Dark Sky Festival with MAK 150 Pro (and Mrs!)

[recceranger]

Just had a great weekend at Hay on Wye Dark Sky Fest.  Fantastic company and lectures well presented by Martin Griffiths from University South Wales and members of Usk Astro Society.

Days included lectures, solar observing, trip to observatory at Brecon Beacons Visitor Complex, lesson inside inflatable planetarium (class!) and a hands on lesson on meteorites.

The evening observing was up at Hardwicke Church and a great dark sky site it is.  Perfectly clear sky and a sight to behold.  It was also a chance to test out my MAK 150 and do a sneaky comparison to some Fracs!

Once I got the MAK cooled down (90mins) it was onto Jupiter and cranked up to 200x.  Great view indeed with spherical definition on the Galilean Moons.  Nice and sharp and a pleasure to observe.  I did a comparison through a neighbours SW 120ED and IMHO the MAK took the mag much better.  At around 180x the 120 seemed to soften and loose detailed definition.  When we brought both down to around 100x the ED produced slightly more colour but almost unnoticeable and we really had to look!

Leaving Jup's it was onto a few DSO's.  M3 and M13 using Hyperion 24mm were outstanding.  No dull bluey grey smudges here.  Superb splitting of the stars and pin sharp across entire cluster.  I took a look at M13 via a guys 8" SW Dob and although the Dob showed a slightly larger and brighter image (again you had to look carefully) the pin sharpness appeared just that little bit more defined in the MAK.

M36, 37 and 38 again were fabulous and at least 2 of the 3 contained in the FOV using 28mm.  Tack sharp stars and stunning against that deep black back ground.  Super

Well pleased so far although the cons need fixed.  Without doubt the MAK excels on planets etc but although very good on the DSO's I observed, I feel an UWA/SWA EP would be great.  Additionally the market diagonal is binned (I use may ED80 dia) and mirror shift is a pain.  Focusing on DSO's (M3 and 13) was tough to achieve and I had to slew of target to an individual star, pick up focus and slew back to target.  The worst thing about the market focuser is the focal points drifts under and over the correct amount and this is frustrating.  Solution is an after market SCT.  This will make the MAK a complete package.

In short order - quality optics (very very near good APO standard), great contrast and powerful but ultra portable

Just like Mrs S - a real keeper!

Rick

[FenlandPaul]

Sounds like a great weekend.

Whilst an inch shy of yours, I'm still getting to grips with my Mak. Your post has encouraged me that I should be expecting more than I've been getting so far and so I need to press on with it.

Paul

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Great report. Those little Maks pack a real punch

[John]

Great stuff Rick

I must try one of those 150 Maks sometime. It might show my ED120 the door !

[valefor]

I got one of those maks. Love it. Still got my ed80 for widefield but the mak does a great job imaging and visual

[recceranger]

You're right there mate, got to keep the ED80 for wide field AP. No substitute!

I try not to get to carried away with imaging though and that's why I love the MAK. I like to look at the sky as opposed to happy napping the experience away. Using the MAK to look at M3 and M13 was a real thrill

[recceranger]

That should read "happy snapping"!

[nightfisher]

Wait till you view the moon with the 150 on a really clear night, stunning

[Mick J]

Nice report, Hay on Wye is one of our favourite little towns, enjoy the bookshops, pubs etc.  Hope the Dark Sky Festival continues and with good clear seeing what a great place for it.      

[Avocette]

I'm interested that you'd like to use your Mak for DSOs as well as planets (and lunar presumably). After plenty of experience of Dobs of various sizes I confess I'm struggling to enjoy using my Mak 150, and the best views I've ever had of Jupiter have been through my SW 12" Dob (admittedly with binoviewers). You mention 90 minutes of cool down time for the Mak. A week ago I had the Mak out in the sun with a white light solar filter, and after sunset it was probably at least two hours before the view through the scope settled. By that time I was tired of waiting and would have been nudging a Dob if I'd had one to hand. However, when it finally did settle I was surprised I could cleanly split doubles that I feel were less distinct in the Dob but I wasn't able to do a side by side comparison.  

[recceranger]

The 90 mins cool down was from a good start. By that I mean removing from boot of car and mounting at dusk. I imagine if I was doing solar the residual heat inside the OTA would take longer to remove

As for views through the MAK in comparison. I compared it with an ED120 and 8"Dob. It was just a wee bit sharper with better contrast than the 120 but the image was lacking a bit of colour against the ED. On M13 the MAK using a 24mm Hyperion was just a little sharper.

I think when you go beyond an 8" aperture then size wins. I wouldn't say the MAK could get near a 12"Dob, SCT or Reflector. But certainly compared against an ED120 or similar I think it wins. Reason - simple economics. The 150 MAK Pro is on a deal for £424!

Rick

[Avocette]

Economics is always an important factor! I bought my Mak second-hand for an acceptable price but found it was miscollimated. I carried out a first level collimation adjustment (co-centric circles when viewing from a couple of metres in front of the meniscus lens). But I still have the remaining nagging doubt that further fine tweaking in needed.

Anyway I'm in an upbeat mood after a much better session last night. This time I had kept the kit in the cool of the garage which is shaded by the house during the day. I took it out of the garage at dusk and did a thorough, patient alignment of my EQ5 Synscan. I've updated the firmware to v3.37, which I read has problems with daylight saving time, so set to GMT, ran 3-star alignment with Arcturus, Vega and Capella twice and then polar alignment twice - all the while knowing that the OTA was cooilng down. Finally when I started to observe the tube air currents had pretty well subsided. There was quite a bit of haze around (in South Shropshire) but Jupiter looked very good at 90x and 144x, and I was able to split Epsilon Lyra as four indvidual stars rather than two infinity signs smudges at 225x. The polar alignment was very stable and with improving haze I was easily able to locate DSOs such as M81 & M82 and M65 & M66 at 53x.

By midnight the dew had come down and the sky was much clearer/darker and with concerns for my 7AH power pack I continued with binos and enjoyed a good wide scan of the skies!

[recceranger]

Glad to hear you had a good session. I'm in Shropshire also and experienced the same conditions.

You experience with collimating the MAK are pretty similar to mine. 2 years ago I bought a 180 of eBay and it was out by some margin. I had a complete nightmare trying to adjust and in the end sold it cheap to a guy who new how to sort it.

The experience put me of eBay but not MAK's. I bought the 150 brand new from Tring-Astro and I'm glad I did. Having said that, when I finally drop anchor and settle in my final home I will be building an observatory to house a Dob (14 - 16" should cut it!). In the end, aperture wins.

The MAK 150 is great in the meantime because it has good optics, was affordable and is portable

Wait until you get a look at Globular clusters. They are the business through these babies!