Az Pronto Skywatcher 130ps unboxing/first impressions

[Olli]

Hi all,

before I start I would like to thank Everyone on here  for helping me and answering many questions that I had and also @FLO for the great service ordered Saturday night and came lunch time today.

so today was the day ...my first telescope first telescope had arrived ( felt like Christmas again!). After a long wait the Fed Ex drive had finally arrived at my door with the scope and mount.  The package itself seemed extremely light and after opening I was happy to see that everything was well packaged with a lot of boxes and bubble wrap this was a big relief for me as in the past ordering fragile stuff well I’ve had some bad experiences but FLO made sure that didn’t happen. As I’ve not seen many reviews or unboxings of this set up I thought that I should make one. As I did struggle to make a decision to get this or the heritage version.

Once I opened the main box up there was another box and within that box were the scope mount and tripod and also included were the eyepieces red dot finder and slow mo controls ( was like playing pass the parcel!) . When opening the boxes I was surprised how well built everything was. Most of it was metal. When looking at the pictures online and on the videos I couldn’t really tell what it was made of.  So first impressions seem to be quite good for the mount itself seems to be high quality and the tripod it has  a bubble level on one of the legs which I didn’t know about and is a nice feature. 

On to the ota then. As mentioned above it seems very  solid.  However one of the big things that I liked about this version of the 130p compared  to the others is that it does not require colimation as the back panel does not have any screws as you would see on a normal Newtonian. So this was a big plus for me being an absolute beginner to telescopes and is a nice feature to have. The ota came with a nice red dot finder scope as well with two standard eyepieces 25mm and 10mm. So, after opening everything up I’m quite happy about the experience and the build quality of everything. The weather seems a bit bad tonight and this week, supposed to be some clouds but hopefully there will be a break so I can write a first light  report with the scope.

Below I have taken some pictures of the unboxing process and some of the ota and Mount 

Thanks for reading 

[Redscouse]

28 minutes ago, Dinoco said:

However one of the big things that I liked about this version of the 130p compared  to the others is that it does not require colimation as the back panel does not have any screws as you would see on a normal Newtonian.

Hi Dinoco, 

You sure about the bit I've highlighted above?

I have the 130P & 130 P-DS and they do require collimation from time to time. (The 130P was fine when it arrived from the store until I messed around with it and then it needed collimating!) There is a black panel on the rear that has 3 or 4 black screws. You remove this cover to get to the primary mirror and collimating screws.
I'm not sure about the 130PS that's why I thought I'd let you know my findings.

Like I said above, mine was fine BEFORE I messed it up so please, check and double check it actually needs collimating first! 

Hope that helps.
Pete.

[Olli]

2 minutes ago, Redscouse said:

Hi Dinoco, 

You sure about the bit I've highlighted above?

I have the 130P and it does require collimation from time to time. (it was fine when it arrived until I messed around with it and then it needed collimating!) There is a black panel on the rear that has 3 or 4 black screws. You remove this cover to get to the primary mirror and collimating screws.

Like I said above, mine was fine BEFORE I messed it up so please, check and double check it actually needs collimating first! 

Hope that helps.
Pete.

Hi Pete here’s the video where I got the info from ( starts at 16:53) https://youtu.be/LyThXB0mmzU

[Redscouse]

Wow! Well I stand corrected. I wish I'd have know that when I bought mine as after messing the collimation up I then spent around 5 hours putting it back correct again. I know, I know, I had one of them "there's a big red button that needs pushing" moments! It was a good learning curve though! 

I hope you enjoy your new 'scope and have plenty of clear skies to use it.
Pete. 

[Olli]

4 minutes ago, Redscouse said:

Wow! Well I stand corrected. I wish I'd have know that when I bought mine as after messing the collimation up I then spent around 5 hours putting it back correct again. I know, I know, I had one of them "there's a big red button that needs pushing" moments! It was a good learning curve though! 

I hope you enjoy your new 'scope and have plenty of clear skies to use it.
Pete. 

Thank you, it’s a great little feature they added for beginners  

[iPeace]

Looking good...how about some pics of it set up?

[Olli]

9 minutes ago, iPeace said:

Looking good...how about some pics of it set up?

Whoops forgot about that.  

[iPeace]

That's looking like loads of fun. Please report!

[alanjgreen]

48 minutes ago, Dinoco said:

Whoops forgot about that.  

Great stuff Dinoco  Always a relief when a scope arrives in one piece!

just one thing, compare your tube orientation to the pics on FLO website, you may have the tube oriented the wrong way around?

- their pic has the upper slo mo control facing the front

I am also sure that I read somewhere that only the secondary mirror needs to be collimated so I agree with you that the primary is fixed.

Alan

[Olli]

 

2 minutes ago, alanjgreen said:

Great stuff Dinoco.

just one thing, compare your tube orientation to the pics on FLO website, you may have the tube oriented the wrong way around?

- their pic has the upper slo mo control facing the front

I am also sure that I read somewhere that only the secondary mirror needs to be collimated so I agree with you that the primary is fixed.

Alan

Yeah I realised after haha I just quickly put it on to show.  I had a quick look at the secondary and could only see one screw in the middle. As there’s usually 3 round the outside 

[alanjgreen]

9 minutes ago, Dinoco said:

 

Yeah I realised after haha I just quickly put it on to show.  I had a quick look at the secondary and could only see one screw in the middle. As there’s usually 3 round the outside 

Even better, the secondary must be fixed too if the 3 collimation screws are not present  Simples!

Dont wait for a clear night to align your finder, this is easiest done in daylight and do test it out in daylight through a window too (image will be upside down though) so you can practice with the different eyepieces and focusing etc  

- JUST BE SURE TO STAY WELL AWAY FROM THE SUN (as if!)

[Olli]

2 hours ago, alanjgreen said:

Even better, the secondary must be fixed too if the 3 collimation screws are not present  Simples!

Dont wait for a clear night to align your finder, this is easiest done in daylight and do test it out in daylight through a window too (image will be upside down though) so you can practice with the different eyepieces and focusing etc  

- JUST BE SURE TO STAY WELL AWAY FROM THE SUN (as if!)

It’s funny you should say this about the finder the seeing conditions weren’t great but the moon was out and could see it clearly when the clouds kept drifting. I knew i should’ve align the finder first but was desperate to test it out. When I was doing it though i was kind of confused on which direction both the switches go which one goes left right or up down for example. But other than that the limited time I got from viewing the moon I was quite impressed.

Edit: never mind have just found out which one does what, will try during the day to get it properly aligned.

[Stargazer McCabe]

On 2/27/2018 at 18:20, Dinoco said:

I had a quick look at the secondary and could only see one screw in the middle. As there’s usually 3 round the outside 

I'd just check that... From your photo, I can see what looks like 3 Hex Head Bolts around the Central Cross Head Screw. That's just like my 130P secondary arrangement. And my secondary does need collimation from time to time by using an Allen Key on those 3 Hex Heads...

Enjoy your new scope as soon as the skies clear...