Epicycle

4 hours ago, Uranium235 said:

Heh  somehow I don't think you will be ditching that 130 anytime soon, you're getting some good stuff out of it! A victory for the bargain basement of telescopes  

No, I won't! It's perfect for my mount and equipment. Without your advice at the begining I don't think I would've been able to make it work as it does now, thank you!?

E.

Congratulations to you all and thank you! I am also very flattered as there were top notch images in the mix.

Epicycle

4 hours ago, Uranium235 said:

Great image!

But, I dont think I could ever justify a FT focuser as they are horrendously expensive. I'd consider it if I was using an 8" f5 or a quattro, but buying one just for the 130 seems a little bit of an extravagance!

I agree, but I already had one so it made sense to get the adapter and try. The versatility of the FT makes its price a bit more tolerable.... And autofocus is something I do appreciate now.

Hi,

I append below my most recent image with the 130pds. It's ngc2903, circa 10hs in LRGB with Atik 460.

I think I said somewhere in this thread that it was a pitty that the focuser of this scope could not be upgraded. Actually that's not quite true, you can actually fit a Feathertouch focuser without problems. The secret is the adapter:

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/starlight-instruments-feather-touch-components/feather-touch-adapter-20-for-orion-sky-quest-xt-intelliscope-telescopes.html

(I think someone here at SGL mentioned this explicitly somewhere, but I can't find the post now.)

Obviously the cost of an FT is more than twice the cost of the 130, but I already had the FT in my RC. And that's the beauty of the FT focusers and their world of adapters, you can basically use one FT in all your scopes and if the FT is motorized (I have a Lakeside) then you can autofocus, so I can now run Sequence Generator Pro with all my scopes, 130 included

Cheers

Epicycle

54 minutes ago, Uranium235 said:

Which adaptor are we talking about? My threaded solution or the dovetail adaptor?

The advantage of a dovetail over a straight barrel is that it "pulls" itelf tight to the EP holder when you do up the thumbscrews (becuase its a dovetail), whereas the straight barrel adaptor can still "pop" out a bit under the weight of a heavy camera - leading to tilt in the focal plane.

If you have one of the spare SW dovetail 1.25" EP adaptors in your bits box (they often come with SW scopes), pop it in and try it - you will see what im on about straight away. 

Its a pretty cheap adaptor from TS, so worth a punt (even though its designed for their rotation system). Give us a week and I might get one in to test the water as it were....  worst case scenario would be that the thumbscrew holes would need to re-drilled (moved up a bit) if the dovetail is a bit short (hard to see it in the photo).

Yes, I meant the dovetail adaptor.  Keep us posted if you get and try one!

cheers

E.

On 13/01/2016 at 22:29, Uranium235 said:

This is what I mean by a bespoke, all M48 threaded solution (with internally mounted CC and tilt adjustment):

Its not the kind of thing you can buy off the shelf, you have to buy the separate components and fit them together yourself (requires a bench drill, taps and small countersunk hex screws). Bonus being it can be fitted to any 2" skywatcher newtonian focuser, so you can chop and change at will - and it opens up threaded collimation, which is far more repeatable and reliable (though you do need to remember to remove the CC first.... otherwise its metal on glass... not good!).

However.... there is another way you can have an internally mounted CC (though it has to be the Baader), and that is to get a dovetail pushfit adaptor - which would be much better than the straight barrel versions. This one has a 2" fiilter thread scope side, so that is where you would situate your CC. Reason why I said it needs to be Baader is because you can remove the T thread component, just leaving an M48 cell (which is what is inside my adaptor).

http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p2742_TS-Optics-Adaptor-2--to-T2---low-profile---dovetail.html

The only downside to that is its only available in a T2 camera side fitting, so you would need a T2-M48 adaptor to get it to fit your filter wheel (and losing a bit more spacing to play with in the process).

Hi Rob,

I'm looking at this adapter from TS. What would be the advantage really compared with the straight barrel version?

E.

Hmm... wonder how the 130pds compares to the 150pds. I fitted a SW 'autofocuser' to the 150pds not so long ago. It's made focusing much easier and once focused, keeps it quite well. I'm going to do the same with the 130pds once I have it set up properly

Louise

Hi Louise,

It should be quite similar to fitting it to the 150pds, and as you say it holds focus pretty well for a few hours,

E.

