lawsio

Hi guys, thought I'd give a bit of feedback! The astronomy gods smiled on me and I had clear skies the day it arrived! Only a relatively short first session but managed to get my head around the GTI alignment and app pretty quickly. I've only used the 1 star alignment so far but that was good enough to keep Saturn in the eyepiece all evening with a bit of adjustment every now and then. Seems pretty stable, as mentioned elsewhere manually focusing is a bit tricky as it wobbled a bit but I gather you can get auto focusers now? May be a worthwhile investment at some point. As for the Mak I'm very impressed so far, Saturn Looked great in it! Probably looking its best thought a 6.3 or 7.5mm eyepiece but a 10mm + 2x Barlow looked good as well, albeit with less definition. 7.5mm with the Barlow was messy but I was viewing early in the evening over rooftops so maybe it's better with steadier skies. I'm not used to using a diagonal and there was a lot of early frustration with the fact the red dot sight kept poking me in forehead when I was looking in the eyepiece but it occurred to me several hours later I could rotate the diagonal around a bit to stop that from happening 🤣 Doh! Now I've got something small enough to transport easily I've got a few trips to darker skies planned with it. I'm thinking I may even try to pick up a small newt to stick on it for when I'm feeling fuzzyish and CBA with lugging the Skyliner about. Thinking probably an Explorer 130p as the 150 seems a bit heavy for it. Any thoughts on this? Used to have a Skyhawk 114 which was great so I'm sure a 130 will be decent enough too. I'm thinking the trade off of smaller aperture with but darker skies and tracking over using the 200p in my garden is worthwhile for a couple of hundred quid on a third scope! The camera is still in the box but will come out to play once I've got the laptop sorted out! Thanks all for your help so far, as always its much appreciated!

Are you sure you're aligning it to the correct stars? Reason I ask is that I've just been playing with this mount for the first time tonight and the red dot finder was so far off I thought I was aligning it to polaris and it was something else altogether. Didn't realise how far out it was untill I tried finding Saturn (harder to confuse with other stars in the eyepeice!) and it was a nighmare as the finder was aligned worse than the sights at a fairground shooting gallery. One I had the finder properly calibrated I used a one star alignment on mizar and it seemed to work alright after that. I assume 2 star or 3 star alignment is better but the one sar (only in the SynScan Pro app) was good enough to track Saturn all evening. Good luck!

Look what's arrived! Biggy has a friend!

That's perfect, really appreciate the help! Right then - I've bought the discounted one FLO had and the ASI 224 to get me going. Nobody is allowed to tell me I've ballsed this up now, if I have you'll find out soon enough! I'll save the info above, I'll almost certainly buy the EQ kit at some point but probably not right away. Thanks all for the advice, we've been on a journey (an expensive journey) here and I'm looking forward to the new kit arriving! Might show the newt some love between now and then so it doesn't feel bad! I'll share some pics when I've got some worth sharing!

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi224mc-usb-3-colour-camera.html This badger seems like it gets good reviews everywhere and is the best sub £200 camera before a big price jump to the next bunch. If I put one of these on the StarMax am I going to have a good time or have I lost the plot at this point?!

Right I've gone down a rabbit hole here. I'm on FLO looking at ZWO cameras. There's a million of them and they all look the same. What am I looking at?

Argh every time I come on this forum it costs me another £100 🤣 I'm now researching ZWO cameras having woken up not know what they are. If ever there was a hobby where there was a reason to always spend a little bit more, this is it!

That's really helpful, thanks. I used to have a SynScan GoTo with my 114 Skyhawk and I never really bonded with it, spent far too long messing around trying to drive it from Stellarium (Ended up in a mood not dissimilar to that reviewer!) and got fed up with it and went back to a manual EQ mount until I switched to the bigger Dob. That was over 10 years ago though and the tech seems to be much better and simpler to use these days. I'm going off my earlier idea of buying a massive manual EQ mount to stick the 200 Newt on as it seems largely pointless so maybe something like this is the better option. I guess if I did want a go at imaging some fuzzies later in the day I could get a 5" newt or a refractor as you say to mount to it instead. Does the GTI need a special adaptor to switch from AZ to EQ? I've read this was a firmware update but also seen pics in the owners forum of a totally different looking setup. Is the adaptor included or an extra?

The "I have to manually point the scope at say Mars, I have no idea where Mars is in the sky!" part was my personal highlight!

Thanks Jules. It's looking like this could be the way to go. Imaging isn't something that currently on the agenda, but if I did want to start messing with EAA (For Solar System stuff, probably) would the SkyMax127 / AZGTI combo be future proofed for this?

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/telescopes-in-stock/sky-watcher-skymax-127-az-go2-wifi-maksutov-cassegrain-telescope.html?gclid=CjwKCAjw5_GmBhBIEiwA5QSMxNLaJaSspXTEKNYyH_Zm-QpHrSVK5qMoebPdR5BtxRaBULuD4TN-MRoCL3wQAvD_BwE Side note - the one review on that is one of the best online reviews I've ever read 🤣

Ahh that's useful to know, thanks. Is it stable enough? Looks nowhere near as substantial as the EQ3?

I can almost feel the collective disappointment from you all as I ask this question but I'll float it anyway. The Celestron Astromaster 127 Mak is currently £300 with £200 off in the camera shop that shall not be named. Is this a worthy alternative to the SkyMax or should I pretend I've not seen it? Current dilemma with the SkyMax is whether to get it with the EQ3 mount or the AZ GTI. Or neither. Puzzling.

This has made for an interesting conundrum now. Upgrade the 200p with an EQ5 mount or buy a 127Mak GOTO. Or buy an EQ5 mount and a 127Mak OTA separately and have both 🤪

Thanks for this. I used to have a 114mm GOTO and it drove me mad, could never get it calibrated properly and it just showed me all sorts of random nonsense! Gather the technology has moved on since I had one 10 years ago and theyre a bit simpler to use now but I'd probably start on a normal EQ for now. The FoV calculator is great. Looks like the SkyMax will show planets a bit bigger, but not by much so it'll come down to practicality for our location.

Interesting the '(and an elevated stand)' part. Is that an option with this scope? I would have assumed it was far to big and heavy for a tripod to take it? Not sure the wife will let me get away with having it in a dome!

I've found this ... https://www.firstlightoptics.com/maksutov/sky-watcher-skymax-127-az5-deluxe.html This sort of thing? AZ mount though...

This is why I come to the forum! I know nothing at all about these, whats a good place to start in the 400-500 mark? Is one achievable in this range?

Hi all, Firstly - long time member of the forum but, while I knew it'd been a while since I'd last been on, it seems my last post was 2015 so ... hello again! This forums always been a source of inspiration (and expenditure!) so I'm back for more... I currently have a Skyliner 200p which I've had for a while (since 2015 I imagine since you guys sold it me!) and, although it's a great scope, I've moved a few times with it and for where I am now it probably isn't the most practical to use. The skies aren't quite as dark as they once were and I have high sided garden fences so it sits a bit too low to see a lot of the sky. Life's changes as well, as it does, and I don't really have time/energy to spend the small hours looking for small fuzzies, so I'm thinking of getting something that going to be better for short sessions going after lunar/planetary stuff, which I find the dobs a bit clumsy for. Assuming I stick with what I know with Skywatcher, The ones I'm currently looking at are the EvoStar 102 and 120. Obviously less aperture than what I have now, but a bigger f/ and a taller EQ mount which I think makes plants better for viewing/tracking. General questions to the group really - am I on the right track here? Will I notice a difference going from one to the other? Any advice on which of the two is a better option? Alternatives? Any comments welcome!