First light Mercury 705 az3

[Tonys]

First time out with the Skywatcher 705 last night. This is the one that effectively came for free with the az3 mount that I wanted for my Skymax 90. Seeing was a bit better than average I think and I was outside from 21:00 to 23:00. Lots of dew. I used Relevation Astro plossl eps and barlow (the photo visual kit. I used the Skymax's 90 degree mirror diagonal in place of the prism one supplied. I had purchased the camera adapter plate and was pleased to find that the eq5 short mounting plate fits this so it's simple to swap between the 705 and the Skymax. Set up time is minimal.

With such a lightweight scope the mount worked very well, with vibrations quickly dissipating even with the 9mm ep and 2x barlow, the only immediate flaw being a little play in the altitude course adjustment which I suppose bolt tightening might fix. The square section tripod legs are very flimsy compared to the tubular ones on my eq5 and I wonder if they are the same as supplied with earlier eq5's. The focal length of 500mm is half that of any of my other scopes and I immediately saw that it will be a useful low power instrument, probably making my 15x70 binos redundant. Nice to see Mizar and Dubhe in the same field with Mizar's closer companion just separate and enjoyable scanning the M42 region in altitude and azimuth, although the clouds were very much lacking in visual impact owing to the limited aperture. Of course I had to see what it could do at higher magnifications so I looked for the Trapezium stars. Three of them were clearly separated with a hint of the forth showing, but going up to 9mm plus barlow made things too dim. Turning to Castor I was surprised how easy the double was, with dark space between the components. Jupiter was also a surprise, showing two belts clearly. The moons were sharp points. I fitted a Baader Fringe Killer filter to the diagonal and although it reduced the chromatic aberration a lot I couldn't say it improved the detail. There were no annoying ghost images in the field, which is an irritation with my Skymax.

Overall I would say it's a perfectly usable scope and for the money(£100), a bargain. I didn't try the prism diagonal, which may degrade the image. The red dot finder is the same as that supplied with the Skymax and does what it's supposed to, but it does dew up quickly. From experience I know the supplied 10 and 25mm modified achromat ep's are good enough to start with.

[Alien 13]

It certainly is a bargain i checked out the FLO website the other day and the AZ3 was £10 cheaper with the mercury than it was on its own..

[Tonys]

Exactly. And from what I can tell its the same mount, not stripped down in any way.

[Naemeth]

Exactly. And from what I can tell its the same mount, not stripped down in any way.

It is the same mount. AFAIK the reason it's cheaper with the Mercury 705 is that the AZ3 is made as a mount to be packaged with smaller scopes, and to sell it on it's own requires you to split a package up. I'm sure FLO will know .

[Tonys]

I'm sure that's it. A bit like the shaver I bought recently because it was cheaper than just the foil and cutter.