Astro_Baby

I couldnt over rate the 130P as a starter scope, hell 20 years ago it would have been a pro instrument. The optics on mine were superb. Its sad that so few people, inlcuding me, probably ever take one to the max because people either decide astro isnt their bag or they upgrade very quickly to something else.

One of the sharpest views I ever had of Saturn was with the 130P under great seeing conditions.

Its a beautiful little scope and a great scope to start, or restart the hobby with.

Actually theres quite a lot of difference between the Celestron Astro Master and the Skywatcher 130P and I would always tell people to get the Skywatcher version - heres why.......

Focuser

The Skywatcher 130P has a plastic focuser that can be tuned toi be quite nice. The astromaster has a horrible clunky focuser that looks the part but is very dog like, it might well be tunable but....well I couldnt be bothered to find out because....

Spider Vanes

The Skywatcher 130P has very thin metal spider vanes - the Celestron Astromaster has horrible thick plastic ones (so does the current skywatcher 130 non-P although I am sure the older version of the long tube 130 didn't)

Secondary Holder

The Skywatcher 130P has a decent holder with adjustment screws for tilt - The Astromaster has horrible over long screws with no adequate secondary mirror support. Its a pig to collimate. The sceondary mirror just dangles on the end of some long screws with little to give it support.

Primary Mirror Adjustment

The 130P has/had philips screws at the back end for adjustment - the Celestron has more professional looking thumb screws BUT they are hideous and ususally so tight you have to take mole grips to them to adjust them. They lack feel and add to the horror of learning to collimate the thing.

Finder & Finder Shoe

The 130P comes with a red dot finder mounted on a standard Vixen accessory shoe. The red dot is fine, its a bit plastic but this is a beginner scope after all. If you cant get on with the red dot the scope has a standard Vixen accessory shoe so you can always swap it out. The celestron has a hideous built in finder where the red dot is waaaaay too bright and the finder is hopeless mechanically. To get a decent finder you have to fit an accessory shoe - not a hard job but scary for those who may be not good at DiY and lets face it no one wants to drill holes in their new toy.

Mount

The Astromaster mount looks strong but in reality is so full of plastic its about as steady as a jelly trifle. The Skywatcher EQ2 looks a bit Meccano but it does actually work and its plenty strong enough for a 130P.

Collimation - General

The Skywatcher 130 has a collimation spot installed at the factory - the Astromaster doesnt. Again a bit of mirror spotting is not hard stuff for the hardened newt owner but its all bit unnerving for the beginner.

I have had two Astromasters to mess with and both were horrible - I am also the ex owner of a 130P and the 130P was a superb small scope to start with. A far more polished product wnad why Skywatcher ever stopped selling it with the RA motor is a mystery to me because the packagae price for a decent scope with good optics on a basic EQ2 with tracking was such a good deal.

Its a mystery to me why Celestron keep the Astromaster going when Celestron are owned by Synta who own the SKywatcher brand and the 130P is so capable. Perhaps someone at Synta likes the Action Man orange colors of the AstroMaster.

Sorry if any Astromaster owners are offended by this.

Great build there Jalmo. lovin' the workmanship in that.

It seems to me the controller cant cope with the mods made to it. Probably because under manual control the unit expects the odd ush of the buttons for corrections, an auto guider is probably constantly on the chip with a load ofup a bit, left a bit, down a bit and the chip probably just blows out.

Thats always the danger with home brew type stuff.....and ai speak as someone who has had a fair few projects in ETI go blam back in the day including an amp that was chronically unstable.

Given you have blown up four controllers it might have been better to have but the bullet and bought a synscan upgrade. Thats not smug more a warning on the dangers for orhers it cash, and more importantly time. I know just how frustrating unreliable hardware can be especially when good nights for observing are so few and far between.

Alan, yes the qoute is from Zappa.......Joes Garage, I change my qoute periodically depending on how I am feeling. Joes Garage just appealed.

