first light, power seeker 127

[Jamesruss13]

Soooo since I was still a few months away from buying my dream scope the SW 80ED on the AZ4 and also as my bins took a fall and broke I decided to bite the bullet and borrow my cousins power seeker 127 which sits in the garage unused ( poor thing  ). now I say bite the bullet only because the two things that go into this scope are the two things I really don’t like! 1. Its a newt... and 2. It was on an eq mount... now before people curse me out for not liking these properties in a set up I will say that being a bino observer for the past few years ive come to love 2 things, simplicity... and glass. I just absolutely love refractors and everything that goes with them, then when it comes to mounts I love being able to just pan around the sky, move my set up at a moments notice and not have to worry about alignments. Big respect to everyone that does it but it’s just not for me. if I ever ‘HAVE’ to get one e.g for imaging or too big a load I will surely be getting a GOTO. with that case closed on to the observing. I set up the mount inside and had a hard time with it! Roughly going with how it looked on the box and making sure everything was firm and wouldn’t tip over! I carried it outside and mounted the scope to it and just got it roughly pointed at the Orion Nebula with the help of a green laser pointer obviously making sure there was no planes or helicopters in sight. In went the 25mm eyepiece it came with and surprisingly I managed to frame m42 first time! Seeing was pretty poor but I could make out a bit of nebulosity, I moved on to some stars further south and watched them twinkling away and even managed to get a meteorite shoot past! I then moved back to m42 and swapped over for a 10mm but lost the view unfortunately, all the fiddling in the world wouldn’t get it to point where I wanted it to and being on an eq mount having the luxury of just scanning the sky wasn’t an option available, I thought maybe I hadn’t set the mount head up properly. Anyway it then started to rain so on went the cover and I got it back inside as soon as possible. After my first time using a newt there was a few things more I didn’t like about them, 1. The collimating of the mirror seems a very confusing task and 2. The position of the focuser, I really didn’t get on with observing side on rather than ‘behind’ I felt it just made things rather awkward and also the eyepieces it came with were rather poor, the 25mm having basically no eye relief and no twist up cups and the 10mm’s pin hole exit pupil. Oh how I cannot wait for the new frac!!!  

[Charic]

My first scope too.................
Glad I made the right decision after first light to buy the 200P Skyliner instead.

For a beginner, there is just too much faffing around with the setting up of this scope, continual adjustments throughout, awkward focuser positions, nah! not for me, couldn't even give the scope away?

Eventually tried selling to a cash saver store! most surprised they tried to rip it out of my hands? then with all the knowledge in the World, the buyer suggested that the slight dent/distorted reflection on the side of OTA would somehow affect the performance? Still got back what I paid for it, in-fact maybe just a little more, would need to check my  receipts!

For your money, you can get a great amount or performance from a large Newtonian, and to-date,I have never looked through a Refractor, although If one should arrive, it would possibly be an ED80 or larger, but I found/find the Newtonian easy to use and set-up, and the 200P is more than manageable just now. Horses for courses, but I would NEVER advise anyone to buy the 127 Powerseeker based  on my experience, even after careful cleaning, collimation and better eyepieces (although I still maintain, an eyepiece alone  cant improve upon the image detail created by the scope itself,  just makes for a comfortable view of that image ) I could not better the performance of the 127PS. It doesn't even come close to the present scope!

[Jamesruss13]

i guess I’m not the only one to have a bad experience with it! everything about it just feels uncomfortable, the focuser position, the mount head assembly and positioning, the finder scope is hard to get your eye behind, hence why I just positioned a green laser next to the ota, and the eyepieces with it don’t make for an enjoyable view, it felt like my eye lashes were draped over the side of it! Lol, I will one day get a nice sized dob which i realise is a newt just on a different type of mount but they look a lot easier to navigate than on an EQ and by then I will have some decent quality eyepieces to use, it really winds me up that companies will always accompany a ‘beginner scope’ with poor eyepieces and a mount that’s rather tricky to assemble and get to grips with. I mean for a lot of people it’s their first time looking through and using a scope and I imagine a lot of people in the past have never proceeded to pursue astronomy because of it. Personally I think all beginner scopes should be on a much simpler Alt azimuth and accompanied with some decent glass to look through, even if that means just containing one low/medium power eyepiece and the buyer then being required to add more at a later date. 