I very much endorse the Astrotortilla/Eqmod solution: no need for finder. Getting the focus tight is the key with 130pds: I agree with Rob, need at least 30m

to cool down and stabilize. Fitting the inexpensive skywatcher motor focuser is one very efficient way to get the focus tight remotly from a warm room,

cheers

E.

Wow, dedication and commitment have a new meaning here!

E.

Hi,

a couple of my recent images with the 130pds and Atik 460 (colour info, i.e. oiii comes from Megrez 72 taken last year).

cheers

Epicycle

Here is a brief exposure showing what I meant in my previous post about the focuser getting into the light path and chopping off a bit of a star (Polaris in this case).

Collimation looks OK though,

E.

Thats a shame, it could have been a solution.

The balancing issue for me is not helped as I use the finder scope as a guider, so with DSLR etc the scope is front heavy.  There just isn't enough scope to hang out the back of the tube rings to get it in balance for me.  I need to finish off the counterweights I was fiddling with to compensate.

I see, indeed the finder guider adds weight and complicates matters. But Lenny's suggestion seems the way to go.

I was looking at these replacement focuser 2" adapters, with a compression ring but at 39€ was wondering if anyone else had tried, and found them any good? 

http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p4018_2--adapter-with-brass-compression-ring-for-Skywatcher-Newtonians.html

The only other thing I find with the scope is that with cameras etc on it is a pig to balance, often the focuser knobs end up right against the tube rings, the longer side (ie the one with the fine focus knob) is the inner adjusters, it would have been good to have them the other side.

Cheers

Ross

Hi Ross,

I did try one of these adapters and I didn't see much difference: still I got some tilt when I tightened up the screws. Balancing hasn't been an issue for me as you can spin the tube in the rings and shift it up and down  (and I have the MPCC+filter wheel+ camera),

cheers

E.

I'm glad I just caught this thread. Maybe my feedback can be of some use too.

I'm also a happy owner of a 130pds (by the way great service from FLO ) and my experience so far has been quite good. However I would like

to address a couple of issues with the focuser. These have been pointed out before, but I hope it's useful to spell them out again.

I've used the scope with an SXVR-H9 (small chip)  and MPCC III. I attach below a shot with deliberately is not the best I got from the scope

but it shows the issue, and I also attach a crop of the lower right corner. It's a stack of 9x1800s with an Astrodon 5nm Ha filter of the Spider in Auriga.

Upon inspection, you'll see that stars in the lower right corner are not right, but stars in the upper left corner are fine. This is because

the camera is not squared: once you tighten up the thumb screws it pops and produces a tilt.

This is most annoying because it will also happen with the cheshire so you are never sure if you are collimating the scope correctly.

The other problem (also mentioned before) is that the focuser tube really gets on the way of the incoming light and produces a darkening

and chops off a bit of the bright stars.

So, coming back to FLO's question: the focuser is OK but not great. On the positive side, if you adjust the tension, it holds focus really well

through out a session.

Concerning the FLO question about the Moonlite:

Are people here happy using the original focuser on the 130p DS? I have been meaning to ask Ron at Moonlite to machine some curved plates to match the smaller 130p DS OTA.

it would be great to be able to make the upgrade! If I was sure the Moonlite upgrade would solve the two issues above (i.e. squaring and reliable collimation+ shorter tube into the light path) I would go for it: it would make the 130pds into a really smart astrograph and not just a beginner's scope but something you could use for really serious work,

cheers

Epicycle

First attempt at M27: 24 subs of 20sec each (I have an SLT mount) and 10 darks.

Stacked and processed with Nebulosity.

First attempt at a DSO. I don't have en EQ mount (currently saving for one) so I did this with an SLT mount.

Taken with Megrez 72 and Canon 1100d. There are 24 subs of 20sec stacked with Deep Sky Stacker and processed with

Nebulosity. No darks or flats (I wanted to make my life easier with my first experiment). Certainly

not as good as a several first attempts that I've seen on this thread, but I guess I'm kind of happy as a start