Intes mk-66 and Baader HP 8 mm and Meade 4000 56mm

[jordan20]

Intes MK-66 / Meade 4000 56mm / Baader Hyperion 8mm

To start off with i will cover the build qulity of the items first and ergonomics and the over all looks.

First things first the MK-66 even though its second hand you would never know. Its built like a tank sturdy but not at all ugly or clumsy. For a 150mm mak its quite heavy the OTA alone with no finder or diagonal is allmost 7kg. The paint finish is a rough matt egg shell texture. It has had a few knocks but the paint has barely even chipped the paint off. The dew shield has a nice dense matt black paint on the inside and is very rigid. The finder scope is very nice and clear but the images are just a little yellowish but its only for finding objects so is dosent affect anything. The bracket when attached to the telescope feels like its welded on once its on it will not move. The foucus knob is sturdy and very smoth with no backlash at all. The diagonal that come with the scope is very sturdy and was perfectly collimated.

Optical perfomace

Well it is just stunning. When i first got it it was way out of collimation but its was very simple to get it where it should be . But it did take some time. Under good skys stars are pin point and show clear concentric circles when de focused.

Saturn

When the scope is properly cooled the views are just stunning. I could clearly see the cassini division with the Baader Hyperion 8mm “225x”. There was no ghosting or flare and it was very easy to get a perfect focus. I could clearly see colour differences on the planets surface. And the rings where distinctly lighter in colour. I could see 3 moons and a 4th in moments of excellent seeing. After about an hour i put in a 2x barlow “450x” and the image did not degrade at all it just darkend a tiny bit.

The Moon

One word...... Amazing. The clarity and contrast are just superb with the meade 56mm the moon is easly only ⅓ the of the field of view. And the amount of detail that can be seen is astonishing. With the 8mm baader detail just pops right out and is tac sharp. Even with a barlow its still tac sharp and more than bright enough. I reckon it would easily go above 500X on a good night on the moon without a doubt.

Deep sky

A lot better than i had hoped for. Because of its long focal length the contrast is excellent so thefore makes bright deep sky objects pop out at you. M57 the ring nebular at 225x its plainly a ring but i could not detect the central star. M13 again at 225x a miriad of stars can be seen but as you get closer to the core the stars get less and less definable. With the meade 56mm 35x it is very bright and not unlike a cotton ball. M51 just bearly detactable at this time of year but i could still make out 2 fuzzy spots but i could definitely tell that one was bigger and slightly brighter.

Going a little of subject here but the scratches on the optical coatings of the corrector plate have not affected the performance of the scope in any way.

Later in the year i will add in my observations of Jupiter and mars and venus possibly mercury.

[AndyH]

Excellent review of a world class scope !!

Look forward to more reports as the nights get darker. Now if we could just get rid of these damn clouds..............

Cheers,

Andy.

[John]

Nice review of a great scope - look forward to hearing more reports

I have an Intes 6" mak-newtonian which is also a superb performer - the Russians really know how to engineer a scope and it's optics

[Whippy]

I'm glad you love it, I had a few fantastic sessions with my old one .

Tony..

[jordan20]

thanks for the comments

i will try to get a few viewing sessions of Jupiter and maybe even Uranus and Neptune in the next few weeks

[jordan20]

UPDATE

Just tonight have my first "real" observing session of Jupiter. The seeing tonight here in Kent is very good its not the clearest night due to the moon being out but its incredibly still. I started with the 8mm baader with the first set of lenses removed to make it a 26mm (70x). One word AMAZING ! so crisp and sharp, all 4 moons in view. i cold make out 5 bands clearly and some belt detail. I couldn't wait to get it first set of lenses in there!. So with the baader now being 8mm (225x). Again amazing! just as sharp and clear i could now see 2 more very fine bands bands with even more detail. The amount of cloud detail i could see was just stunning for a 6" scope!. I could now see that the moons showed a very small disk. It was crying out for more mag!. i put the 28mm fine tuning ring to make the EP 5mm (360x). i was expecting to see some degradation but there was not even the slightest hint of any!. the image was bigger and showed even more detail !. i could see finer cloud detail in moments of excellent seeing i could see whirls and festoons between then man bands. Then i turned my eyes to the moons, i was amazed to see that Ganymede was clearly bigger that Europa !. I looked time and time again to confirm i was not seeing things and the same every time. That to me just amazed me. Just hope the weather holds up for another session tomorrow when the GRS is out to play . Now i just have the long wait for mars