nightfisher]

The long focus newts deliver very sharp views. Got 2 of em' myself. You'll like this though Jules - ones a TAL!

Hmm, i have seen a newt that seems to tick a lot of boxe`s, cogs are spinning now 

[Alkaid]

Hmm, i have seen a newt that seems to tick a lot of boxe`s, cogs are spinning now 

What have you seen?  Do tell!

[nightfisher]

Its the GSO/Altair 150 f6 newt

[Alkaid]

Its the GSO/Altair 150 f6 newt

Is F6 going to cut the mustard? More of a general purpose scope, no?

If I didn't have the OO scope, I would probably have the Skywatcher 150PL, at F8.

Going off your original topic now, sorry about that. I do think that the smaller 114 F8 is very underated. These long focus newts hold collimation far better than the F5 models. The image is sharper and abberations such as coma are well controlled. Bang for buck, on Luna, they are very good.

[kev]

No coma with a spherical mirror. Only field curvature and spherical aberration which at that size and f/8 is, iirc, under Rayleigh limit.

Sent from my iPhone so excuse the typos!

[nightfisher]

I hope to have sourced a better used focuser for this scope, i really like the 900mm focal length, im thinking this could become a very usable Luna/Solar scope, i have now fitted a finder shoe so i can use a 9x50 on it