[tuckstar]

5 hours ago, Charic said:

although I still maintain, an eyepiece alone  cant improve upon the image detail created by the scope itself,  just makes for a comfortable view of that image

I would have to disagree with you on that one. When I started out I had the skywatcher 130 explorer with the supplied eyepieces, I soon upgraded to hyperions and the difference was very noticeable.

Of course I have had to upgrade them again as they don't perform very well in my 10" f4.7 dob.

[Stu]

1 hour ago, tuckstar said:

I would have to disagree with you on that one. When I started out I had the skywatcher 130 explorer with the supplied eyepieces, I soon upgraded to hyperions and the difference was very noticeable.

Of course I have had to upgrade them again as they don't perform very well in my 10" f4.7 dob.

I agree too, the eyepiece is an integral part  of the optical train and makes a big difference. Granted it can't improve a poor scope, but a good eyepiece will make the most of the performance that is there.

Stick a nagler in one of the little 76p rocket scopes and they perform surprisingly well!

[John]

I friend of mine at my society has a Powerseeker 127. He was rather despairing of it until we had a go at collimating it (use a star test - lasers don't work with the design) and put some decent eyepieces in it. The views went from rather lacklustre to rather nice

The mount seemed to work pretty well with the usual need to rotate the scope tube for some observing angles.

It would not be my preferred entry level scope but they can be made to work reasonably well. Enough to get someone hooked on the hobby anyway

[Littleguy80]

I've only ever known observing with a newt on an EQ mount! It's been a great scope for me though it's real pain getting onto targets around the zenith with the EQ. 

[Charic]

On 12/01/2018 at 02:03, Charic said:

I still maintain, an eyepiece alone  cant improve upon the image detail created by the scope itself,

tuckstar, Stu, so many folk pick up on this statement, so let me explain how I see it?

Once your scope is setup and useable, your using it, if you now remove the eyepiece, there's still an image at the focal plane,  that created by the telescope itself, therefore the eyepiece itself has/had  nothing to do with the creation of that image, its all down to the design of the telescope.

The eyepiece becomes an integral part of the setup, after image formation, magnifying that image at the focal plane in order for the end user to see the final image clearly, but can't fix or change the 'real image' at the focal plane, thats already set by the ability of the scope, you  only get what's provided.

True, most eyepieces are 'better' than the  supplied Skywatcher  10mm, and yes, upgrading eyepieces (Starguiders in my case) will give the impression that things are  much better, but the detail in the real image at the focal plane is set, my Starguider can't improve the detail, as explained above.
The only difference I experience are changes in the field of view, better eye-relief, larger eye-lens and in some EP's, there's maybe the ability to help reduce (not eliminate) certain aberrations, but beyond that, the image prior to the eyepiece is done, dusted, deal with it!

If the conditions allow and your scope produces a great image with lots of detail, then good, enjoy the moment/reward, but if the image is less than.... for example, lack of aperture, low resolution/detail, then I stick with my comments that the eyepiece cant make that poor image any better! 

Thats the way I see it, but open to suggestions. I could be wrong! I could be right! (Pil,JohnLydon!)

[Charic]

On 12/01/2018 at 09:51, John said:

It would not be my preferred entry level scope but they can be made to work reasonably well. Enough to get someone hooked on the hobby anyway

John, the 127EQ  gave my my first real  'wow moment' when I first viewed ourMoon, and its fine for that, but beyond that, it provides no favours, no fun.
Having said that, to be fair, as a beginner, if you buy/receive this as your first scope, then your not going to know if its bad or otherwise, when if provides a decent image of the Moon, but on Jupiter ( which was well placed back in 2013 )  I struggled with the images, probably more to do with conditions, but a side by side at a later date proved otherwise, my Skyliner is King over the pawned (sold actually) 127EQ.
On a side note, as my experience and knowledge expanded, I did give the 127EQ the full treatment, stripped, cleaned, setup, comfortable eyepieces, and still glad I sold it on!
The experience was duly noted, and I learnt how to setup the EQ and Polar align, but there were no benefits/improvements in the final image after the 'service'
And that inbuilt Jones-Bird Barlow is there for a reason, part of the design, but shouldn't be removed ( some folk try - Lasers?) for collimation. The scope itself just needs a visual setup as the main mirror is spherical, just position the clips,  good to go!