150p Skyliner Dob First light, plus ED100 comparison.

[Chris]

Being in the market for a no fuss grab and go scope I very nearly opted for the highly recommended Heritage 130p mini Dob, but as I don't own any garden furniture to facilitate using one of these in comfort, I ended up opting for the next scope up in Skywatchers Dob fleet, the Skyliner 150p f/8. 

The other added bonus of the Skyliner 150p f/8 over the Heritage 130p f/5 is that it should work well with my basic Plossl eyepieces and be less critical with the old collimation.

I should probably point out that I've also recently purchased an ED100 refactor which I plan to compare with the above scope to see what can be learn't about their different characteristics through my eyes.

My wife very kindly bought me the scope for Christmas (thank's Bella  ), but with the mad rush of over Christmas I didn't get to open the boxes and put the scope together until the 27th. Once the fairly straight forward Dob base was built up and the OTA screwed into position with the supplied tension handles, I quickly switched out the 30mm finder for my basic RDF which I prefer and set about checking collimation.

firstly I needed to collimate my laser collimator, and as I couldn't find my V-block opted to do this by balancing the collimator on one of my kiddies giant Duplo bricks and rotated the collimator looking for any movement of the projected red dot on the wall across the room. Once adjusted I did likewise to the scope as the secondary was a few mil off perfect. It would have been fine left alone at f/8, but thought I might as well get things as prefect as possible with the knowledge that I was planning to ultimately test this scope against my ED100 over a number of sessions to come.

Anyhow, I was lucky enough to have clear skies that evening, so setup the scope on my back garden patio to cool for 15 minutes or so before starting my test drive. There is a small gap to the south in my garden and Orion was in view so I popped in the 25mm plossl and lined the scope up! Thing initially didn't look great, stars looked mushy like viewed through a diffraction grating, then I realised I had taken the scope from 21 degrees C indoors to close to zero. Watching the waves of tube currents wafting over a de-focused Betelgeuse confirmed this! By 30 minutes outside the optics were starting to settle down nicely and stars were looking better and how they should. As thought my basic Plossls worked quite well with the scope at f/8 and star shapes remained good over roughly 70-80% of the FOV, no distracting warp drive effects! The nebulae of M42 was fairly striking, and appeared quite dense and extensive! more so than my last visit to the neb with the ED100. I was able to trace dark regions through the lighter grey/green nebulae which is something I can't always claim to do when viewing from the edge of town. Looking at the trapezium I could see 4 stars present, not as clean as my fracs but still nice. I moved upto 80x mag with my 15mm Plossl to go deeper into the trapezium but still 4 stars seen.

Gemini was at the left most edge of my southerly gap, just enough to enable me to point up towards M35. At 48x with the 25mm Plossl the stars filled up most the field of view, with just enough FOV left to frame the open cluster. I didn't get the same wow as with my ED100 the last time I visited this object, despite less apeture the frac definately seemed to resolve the tiniest of stars which gave the open cluster incredible depth! The 150p Dob showed plenty of stars still but seemed somewhat flatter/less depth. 

Moving away from my 'gap', I swung round and up to M45 which is always a winner filling the FOV with lovely blue stars. I wasn't able to frame it as well as the ED100 with the same EP but still a lovely sight none the less. Again the stars delivered by the ED100 were tighter as to be expected, but the colour certainly looked good in the 150p Dob.

At this point I called it a night and put the scope away this time in my little 5x3 scope shed so it would be pretty much ready to go next time out. The most impressive thing off the bat with the 150p Dob is it's pure simplicity. I found it easy to lift and carry around as a complete setup without any straining, very quick to setup, and simple to use too. I was so impressed by this aspect that when I noticed it was clear late the next night, I had no second thoughts about nipping out with the 150p Dob. This time the optics needed no coolling whatsoever, and as well as observing the previous nights targets, I was able to add M36, M37 and M31, M110. This time I also grabbed a chair from indoors remembering my back had taken a bit of punishment from stooping a little. The chair and 150p Dob turned out to be a perfect marriage, some of the most comfortable viewing I've had!

Two nights out and I would say I'm very pleased with the 150p Skyliner Dobsonian, it totally fills the roll I wanted of a grab and go portable no fuss scope so far. I still have a long way to go with comparing the 150P Dob with the ED100 refractor, but my initial thoughts on the limited targets observed are that the ED100 gives views that are that bit more 'special' in my opinion, and by special I mean super tight perfect stars, more depth to star fields with a darker background so stars really pop. The exception to this was M42 where I would say the tables were turned, the Nebulae shown by the 150p was frankly impressive from my edge of town location.

There is also no arguing that the 150P Dob is an absolute joy to use, and at comparatively cheap cost!

Still early days so I'll add to this comparison as time goes on.  

 

 

[John]

Great report Chris

The classic 6" F/8 newt is one scope that I've not yet owned or used so far in the hobby but I've often fancied trying one.

