Ikharus 102mm ED Unboxing

[ribuck]

Hi all,

Just a quick unboxing review on the Ikharus 102mm from IainKing imaging.

Opening the box, it was well packaged and lifting the OTA out of the box the first thing i noticed was how light the scope is. At around 8lbs (less than 4kg) this is a very light so ideal for imaging if you have a lower spec mount.

The general feel & finish of the scope is very good, it feels very solid and the paint is a very nice sleek white pearlescent finish

The Ikharus has a retractable dew shield, which again feels very robust. With the dew sheild retracted the Scope is very compact.

And now with the dew shield extended

The Focuser was the most surprising part of the scope, as it comes with a very heavy duty 3" 1:10 dual speed focuser. The focuser feels very sturdy and handles my qhy9 + Filter wheel + Oag + Field flattener without any noticable flexure and feels like you could hang a house off the end of it. The drawtube itself is marked with a gradient scale to assist with repeatable focus. Moving the focuser feels very smooth and yet sturdy at the same time.

The focuser is fully rotatable and comes with a compression screw to lock the focuser in position.

The draw tube comes supplied with 2" & 1.5" drop down adapter which come complete with a copper compression ring and 3 tensioning screws as well as a draw tube tension screw on the the underside of the focuser, althought i dont think i will need to use this due to the Excellent build quality of the focuser.

As an extra bonus, the scope comes with a free matched field flattner and for £575 it seems like a very good deal.

The ota comes complete with the same cnc'd rings as you see on WO scopes as well as a synta style fitting to connect to your mount.

regarding the optics, unfortunately due to 2ft of snow in the last week and lots of snow clouds i haven't had first light yet to check the quality of the optics and do star test itself.

The only think i dont like about the scope is the optics cover. A large heavy metal cap screws into the end of the dew sheild. screwing in the end cap is noisy and squeeky so you will definately need a dab of oil on it, which i'm personally not keen on as i dont like the idea of having any oil remotely close to the optics, so that is my only gripe so far.

Final thoughts / Conclusions

---------------------------

So what do you get for your £575, well you basically get exactly the same scope as the Megrez 102 & Orion 102mm with the exception of an upgraded super beefy 3" focuser.

I love the feel and the quality of the scope, and the fact that you get a free matched corrector / flattener made the deal for me.

I did look at the skywatcher 100mm ds-pro as a comparison, whilst it does have better PL53 glass, I believe most people replace the focuser and Buy field flatteners for this scope adding hundreds to the cost and with it being F9, it was just too slow.

For me the Ikharus just seemed the best choice as a good starter refractor for imaging, approx £40 cheaper, and coming with a super beefy focuser + a free field flattener and at £575 delivered just seem like a cracking deal.

IKHARUS Telescope and Accessories from Ian King Imaging

Hopefully i'll be able to do some star tests soon.

Rich.

[russ]

That looks a real nice quality scope and excellent value for money. I like the screw in dust cap and the CNC rings, very nice. And that focuser does indeed look the business.

[ribuck]

Russ the focuser is very smooth, actually feels slightly smoother than my moonlite CR1 on my newt and feels like you can hang a house of the back of it.

If the optics are anywhere as good a the rest of the scope i'll be a very very happy man.

I had my doubts initially about buying the scope as there weren't any other reviews on the web about it, but so far i'm very impressed.

Rich.

[russ]

Rich, i wouldn't be worried about the quality of the optics. Ian King wouldn't sell something that didn't meet a high standard. Look forward to your first light report, should be good.

Russ

[ribuck]

I'm not worried at all, and i'm really looking forward to firstlight but forcast in sunny newcastle is snow snow and more snow for the next week, so it might be a while.

[simon955]

Looks like a nice package, look forward to your report once the snow departs. This might make my choice of what scope to get next easier.

[SiriusB]

I had my doubts initially about buying the scope as there weren't any other reviews on the web about it, but so far i'm very impressed.

Rich.

Well someone's got to be the first to buy any new product i guess?

Looks good Rich, Will be interested to here your thoughts when you've run some starlight through it, fingers crossed you won't have

to wait too long.

[Earl]

Looks like a very nice piece of kit for the price !!!

[Tim]

Bet you can't wait Rich!

As you have mentioned it, does anybody know of a safe(?) lubricant to use on astro equipment, for threads and things? One that wont creep or splash etc. Surely there must be something in this silicon age?

Cheers

Tim

[lunator]

Rich

It looks a great little scope at a very good price

[SiriusB]

Bet you can't wait Rich!

As you have mentioned it, does anybody know of a safe(?) lubricant to use on astro equipment, for threads and things? One that wont creep or splash etc. Surely there must be something in this silicon age?

Cheers

Tim

I agree there must be some Hi tech lube out there, but what?

