Chris

Hi John, I bought the H 150p and the Starquest 102 R with my own money rather than loaned. I was starting to feel a bit guilty loaning scopes to review with such a small Astronomy channel. Maybe once my channel is a little bigger and it's more worth their while As for the RDF issue, it's definitely more of a problem with the H 150p than any other scope I can remember, but I think the mirror alone is worth 200 quid knowing what I know, so I'm happy to tinker and fettle with a bit of scope experience under my belt. If I was new to the hobby, and lets face it, this is a beginner scope for many, then I would probably feel more comfortable switching to something that will work with minimal to no tinkering out of the box. I'll raise the issue in my next H 150p video in the hope that one day word will get back to Skywatcher. As fantastic value Skywatcher scopes are in Europe, I do feel they may have dropped the ball a tiny weeny bit with this faux pa.

I would definitely definitely consider the updated version of this, the Starquest 130p. I have a review for this on my channel and it has some benefits over the old Explorer 130p EQ2.

Not great considering a lot of people buy these for their first scope

Thanks John, I've just replied on the thread. There is plenty enough travel on the RDF itself, so I think it's to do with the angle of the RDF bracket. I will play with how it's seated second time out

I'm having the same trouble with my RDF, there is a reasonable amount of travel with the RDF adjustments, so I suspect it's the angle in which the RDF attaches to the scope. I've seen this problem on other affordable scopes but it's more pronounced with the H 150p. By sight, the closest I could get was having Vega centred in the scope whilst Vega sat at the 5 O'clock position an 'apparent' inch away from the red dot of the RDF. Next time out I will play with how it's seated in the bracket to see if that helps.

I would say most of the money is in the Optical Tube, I think if the mirrors are good then the optical tube alone would be worth £180-200. I had real trouble selling a very similar mount recently, it took me a long time to sell it for just 50 quid, so I'd try 225 for the lot.

As you can probably tell by the title I almost wrote off my brand new Heritage 150p by stupidly balancing it on the bonnet of my car to try and catch a glimpe of Jupiter between two adjacent roofs! Thankfully, I caught it before it fully toppled over so no damage done. As karma would have it, it gave me a much needed adrenaline boost to keep me awake at 1am. Despite the drama I did get to see Jupiter, although I don't have a good selection of eyepieces now days. I used my highest power eyepiece, the 12mm Plossl at just 63x mag and could see nice sharp weather belts and a bulge where I would expect to see the GRS. Moons on show of course strung out either side, and the low mag helped to showcase this. I've got a 2.5x Barlow tucked away but I made a mental note to purchase something like a 6-7mm EP to fill the gap. Before I nearly dropped the scope I performed the usual new scope alignment of the RDF and I think the RDF and bracket may be the Heritage's Achilles heel - a) There wasn't enough travel on the RDF to align it to the main scope! and b) Using the red dot I could see two red dots! I'm guessing a reflection in the little RDF screen? The second red dot was fainter at least so it only took a second to work out which one was the impostor! Still, the RDF can only be relied on for rough ball park locating of objects. I shall see what I can do to improve this I defocused Vega to check collimation after observing Jupiter, and it was a tad off (but then again I had just nearly dropped it). One turn of a screw and it was spot on, so whilst I was in the area of Vega I searched nearby for the Ring Nebula. I quickly found it with the 25mm Plossl before switching back to the 12mm to try and resolve the smoke ring. The street lights were off at this point so I was able to clearly see the ring with direct vision, it almost felt like I could glimpse colour at times but I know I must be imagining this. Having said that I was convinced I had seen colour in the ring years ago with an 8" Dob. With Newtonian's I can't even blame it on chromatic aberration! The summer triangle was really rich in stars so a joy to surf with the 25mm Plossl, I wouldn't mind getting a 32mm back in my life as well as a 6mm eyepiece. I'm yet to do a Ronchi test but the Fresnel rings of a defocused Vega looked good and promising so I'm not worried. I've actually been really impressed with Skywatchers QC recently, and not so much with Celestron's which is weird considering they come out the same factory. Anyway, I was starting to burn the candle at both ends, so against my wishes to carry on exploring I decided to call it a night.

Here's the link to the Ronchi eyepiece I bought (there is also a photographic version): https://www.firstlightoptics.com/specialist/gerd-neumann-ronchi-eyepiece.html As for why the back of the primary is usually frosted, just rough grinding the mirror flat will leave a frosted surface, so maybe it's simply to enable a flat surface. Some could also say that it stops stray light entering through the back of mirror, but if the mirror coatings are good then I don't think it would be a big deal compared to the stray light entering elsewhere.

OK then, seems like the polished reverse side of the primary is Skywatchers new vibe after all. It would be cool to know why? it seems like more work than just grinding the back of the mirror flat with the frosted finish.

I have a Ronchi eyepiece so I can test the mirror a bit more scientifically than observing. I want to do a video where I look at the Ronchi-gram? of both the Heritage and my Starquest 102, but I wish I had bought the photographic Ronchi eyepiece so I could more easily share my findings! I might have to just bite the bullet and buy both lol

I've just had a quick read through the thread, and I would definitely just pick the mirror that puts up the best image at high power regardless of how the back of the mirror looks. It's a curiosity, but I don't think it's of much consequence. Maybe as someone mentioned, the first polished side didn't come up to scratch in the Synta factory? Or maybe this is just Skywatcher's new thing? but I'm sure grinding the back of the mirror flat then polishing is less cost effective so I'm leaning towards the former. Yes it would be curious to see Jeremy's rear primary, if it's frosted it rules out the later.

It's reasonably mirrored, but I'm not sure it's of much use though? What are you thinking?

Excellent, and good luck for tonight! My ecliptic view consists of my house, and a bunch of other peoples houses. I would need to take a 2am trip in the car somewhere more open to see the planets. Luckily, this happens to be the perfect scope for little outings like this! 😃

Thanks everyone! I'm itching to get the H 150p out under the stars. Or with almost permanent twilight at the moment, the planets, Moon and a few doubles 😃

FLO, please let me know if you want me to place this on a separate thread, but here is my first look and comparison to the H130p video:

I weighed the OTA and you're pretty close, 3.9kg

Excellent first light report Jeremy! it looks an especially cool match for the AZ gti I've ordered some A2 foam from Ebay for mine. Coincidentally I'm in the process of uploading my first video with the Heritage 150P to Youtube.

I would love to see some pics of this! Do you have any to share, Peter?

Perfect!

Wheels are in motion for the shroud before the scope arrives I've just ordered some black A2 craft foam, and super strong sticky back velcro so I can make a tube that fits inside the scope attached to the secondary cage. I want it so the shroud collapses inside the OTA when not in use so it can stay attached semi permanently

I agree, Paul. The H150p looks really good from a cost, aperture, weight and portability point of view, but the Skyliner kind of gives you more for very little extra. The H150p clearly wins from an OTA weight, portability, storage point of view, and you can probably stick the OTA on quite a light weight mounts (I'm keen to try it with the Starquest mount) I think it's basically going to be really popular as a grab n go and holiday scope

Yes, I've owned a couple of Heritage 100p f/4's with fixed primaries, and reviewed the Starquest 130p which also had a fixed primary. Collimation stayed good out the box with all, even the f/4's!

lol I thought the same at first glance. Also noticed FLO have started watermarking their product pictures.

Excellent John, my Skylight 60 f17 was superb for white light I noticed. Do you have any binoviewers? The best WL I ever saw was using BV's with the Skylight.

Anyone else get the impression that FLO are slowly taking over the world! Congratulations on another new venture, Steve, hope all goes well