Considering what these can be bought for I reckon that the 150P dobs must represent one of the best £-performance ratios around.

[Charic]

14 minutes ago, Chris Lock said:

The most impressive thing off the bat with the 150p Dob is it's pure simplicity

 

14 minutes ago, Chris Lock said:

it totally fills the roll I wanted of a grab and go portable no fuss scope so far

Nice report. Its the reason I chose the Sky-liner, based on user experience, and with my own experience, I will always recommend my 200P Skyliner.
My two scope choices in the beginning were between the TAL100RS and Skyliner. I've yet to peer through a TAL but satisfied with the Skyliner.

You'll know already, the next size up will offer  more, but your next scope would be heavier with the 12" version

It was my intention to have a 12" myself, over the 10", but looks like I may just keep the 200P much longer, as you say, its simple to set-up and use, what can go wrong?

[Chris]

2 minutes ago, Charic said:

 

It was my intention to have a 12" myself, over the 10", but looks like I may just keep the 200P much longer, as you say, its simple to set-up and use, what can go wrong?

This is the thing, I did give some thought to a 10" and may still get one down the line, but I can't say I would have gone out two nights in a row with a slightly iffy back if I'd got the 10" instead. The 8" is a good compromise and I gave good thought to that too. I did briefly own an 8" f/6 a few years back so even though I remembered being able to lift it alright over short distances, I was very nearly meant to get the little Heritage so too much of a jump for grab and go.... plus I slightly wanted to itch the 6" f/8 Newt itch

 

[Charic]

My choice of 12" over the 10" Sky-liner was simply more aperture and slower ratio at  f/5 against f/4.7

And between our present scopes I think there's about 10Kgs weight difference, increasing with the larger models, though not checked their weights.

I can bicep curl  lift the 200P quite easily  around the garden, I know where the trip hazards are, but can easily separate the two parts by releasing the tensioner handles if needed.

[nightfisher]

8 hours ago, John said:

Great report Chris

The classic 6" F/8 newt is one scope that I've not yet owned or used so far in the hobby but I've often fancied trying one.

Considering what these can be bought for I reckon that the 150P dobs must represent one of the best £-performance ratios around.

John, you should put this matter right my friend

[John]

7 hours ago, nightfisher said:

John, you should put this matter right my friend

Difficult to smuggle another scope in though

My wifes idea of how a dining room should look is different to mine. My idea would look like Ed Tings room - see below and his useful definition:  

You Know You're an Equipment Freak When...

 

• You are not quite sure how many telescopes you own.
• McDonald's starts putting plastic binoculars in its happy meals and you buy one so you can test its optics.
• You buy a Celestron Novice 50, "to complete your collection."
• You write down Harrie Rutten's and Martin van Venrooij's name, and don't make any spelling errors.
• Your telescope is worth more than your car.
• Your binoculars are worth more than your car.
• Your least expensive binoculars are worth more than your car.
• You have a room in your house that looks like this:

 

 

[laudropb]

Very nice report Chris. A very enjoyable read. If the sky ever clears here I hope to compare my 8 inch Dob with my newly acquired 120 Ed. Watch this space lol

[RobertI]

Interesting report Chris - It'll be interesting to see how they compare on the planets.

[Chris]

12 hours ago, nightfisher said:

John, you should put this matter right my friend

+1

[Chris]

5 hours ago, John said:

Difficult to smuggle another scope in though

My wifes idea of how a dining room should look is different to mine. My idea would look like Ed Tings room - see below and his useful definition:  

You Know You're an Equipment Freak When...

 

• You are not quite sure how many telescopes you own.
• McDonald's starts putting plastic binoculars in its happy meals and you buy one so you can test its optics.
• You buy a Celestron Novice 50, "to complete your collection."
• You write down Harrie Rutten's and Martin van Venrooij's name, and don't make any spelling errors.
• Your telescope is worth more than your car.
• Your binoculars are worth more than your car.
• Your least expensive binoculars are worth more than your car.
• You have a room in your house that looks like this:

 

 

Haha! Superb criteria, and I like how the bear in the pic looks sufficiently happy to be surrounded by high end gear 

 

[Chris]

5 hours ago, laudropb said:

Very nice report Chris. A very enjoyable read. If the sky ever clears here I hope to compare my 8 inch Dob with my newly acquired 120 Ed. Watch this space lol

Thank you  and the 8" Dob vs ED120 comparison sounds like a very good idea to me so make sure you let us all know how it goes

[Chris]

1 hour ago, RobertI said:

Interesting report Chris - It'll be interesting to see how they compare on the planets.

Thanks Rob, yes that's the thing I'm most curious about but the planets aren't going to be well placed for a while, and Venus is annoyingly placed behind the trees in the evening so not a great start with finding the answers to this one! lol

[Peter Drew]

11 hours ago, Chris Lock said:

Haha! Superb criteria, and I like how the bear in the pic looks sufficiently happy to be surrounded by high end gear 

 

Only one room?!    

