Would appreciate some tips and tricks for the Celestron Astromaster 130EQ MD.

[Ahgii]

Hello, i recently bought the Celestron Astromaster 130eq. I would like some tips and tricks for it, especially for the mount, which i have 1 problem with, the telescope meets with the fine adjustment and ra motor, which is quite annoying when visually observing. Also, how do i deal with the no center dot on mirror problem? Please tell me other tips and tricks for the telescope that i might not know of. Sorry this post was short, didnt find anything useful while browsing on the forum. Clear skies!

[Alfian]

Centre spotting the primary mirror is pretty straight forward, there's a guide here.

http://garyseronik.com/centre-dotting-your-scopes-primary-mirror/

The tripod, despite its steel legs is a bit wobbly. Clamping things up tight helps, as does putting a weight on the spreader tray, but don't overdo it as its not particularly strong. You will probably find that the standard red dot finder is hard to use. Some manage, many don't. One problem is that the Celestron does not have a standard finder shoe, so replacement is not so simple. I replaced mine with a Rigel Quickfinder which comes with its own stick on base.

Edited June 1, 2017 by Alfian

[Knighty2112]

Biggest tip I could give you is take the RA motor of the scope altogether, and just use the slow motion controls on it. I no longer use this scope at all as I soon upgraded to a much better one, but when I did use it it was much easier to use without the motor fitted to the scope. 

[ronin]

Cannot help with the mount, if the motor fits close to the RA/Dec adjuster I cannopt think of much that can be done - that's how it is built..

At 130mm aperture expect best performance to be 80x to 120x, it should go to around 150x or 160x but the image quality will drop off.

Center spot, add your own is the normal. Usually the worst bit is deciding where the center is before you stick something there. May be 100% wrong but one of the old punch hole reinforcers might be OK to use. If the idea is to go collimate it then understand what collimation is.

I would look into the erect image aspect, is that part of the focuser or is it a seperate eyepiece. I read the specification and cannot see anything that gives an answer. Hopefully it is an eyepiece, if so don't use it. The problem is that these are fine in principal, but the supplied items are often the cheapest that the manufacturer can get away with supplying.

For tracking it appears there is no polar scope option, you will need to level the mount as best you can then rely on the latitude dial and set this to 44 or 45, not sure how to aim it North even reasonably accurately. Remember you are aiming the mount NOT the scope for poalr alignment.

Just seen the image of the 20mm eyepiece it has lettering that looks like "Er?????" on it, I assume the 20mm is an erect image eyepiece, which could contribute to the poor performance you appear to have had. Does mean the scope is "normal" however.

Think carefully about what you what to observe, if the 20mm is an erect image EP then I suspect it;s performance is not overly good. I suggest a half reasonable 25mm eyepiece. And as 650/80 is about 8 consider an 8mm eyepiece at some time.

[Alfian]

13 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

Biggest tip I could give you is take the RA motor of the scope altogether, and just use the slow motion controls on it. I no longer use this scope at all as I soon upgraded to a much better one, but when I did use it it was much easier to use without the motor fitted to the scope. 

Agreed Gus, I used the motor on mine once and that was it.

 

8 minutes ago, ronin said:

I assume the 20mm is an erect image eyepiece

Yes, the 130EQ comes with an erect image EP. I think Celestron hedged their bets thinking some people would use it for terrestrial use, distant views out to sea? A change of EPs to just basic plossls makes a big difference. You are bang on with magnification. The max I ever tried was about 180x and with my skies that was a bit too much.

[ronl]

You need to learn the Meridian flip, this will stop the scope from snagging when observing, here is a link which

shows you how, it should work on your set up. 

 

[Geoff Lister]

I could not get on well setting up the Astromaster's EQ mount and getting the motor drive at the right speed. In the end, I decided to go Az/Alt and bought a Skymaster Skymax 127 with Synscan GOTO. It was much easier. I decided to replace the Skymax's straight-through finder with a right-angled one, so I was looking in the same direction for finder and eyepiece. I then fitted a suitable bracket to the Astromaster's tube, and as you can see in the attached photo, fitting the Skymax's old finder has made the horrible red-dot funder redundant. The Astromaster's ring assembly's dovetail plate fits the Skymaster's mount, and as one of the rings has a camera attachment screw, I can also use a video recorder at the same time.

I still have the original 9V battery in the Astromaster's MD assembly.

 

The Astromaster's OTA has a 650mm focal length, so it gives a wider field of view than the Skymax MCT with its 1500mm focal length.

Geoff