Norton's 17th ed. recommends white petroleum jelly, aka. Vaseline as a creep free lube for stiff drawtubes etc.

Not exactly state of the art, but safer than axle grease.

[ribuck]

All minor correction, the flattener has no reduction to it, I had assumed it was 0.8x but it's not so scope is still F7, which is still fine.

With regards to the grease, i'll probably just get a plastic end cap, as i will need to take it on and when doing darks for my guide cam attached vis OAG.

I tried doing a startest after 40 mins of chipping ice and snow from my observatory, but no sooner had i finished removing the ice and powered everything up the snow clouds immediately moved in and dumped another few inches of snow

Rich.

[barkis]

Excuse the Hi -Jack Rich.

What about Lanolin as a lube.

Primarily a cosmetic product, it has many uses, and info. on it's properties in Wiki.

Ron.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanolin

[Tim]

Have you tried it Ron? I think I might give that a go on some non critical fittings, and test it in the warm and the cold.

My biggest struggle is with T thread spacers and filters etc that just seem to stick and bond to each other.

Rich, is the flattener part of the tube, or does it attach to the imaging system and then to the focusser? Is there a critical measurement for spacing between flattener and camera?

Cheers

Tim

[3ggman]

It looks like a nice scope indeed. I have his 70mm EDAPO and was (and still am) very impressed with it (I use it for imaging with a dslr), the big quality is great, I like the screw-in metal cap, while yes it does squeak, it also just gives it that extra fell of quality, I know it wont come off and nothing is getting past it.

I look forward to seeing some images from this one.

[barkis]

Have you tried it Ron? I think I might give that a go on some non critical fittings, and test it in the warm and the cold.

Tim

PM sent.

[Earl]

A small detail, but how was the bottle of Bud?

[Nexus 6]

Looks really nice Rich, seems silly having to screw on the lens shade what were they thinking?

Alan

[ribuck]

Hi All,

Sorry for late replies, Firstly Tim the Flattener is not built into the focuser so you could potentially use it with other kit. I believe most correctors /flatteners have around the same sort of critical spacing 55-56mm from the surface of the ccd and is fairly easy to achieve unless you're trying to combine a Filterwheel & OAG, then it can get pretty tight on free space.

My optical-trainis as follows :-

CCD > Filterwheel > OAG > Flattener + LP Filter > Focuser

Earl whilst the bottle of beer was there to give an idea of scale, it and it's 7 brothers were very tasty after the review

Now the end screw cap is made of metal and very solid but personally i prefer plastic caps.

Unfortunately we've still got really bad snow here, it's been snowing for 15 days straight now with no sign of it letting up anytime soon. No sooner do i de-ice the obs, i usually have to close the hatch again due to frequent snow blizzards

According to the weather there maybe a temporary weather reprieve tomorrow, with some clear sky, so fingers crossed.

Rich.

[ribuck]

Sorry folks beaten by snow again tonight, another 5 inches in the last 4 hours

I apologise to everyones, as the snow started the day my scope arrived so i'm clearly to blame for all this horrendus snow....lol.

[Tim]

Its into next week by the look of it now

[skybadger]

Hi Rich

I believe you should be fine with vaseline ( a bit thin ) or try a small touch of rocol RTV - its normally thread tapping grease. Finally tallow would be the last choice to grease your fine threads.

regs

Mike

[Rogelio]

Ikharus also buy the ED 102 in Seville, the conditions are not very good right now to make any evidence. I hope we can share photos and experiences. The team has come with the flattener and focuser 3 ". I had to adjust a bit the focuser as it has some slack, anything that does not solve the tightness of the screws. I hope you enjoy the purchase keep in touch.

[ribuck]

Hi Rogelio,

We finally had some clearish sky lastnight after more than 2 weeks of snow, but unfortunately last night was a nightmare as my dome was struggling with the -12 degree's temprature.

First i had to spend over and hour removing all the snow and ice from my dome to allow it to rotate, then after that my dome power supply blew, so i had to repair that, then my dome shutter was frozen solid so had to deforst that with hot water, and finally once i had the shutter open i had to calibrate my ccd with the new scope then align my ccd with my finder scope which took a while.

By this point i was frozen solid and couldn't take the cold anymore even with my ski gear on, so I only took a few out of focus images of a star to check the roundness of the image.

I tried imaging M44 but by this time it was pretty murky so i couldn't get any real good focus, so didn't want to post the image today as it would give a flase impression of the scope.

I'll check the sky tonight and maye have another try later tonight.

Rich.

[Rogelio]

Hi, Ribuck , try to do some testing and picture this weekend if the rain clouds and left me because it is the wettest December in recent years. M33 and M42 shooting try to see if I get it. IF you think it can send the photos and experiences by email and keep in touch. My mail is rsanalb@yahoo.es. Buenos cloudless skies