[Chris]

Ok I've made a start on planets with the 150p Dob at least. Venus and Mars are now setting behind the trees in my garden, but there was a window of opportunity from about 5:15pm when it was dark enough, and 5:30pm when Venus started to disappear. I needed to have the Dob right in the corner of the patio to get the angle!

Venus was glorious sight with it's cresecent! I pushed the mag right upto 250x, and it did start to shimmer a bit at this point, but wow what a big crescent! I haven't looked at Venus at high mag in such a long time I'd almost forgot how impressive it can be  There was of course very bright large diffraction spikes coming off it which I don't like about the Newt design, but hey you can't have everything.

Once I had soaked up enough of Venus, and had also passed my wife and 3 kids over the eyepiece as the patio is just outside the living room (with varying degrees of appreciation I must add ), I moved onto Mars. I didn't expect much due to it's current apparent size and to be expected it was just a bright pink disk, but it did seem reasonably sharp at 250x, and due to being much dimmer than Venus, the diff spikes had all but disappeared.

I must say I'm becoming quite fond of this 150p Dob in that it is so fast to deploy and put away!

I'll try the ED100 on Venus and Mars next time out   

 

[jetstream]

Chris how much does the 150P dob weigh? I might be getting my grandaughters a scope and wonder if youngsters (8yrs old) could manage it.

[dannybgoode]

Nice report. 

6" newts are a fantastic balance between performance and portability. I have the f5 SW 150P and it's a peach (although I pair it with an AZ4 mount). Thoroughly enjoy using it and I can take it pretty much anywhere. 

 

 

[JG777]

I am enjoying reading about your comparisons Chris as an owner of an ED100 and a 6 inch newt incoming some time in Feb. The newt will be F5 so maybe not as close in comparison but looking forward to having both on my push to set up and seeing what the differences are.

 

[Chris]

8 hours ago, jetstream said:

Chris how much does the 150P dob weigh? I might be getting my grandaughters a scope and wonder if youngsters (8yrs old) could manage it.

Hi Gerry, It's certainly lighter than the Skyliner 200p f/6 I had a few yeas back, I'm only 5'10" and 137lbs so of a runners build and I can handle the whole lot with ease. It might still be a bit of a push for an 8 year old, but I guess it does depend on the 8 year old in question.

I found this which says the whole lot weighs 25kg, but we could do with a second reference to be more sure.

 

[jetstream]

Thanks Chris, my heart says 150P my brain says the little 130P for them. Shes a strong wiry child who can manage my VX10 in 2 trips, but with very limited storage space at their home. Hmmm...

Thanks for the info and enjoy that great scope!

[Chris]

Which 130p did your brain have in mind?

The Meade 130 mini light bridge might be good if storage is tight, Gerry. Probably a bit more child friendly than the two truss rod design of the Skywatcher Heritage 130p.

 

[jetstream]

I'm looking at the Sw Heritage 130mm dob, good point about truss rods Chris. I have Meade "concerns" but I just talked to a vendor who said David Shen of SW bought Suny Optics who owns Meade, so this is a VG thing. I heard the Meade is really good, with Synta optics.

I'm thinking that the little truss might be more "novel" to her and she can see first hand how a newt works with the Heritage being exposed. I'll teach her about stray light and collimation being able to see everything. The helical focuser should be interesting too...

If she gets the SW lets say a prayer for the exposed secondary

[Chris]

48 minutes ago, jetstream said:

 

If she gets the SW lets say a prayer for the exposed secondary

 That did make me smile

 

51 minutes ago, jetstream said:

I'm looking at the Sw Heritage 130mm dob, good point about truss rods Chris. I have Meade "concerns" but I just talked to a vendor who said David Shen of SW bought Suny Optics who owns Meade, so this is a VG thing. I heard the Meade is really good, with Synta optics.

I'm thinking that the little truss might be more "novel" to her and she can see first hand how a newt works with the Heritage being exposed. I'll teach her about stray light and collimation being able to see everything. The helical focuser should be interesting too...

Yeah seems that Synta are taking over the world! 

The Heritage would be good for demonstrating how the optics work, if she is interested in this then it's probably the one to get as you say 

 

[jetstream]

There's something else...its the 8yr olds birthday birthday and when the 6 yr old see's this present... I'll be surprised if the scope isn't pulled in half with each one pulling on either end fighting over it

I must get  something for the little one to balance the scales lol!

[Chris]

1 minute ago, jetstream said:

There's something else...its the 8yr olds birthday birthday and when the 6 yr old see's this present... I'll be surprised if the scope isn't pulled in half with each one pulling on either end fighting over it

I must get  something for the little one to balance the scales lol!

erm ???

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/celestron-astromaster-series/celestron-cometron-firstscope-76mm-telescope.html

The 6 year old will find this cute..I find it cute, shame about the spherical mirror.