RobertI

Just bought this lovely 150PL newt from a very nice gentleman in Stratford for £90. We did the exchange in a pub car park and I was worried that passers by might think it was an illicit arms deal involving a bazooka!  Anyway, really looking forward to eyeballing some doubles with this beauty. 🙂

Sounds great,  Id love to have a peek through a large pair of bins like yours. 

Lovely set of captures, some fine detail and colour coming through. What s/w did you use for live viewing? Is the Evo mount the Celestron one that normally comes with SCTs? (I can’t see your sig on my mobile phone!)

Nice sketches, your M42 looks nicer and more accurate than my recent attempt, which I am still debating posting! 🙂

An amazing night by the sound of it, some objects I would love to see (but would struggle with my LP and 5” of aperture!). 👍

Great report, nicely described. 

Nice observation John, interesting effect, I shall look into Hb filters a bit more and educate myself. I was out observing M42 last night with a special NRH filter (Neighbour’s Roof Heat) which removes ALL interesting detail from the object. 🙂 I’ll post a report later. 

Nice captures, NGC1501 is a tricky one, you've picked up some nice ghostly green there.

Nice one Chris, definitely got the phase very clearly there, nice vid too!

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Well done on getting a result! Are you sure it was Vega? Looks really bright, like Venus?

4 hours ago, PeterW said:

raw glass view

A new phrase has been coined! 👍 😁

1 hour ago, Stu said:

They are very capable scopes, and whilst I agree about the focuser, a better one would push the price up and make it out of reach for smaller budgets. It's great that it is available at such a low price.

If you have one, try a wrap or two of PTFE plumbers tape around the threads of the focuser, it tightens it up and removes the slop, much better then.

Thanks Stu, I have got the PTFE tape on the threads, it’s definitely better. You’re right it’s incredibly good value. It’s such an enjoyable sized scope to use I have been looking at the getting the 130 PDS for visual, just to get the nice focuser, but then you get a larger central obstruction and four spider vanes and seems overkill too. Shame they don’t still offer the bog standard 130P OTA. Sorry to divert the thread......

Amazing observations,  I wouldn’t have thought many of these objects were possible  with the 130p!. It’s such a shame this scope doesn’t have an R&P/Crayford focuser or a better helical focuser - it deserves better! 

Nice report, I’ve looked through pretty much every type of scope but never a Mak, need to remedy that. How did you produce your simulation?

4 hours ago, Spydaman said:

Most of the people commenting here are not interested in the EV so I take the comments with a grain of salt. I won't be getting mine for another 6 months (Australia) and I am very much looking forward to it. I have no doubt it will offer a great viewing experience.

I’m not sure why people have been so negative about it - I can only think that it is the marketing hype more than the product itself, which can really grate for some seasoned astronomers, implying capabilities which might leave some people disappointed. For clarity my comment above wasn’t meant to be negative, I was just mulling over how existing alternatives might compare, I think I showed that it’s not cheap to put something together, and it won’t be as portable or as ‘point and go’. I’m sure it will be a great viewing experience, and at the price you early backers paid, tremendous bang for the buck. Hell, at $1299, I might be interested myself, but I’ve missed my chance! 

I wonder if it would be possible for a retailer like @FLO to put a bundled product together to rival the likes of Evoscope or HiUni. It would have to provide the following:

• Fast, lightweight scope,  self aligning mount,  no counterweights, battery powered - suggest a Celestron Evo 6 (£1350) + suitable focal reducer (£100) + Starsense (£300)
• Colour camera with ability to see image at scope (Evoscope) or on a wireless tablet (HiUni/Stellina) without the need for adjusting the image. I think the closest you could get to the Evoscope solution would be something like a Mallincam connected to a small monitor fixed to the OTA. I'm guessing £500 - £800 would get something really good. I'm not sure there is a wireless option like the HiUni's without including a PC somewhere along the line.

So I reckon it would take £2500 ($3200) to get a bundle that does everything the Evoscope does, but that bundle would almost certainly outperform the Evoscope in most repects, but in a much less portable and 'point and click' package.

Interestingly, the Stellina/Hiuni's wireless tablet observing feature is probably the only true innovation amongst all these scopes, as I can't see how it can be recreated using existing products out there. I'm not sure if the HiUni is actually a finished product yet though?

Nicely done 👍

Amazingly I did see it and even more amazingly there was definitely evidence of darkening on one side. But it was, sadly, underwhelming! 

11 minutes ago, Olla said:

I honestly thought Unistellar and Stellina were the same company marketing both products in esense to "compete" with each other since both were from France and came around the same time plus the price point. I really dont think there's a huge difference tbh but the eyepiece. 

Obviously one of the key differences is one has a 130mm F5 mirror and the other a 80mm F5 lens - two very different approaches, but the main effect being the different field of view. But as you say, image quality likely to be very similar. 

1 hour ago, HWStar said:

I wondering the same thing, Rob.  I will keep in touch here. I think I represent many of the people that would/will buy the Unistellar.  Years of dreaming that someday I would see first hand, some of the same images that the pros have seen for years and described using their huge Dobs. I had a 10", but never used it much; just too hard to setup and try to find something, plus we have a reasonable amount of light pollution here in Southwestern Michigan. And mosquitos--ouch, plus a lot of mosquito viruses now, so I stay inside at night, mostly.  And now we wait...I am also a published writer, so I will give an fair, but thorough review from my newbie perspective.

I don't think there's much doubt that the Evoscope will pick up faint objects that cannot be seen visually without large scopes, show detail that is not visible through the eyepiece and reveal colour that is just not visible to the naked eye, so on those points alone the scope should make people very happy.

I look forward to the review.  Mosquitos - I'm scratching just thinking about them!

If the images are significantly better, I would hazard a guess that it’s down to the “image processing algorithms ..... developed by experts who worked in the largest astronomical observatories...”. But I suspect those images were taken by expert users, using perfectly tuned equipment under perfect skies - they might even have been using just the scope strapped to a better tracking mount, who knows? I have my doubts whether the quality will be significantly different to the Unistellar, hopefully we’ll find out soon. 

This is an epic thread. That scope is going to be worth a fortune! 🙂

Very impressive, good to see what OSC is capable of.

Lovely report, sounds like the conditions were excellent, it is surprising what 6” of aperture can show. I’m also trying to embrace lunar observing more, I‘ve started on the Lunar 100 to give me some goals. 👍

You must be really chuffed Chris, some great lunar video and super sharp stacked images - great to see that classic setup working so well - visually must have been superb too. Are the stacked images in B&W? Some of the subtle colouring that was in the vid has been lost? (Viewing on my phone so may be getting wrong impression).