Go for it, I jus made the case cos the weather has been so bad this year I needed something to keep me intested. The case took about two months to build and probably a month of thinking before I started. It also cost about £200 to make....when I started it I thought I would finish it inside a week and cost woud be around £40, I hadmore cost and time overruns than a government computer project

I just have a fetish for stuff in fitted cases, doctors kits, pistols, scentific gear, quack medicines etc.

I cant see me changing EPs really, I have what I am happy with and so my buying days are over really. To anyone starting out dont be ashamed of what you have either, it takes time to get the right kit but you will all get what you want eventually....and remember the gear around today is so good even the meanest equipment today is incomparably better than the stuff of yesteryear...well unless you were shelling out an awful lot of shekels.

And none taken either so please dont worry.

Just saw the news. Terribly sad day but one I suppose many of us have accepted for some time would one day come.

He died at home peacefully and thats the best anyone can have I guess.

Greatly admired, loved and respected by all who met him and no one can have a better than that.

I am so glad I had the opportunity to meet him, very briefly, on two occasions and count that as a privelege.

Godspeed Patrick you were, and are, an inspiration to so many.

I made one earlier this year, cant post pic but theres a page on it here

http://www.astro-baby.com/articles/Eyepiece%20Case/Eyepiece%20Case%20Project.htm

Scroll down to tha last bit of the page and there are some pics of the finished item.

Colimation IS confusing. If you follow my guide to the letter all will be well. Thats why I wrote it to help people.

The confusing refekections are precisiely why my guide has you put some card donw the tube to mask the refelections in the firts stage of collimation.

Its very hard to explain collimation but easy to do. I tried to make it a step by step guide with each process broken down to its component parts.

Most collimation guides show the classic concentric circle pattern which you wont get with a modern newt. The simplified classic concentric view is the thing that most confuses beginners and thats

Recisely why I wrote the guide to take all factors in.

You need to read the guide and take it one step at a time. Your own cllimations is completely out of whack by the way. i would propose go back to firts principles and read either my guide or smeone elses and woek on it.

Dont be tempted to assume a laser will fix all ills, they are one of the biggest causes of beginners asking questions as to why it doesnt work and also a big reason for people having duff collimation. Without a high grade focuser ai would say they are a waste of time.

I have one thats been owned by two people and me - and I am selling it soon. Its just too big and bulky. So far its been owned by three people including me and has only been outside about 5 times in its entire life. I will make it 6 so I can check it over prior to sale but it will be up for sale as soon as I find time to move it on.

Its all very well for people to say its not that heavy - try lugging it up 8 flights of stairs at 2am in the morning when your fozen cold from being outside for 6 hours in at 0' - its quite a different thing from carting it across a living room carpet in a nice cosy house.

Even the 8" is now too much for me and if I werent emotionally attached to it that would be sold as well.

What a nice man your hubby must be - Hi and welcome from me as well

I assume your talking about the 300P on a Dob mount, if your talking about it on thye EQ mount I'd say forget it unless you have a permanant obs set up.

I just cellected a 250P on an EQ mount and its a monster, the very extreme limit of what I can carry and to be honest I dont think I could get it onto the EQ mount solo.

HI and welcome from me

I have one of these for my HEQ5 head for transport

Tragetasche für größere Montierungen - Teleskop-Express: Astro-Shop + Fotografie + Naturbeobachtung

I have an astrozap one for my nexstar, Its well made, flocked on the inside and has a foam bumper at the scope end to protect the scope. Fits a charm and the velcro grips like a crocodile.

Its much better than the basic orion one for my newt and before SSP I'll get another AstroZap one for the newt.

What not just bite the bullet and buy one - I mean it seems mad to make do for the cost of a dewshield when the scope costs how much !!!!

The dewshield will be a lifesaver and will contribute more to your viewing than almost anything so why not splash out and get a production one.

I mean if you face dew conditions (and everyone did at SSP for the last two years) apart from those with dewshield then your possibly having a great nights viewing ruined after you have spen twice what a dewshield costs getting there.

I have a cheap Orion one for my 8" but would happily have shelled out for one of the really nice astrozap ones which have a better finish on them and in fact I might do that anyway just to have a nicer one.

