Yesterday

[MikeP]

This is a very long post, so apologies for that. It’s a cross between a review of my new toys and a description of my observing session. I’ve enjoyed writing it for posterity; hopefully somebody will enjoy reading it. Anyway, this was my day yesterday …

The ANC van reversed into the drive and I signed for a pretty big box, considering all it contained was a 5” refractor. The box was in fact three boxes arranged “Russian doll” fashion, with polystyrene padding between the boxes. The scope – a Takahashi 130S sat gleaming in the inner box.

A quick read through the instructions (point the fat end and look through the other end) and out it came. There wasn’t a great deal to play with, so since it was clear outside with the promise of a couple of hours of clear skies that night, out it went onto my EQ6 Pro mount.

It was slightly scary lifting it onto the mount, but the supplied dovetail fitted easily. Balancing was a guess, but pretty easy since the cradle that supports the OTA can be loosened to allow it to slide. Also, there is a counterweight ring on the OTA, so once balanced, if heavy eyepieces or cameras etc. affect the balance, that ring can be moved rather than sliding the OTA again.

The dew shield slid smoothly to its extended position and after a bit of faffing about, I managed to attach my RDF. I never bother aligning it till it gets dark, since there is nothing far enough away that I can see to line up on. I inserted my new unused 2” William Optics diagonal (Steve at FLO told me it would be sacrilege to use my cheap 1.25” diagonal – what a salesman) and whacked in an eyepiece.

After manually swinging the scope to point at the top of the most distant tree I can see, I attempted to focus – oh dear, it would not come to focus. After removing the extension tube (what a plonker) I was in business. The sky was almost cloudless at that point, so out came the rest of the gear and I went in to wait for it to get dark.

It is worth saying at this point, that I had borrowed two Pentax XW eyepieces – a 5mm and a 10mm and was not about to miss the chance to evaluate them. In addition, I planned to use my Meade 5000 32mm super Plossl that has been gathering dust since it is a 2” eyepiece and I had no diagonal to fit it in.

I went out again at the point at which the very brightest objects were just starting to appear. Unfortunately, so were the clouds. I had not bothered to polar align – just pointed the mount due north. Laptop on, mount on, start SkyMap and connect to the mount using EQMOD. Normally, I do a three star align, but decided not to bother and just did a slew to Mars. Oops, the mount points towards a twinkly thing a bit higher up than where I was looking. Also, I realise I have the tripod a bit low for the refractor. Rather than kneel down to align, I have a guess that the other shiny thing is Pollux and slew to it. Good guess. I centre it, synchronise in SkyMap so it tells EQMOD and finally I align my RDF.

Pollux looks pretty, but let’s make Saturn my first target. Damn, behind a tree; Mars then. EQMOD misses but is close, again centre it and synchronise. Mars is bright, but with the 10mm, no surface markings are visible.

It is getting darker and much more is visible now. Good old Orion is behind the trees and lost to me this year, but Betelgeuse is sticking out – for some reason I love this star. Perhaps it is the name, perhaps it is because its end is nigh. Slew to it, pretty close this time, centre and synchronise again. The star is clear and sharp, very red, even to my colour blind eyes. I defocused and got absolutely perfect diffraction rings! Wife calls me in for tea (or dinner for the southerners amongst you).

Out again, but more clouds moving in from the (Gatwick) light polluted west. M31 is sinking fast towards my neighbour’s roof, so although the seeing is not great, let’s look quickly. EQMOD plops it into the FOV despite all the alignments having been done in the east, so I quickly centre and synchronise.

It is hard to know what to say. Slightly disappointed, but I can only just see it at the best of times due to glow from Gatwick. I tried the 32mm and the 10mm but no clearer. I’ll have to try again under better conditions. In passing, I have to say that the 10mm XW eyepiece after the 2” Meade 32mm still gave a wonderful wide field – so easy to use too.

Where has Saturn got to? Slew with 10mm eyepiece still in and “bang” EQMOD got it, spot on. Wow it is beautiful. Put in the 5mm – double wow. Saturn is still low in the sky, which is still lightish, but at 200x I can see the division in the rings – no surface markings on the planet, but so pretty. This 5mm XW is a pleasure to observe with.

Since prospects didn’t look good, I decided to trawl round and take in the sights. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep notes; I just used SkyMap to go to anything that was in the clearer bits of sky. I looked at several clusters with the 32mm; the stars clear and colours beautiful. I tried lots of galaxies – some were easy to find yet others with much the same apparent brightness were impossible for my eyes.

Saturn was higher, so I went back for another look - still fantastic. I decided (for a laugh) to try my 3x Barlow and go for 600x. I don’t know whether the WO diagonal or the Pentax XW was the more insulted by having the Tal Barlow come between them. It was not the total disaster you may expect. I could see what was unmistakably Saturn and it was bigger, but more I could not claim. At least it gave the two speed focuser a good workout. The Tak manual reckons 130x or as much as 160x per inch is possible in exceptional seeing. Could be true, but last night was not exceptional!

Back to 200x and crystal clear again. Went in briefly and to my surprise wife decided she’d like a look at Saturn. She found the 5mm XW easier to see through than my Meade 5mm and was able to leave her glasses on to look. We then had a look at the Pleiades and then M81, which she found just as hard to see as me, so perhaps the conditions were worse than I gave them credit for. Finally, we looked at Alcor / Mizar. With the 10mm we could just about see Mizar’s companion, but with the 5mm they were easily split.

It had become quite murky and the dew was becoming a bit of a nuisance, so I packed up.

What were my conclusions? The Tak is brilliant. I have bought it as a replacement for my C11 and categorically, it is much easier to set up and much more forgiving of the conditions. It gives beautiful wide views, yet takes quite a lot of magnification. Added to that, I can use it as an imaging scope. Yes, I’m happy with my decision and I will be parting with the C11.

The two Pentax eyepieces were flawless. At one point I noticed one star at the very edge of the FOV was a bit squidgy but I was having problems with dew at the time, so the jury is still out. They really are so comfortable to use and with masses of eye relief.

What about the WO diagonal? I didn’t have time to compare it with my cheap one. I’m certain it is better optically – more light being transmitted and it held the physically big eyepieces I was using much better than the other one would have.

EQMOD was a delight to use as ever. No polar alignment, didn’t even do a 1 star align, just set it to “learn” as I went along. By the way, the spiral search facility is something I can recommend to make it easy to find something that is just outside a narrow FOV.

Well that’s it. My longest post - if you got to here, I hope you enjoyed the read.

Mike

[Whippy]

Sounds good Mike, Hope you have many a good session with your Tak .

Tony..

[algol]

great write up there mate, shame orion is gone for you, still pretty visible for me and expect it to be till about april. however my southern horizon is botched up, sirius only just clearing the houses, so neptun/uranus later in year looks questionable.

[jcm]

Looks like you are off to an excellent start with your new scope.

You also confirmed my guess as to which scope you had bought.

John

[Andrew*]

great report and some nice kiti there too. I wish you many years of pleasure with that set-up.

Andrew

[jgs001]

Great report there Mike, thanks for writing it. That scope sounds like a dream . Nice one.

[Sam]

Great report Mike!

Sounds like you're having fun with the new toy. Sounds like a great scope you've got yourself. Gatwick is a pain - I lost 5 frames last night to aircraft and the LP from Crawley washes out that part of the sky as well.

Sam

[lunator]

Mike

nice report.

Sounds like a cracking scope