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New Dobson!

Piero

By Piero
in Discussions - Scopes / Whole setups

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Piero

Piero

Posted
Posted

As recently mentioned here on SGL, for a long time I have considered to replace my old telescope in Italy so that I could enjoy a bit more aperture for the next three years when coming back on holiday.
Well, finally I opted for a Sky-Watcher Skyliner 200 F6 because of:
- great size/weight
- large coma free area
- light polluted sky

Although I plan to take this telescope to the mountain for some days in the summer, I could not justify a 250 in terms of cost and weight due to the little use per year under a light polluted sky. Of course this is just a choice due to personal circumstances. If this had been my primary telescope for observation, I would have probably chosen a 250mm instead.

After getting in touch with Riccardo, chief at Telescope Service Italia (near Treviso, Italy; http://www.teleskop-express.it/)I bought this telescope yesterday after landing :) Riccardo and the people at TS Italia had been very nice and helpful, and I believe the creation of a TS selling point in Italy will be highly beneficial for the market in Southern Europe. Overall, their service was excellent.

About the telescope.
Well, this is a well known telescope, so not many surprises from my side. All the pieces were in perfect condition and the installation was easy. A user manual is also included, although there are plenty of reviews about this telescopes here on SGL and else where.

Base:
A rock solid dobson base. After reading a post on www.iceinspace.com.au/, I prefer to add a remark. The observing position for these telescopes is quite low. Therefore one should either observe sitting on a chair or position the telescope on an elevated structure (e.g. a low table).
The base was easy to mount and movements are sufficiently smooth.

Finder:
This is a straight finder. A lot of people nowadays prefer a RACI+Telrad combination. Personally I like straight finders but I also have to say that I use the finder just at the beginning to locate the initial point. After that I star hop using my 24 Pan directly. For people strongly relying on a finder for starhopping, a RACI (+Telrad) combination could be much more comfortable for the neck.
One thing I noticed which can be improved on these finder is the locking base. The finder mount enters in the saddle from the bottom and reaches an end point at the top. For the finder safety, I think it should be the other way around, so that if the shoe screw gets less tight, the finder base does not slide down but still remains attached to the finder base shoe. Eventually a telescope points to the sky not to the floor!
Overall the alignment is dead easy, much simpler than my old Orion 8x50 straight finder with two circular brackets and 6 screws holding in position.

Focuser:
The focuser is basic but does the job. Having a nice set of eyepieces, I don't like the idea to scratch the barrel with the focuser screw. Therefore I previously bought a Baader 2" to 1.25" Reducer adapter from FLO (http://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/baader-2-to-125-reducer-adapter.html), which is inserted in the 2" eyepiece holder sold with the Skyliner telescope.
This works nicely and the screws are very smooth too. A click-lock adapter would be better, but is also more expensive. If you are not too fussy, this adapter just works more than fine.

Collimation:
The secondary mirror was a bit off collimation. With a Cheshire collimator and the provided screw key, this was aligned properly. For the primary mirror, the telescope did not come with a key for collimating. The hexagonal screws were slightly larger than those for the secondary and therefore the key did not work. The primary was not perfectly collimated, but it was still acceptable up to 171x on my tests.
I will replace these screws with a set of Bob's knobs so that I won't have to adjust the secondary, if needed, with a key potentially falling inside the tube!
 
Mirrors:
Both were in a excellent shape and no problem with them. From inside to outside, it took an hour to cool the telescope down properly. After that, it was ready for also medium high power views (up to 171x due to the lack of precise collimation on the primary). Not a criticism, because I don't have any.. After using a refractor for a while, the view of bright stars can be a bit surprising. It doesn't matter how much you can read about the secondary spider lines coming out from bright stars, it still remains a surprise to get used to it! I heard that curve spiders can limit the presence of these crosses on bright stars. I am not going to invest on them on this telescope, but if one is sensitive to this, maybe this is an option to look into.

Overall:
Really happy with this telescope and is a joy to use. I strongly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a general purpose, transportable and very capable telescope.

First light?
Well, of course! Luckily yesterday the sky was very nice! Here is a first report:
http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/258745-testing-some-new-target-with-a-new-scope/


Thanks,
Piero

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John

John

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Posted

Great choice of scope Piero :smiley:

Given the excellent reports that you have posted of observations with your 60mm TV refractor I'm really anticipating what you make of the Universe with all that additional aperture under dark skies :smiley:

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Mike73

Mike73

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Posted

Your keen observing skills and this scope is a great match Piero, looking forward to hearing more of your reports. 

(don't forget that with increase aperture and decent transparency/seeing you can really push the magnification.) :)

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