I am blown away by that - truly awesome engineering. Seen some stuff in my time but thats just amazing stuff.

By the way I think you'll find the JMI system is a lot simpler and minus GoTo on their giant binos.

And hi from me too

And heres one of his scopes on ebay 10 inch Astro Systems telescope on large German driven on eBay (end time 30-Mar-10 20:23:50 BST)

Its a beautiful looking bit of kit but if I bought it I'd not live long enough to use it

I'm still convinced i can come up with a solution to the eyepiece problem Astro_Baby!

Well let me know how that works out for you.

Mr Spock - I dont have a problem with EQ mounted scopes myself and I agree with you. Pushinga scope around to track is VERY distracting thats exactly why I prefer motorised scopes BUT personally I find even a 200 very trying at times. Its big and its bulky. Yes the views are good, yes its very capable but I'd never want to bolt someone into one without making them aware that big refelectors on EQ mounts are not without their problems.

I see too many of them for sale on astro forums from people with bad backs or just plain fed up with the scope (ebay recently has had a glut of 10" OO and Sky-Watchers on EQ mounts) and I think that sums it up.

Until you have seen the pyhsical size of one of these things you need to be wary is all and plenty of people find the whole thing of rotating a big scope in its rings a real nightmare. Its easy enough with a TAL 1 or a Sywatcher 130 its somewhat different witha bigger scope. I am not exactly inexperienced and I have had a fair few nights with mine where I have cursed it mightily.

Once when the scope slipped badly while rotating the tube in its rings - was nearly a disaster - only me getting hit by the scope on my knee stopped a major catastrophe, twice the scope ripped up some of the rings felt and stuck itself fast into the rings and a few time trying to rotate it has caused it to push the mount out of alignment requiring a Synscan restart. Thats why I eventually came up with a simple rotating ring idea.

Mick - yes you could do ball bearings, and in fact I considered a Teflon ring sandwiched between the two rings to reduce friction but I didn't do it heres why;

1/ The rings arent accuratly cast and have a small amount of slop so there are seldom absoluetly square to each other in any case.

2/ You dont want it to be too freely rotating - with a heavy EP and all the gear on the front of mine zero friction would mean the tube would rotate VERY fast. You need some friction in the system.

Drilling anything too precision into the rings would be hard work for little gain and you'd end up with grease on the scopes side, as you'll be rubbing againts the scope its not a good idea. Grease and optics arent usually a good combination

There are commercially made tube rotation systems around but they are either

(a) Expensive and heavy ( and I mean EXPENSIVE and HEAVY) or

( Less Expensive, heavy and naff

Big Newts and EQ mounts are always a headache as quite a few owners will testify too. On the upside the 200 gives good views and its a very competent scope. I like mine on the HEQ5 and consider it a capable all rounder but even me with my love of reflectors and EQ mounts is now seriously considering downsizing to a 6" scope on the grounds of portability.

Its harder than you may imagine to twist a large reflector in its tube rings. Scopes made from rolled metal have a seam and are not often completely 'true' as a tube.

I found from experience even my 200 was a mare. Slacked the rings not enough and as you twist it you push the mount out of alignment (oh dear - redo the synscan alignment all over again ) slacken the rings too much and the scope slides down the mount, best case you have wrecked the balance so it requires rebalancing (do that synscan thang again) worst case scope slides so badly that stuff gets broke.

You can do a work around and fit a home made tube rotator like my system (explained here Rotating Rings for Reflector Telescopes) or do the Wilson Rotating rings thing (do a google search for Wilson rings).

But dont underestimate the hassles of large newtonians on EQ mounts. I dont mind it too much because I like the convenience of GoTo and tracking but even a 200 is a handful.

Awwwww the cat is so sweet looking Love her.

I dont have many cables as I am an observer - currently I carry;

2x Power cables for mount (one as a backup)

1x Fan power cable with fan controller

1x Synscan cable

I place mine under various bits in the accessory case. So the vables are kept seperated.