Skywatcher 102mm Star Travel.

[Louie the dog]

A few days ago I bought a new 102mm Star Travel 102mm F4.9 achromatic refractor.

I was itching to test it out.Tonight was the night,a clear dark sky at Durlston, Swanage.I set out to find three objects.These were Brocchi's cluster,commonly known as The Coat Hanger Asterism,

The Hercules cluster (M13) and The Ring Nebula (M57).It was a good excercise to start to learn how to find these objects with a smaller apature telescope by star hopping.

The Coat Hanger was found with a Meade 20mm QX 1 1/4 inch eyepiece.It stands out brightly.

The stars focus reasonably well with this telescope,not as pin point as with a higher quality refractors like the apochromats.

I then started to hunt down The Hercules Cluster.It was bagged with my 24mm 1 1/4 inchTelevue Panoptic,appearing as a large fuzzy patch.I replaced the 24mm Televue with my 8.5mm Pentax XF 1 1/4 inch eyepiece.I could just begin to make out that this was a globula cluster with stars beginning to seperate.

Next on the list was The Ring Nebula. Finding this was a work of art.Beginning to become a little frustrated with not being able to resolve the object with the 20mm or the 24mm.I then attached the 8.5mm Pentax.There it was.Not as bright as uin my 10 inch dobsonian,but there in the field of view none the less.I then attached my 9mm Circle T orthoscopic eyepiece.There was no real improvement.But the thrill of finding The Ring Nebula with my new 4 inch travel refractor was pleasing.

Then I turned the telescope to the double double stars of Mizar and Alcor in The Plough.Using the 8.5mm Prntax XF eyepiece they were resolved nicely,a little colour was seen granted.

All in all I was very pleased with the performance of this telescope ,using it as a travel telescope.

I would recommend it to anybody looking for a grab and go.

[Cjg]

Hi Louie,

Have this scope on an Skywatcher GoTo mount, what difference to your nice eyepieces make compared to the standard "out of the box" ones? Is there a vast improvement in quality>

Chris

[Louie the dog]

Chris the telescope came with the out of the box 10 and 20mm eyepieces.The overall view is a great deal better with the Televue.The sky is very black.The wide field view shows undistorted stars right to the edge.I have a Meade 20mm QX which I like using.But compared to the Teleview distortion happens quite away from the edge.I might try the BST wide field eyepiece of 20mm.This might be an affordable improvement over the Meade.I bought the Televue second hand,could not afford the new price.

What mount do you have?

[Cjg]

Hi Louie,

I have this one http://www.firstlightoptics.com/az-goto/skywatcher-startravel-102-synscan-az-goto.html purchased approx 2 years ago from FLO. Doesn't get as much use these days as my 5SE, but great for wide field views; Kemble's Cascade is great in it. Find now that the focuser is "wobbly" and needs the little screw at the top tightened more. Wish there was a better focuser at a reasonable price, but had great use with this scope.

chris