Taking aim with the Blue Penguin

[Nyctimene]

The Skywatcher Infinity 76/300  ("Blue Penguin" for it's shape and colour) is, beyond the intended use by children, a nice widefield scope with a parabolic primary, giving with the additional 15 mm eyepiece a mag of 15x and a true field of 3.5° (eyepiece still available from astroshop.de).  I've been posting some observations with it during the last 11/2 years. But it has a major drawback - finding fainter objects is really difficult due to the spherical "mount" and the lack of a finderscope.

A few weeks ago, I had ordered a Rigel Quikfinder for another scope, but it didn't fulfill my expectations with this scope, and was lying around. Yesterday, I decided to give it a try with the Penguin. I cut a piece of double sided sticky tape, and, to my surprise, I managed to fasten the Rigel with it to the rather rounded "tube" part of the little scope. A really big improvement!  Last night, I revisited the Auriga Messier clusters, the open clusters NGC 1893 and 1907 close by, M 35, the Pleiades, the Orion nebula (with 30x mag, three trapezium stars were just discernible), and M 44. It was quite easy and comfortable to spot all these objects with the Rigel. Still a hassle is the swapping of the two eyepieces; there are no brakes or clutches to keep the object in the field; so another improvement is waiting. A strange combo - the finder is more expensive than the scope itself; but it works!

Attached a photo:

Thanks for reading

Stephan

[cloudsweeper]

Love it - that's my next purchase!  And Rigels are great aren't they?  Mine (with sticky pads) kept dropping off the Dob, but some insulating tape cured that.

Doug.

[lenscap]

1 hour ago, Nyctimene said:

Still a hassle is the swapping of the two eyepieces; there are no brakes or clutches to keep the object in the field; so another improvement is waiting.

So it is just crying out for a zoom eyepiece. But that might cost more than the (Scope + Finder). ?

[Nyctimene]

On 21/10/2018 at 19:03, lenscap said:

So it is just crying out for a zoom eyepiece

Unfortunately, the Penguin works only with it's specific eyepieces, that are helically threaded (as a surrogate of a focuser). At any rate, the optional 15x (= 20 mmf) eyepiece is a must  for this scope. The supplied 30x erecting eyepiece has a very narrow true field of view. Moreover, swapping between the eyepieces, with different orientations, and tracking the scope vice versa is mind-boggling.

Monday morning, I did a side-to-side comparison between my trusty Vixen 80/400 FH refractor (my only scope, that has seen the Southern Skies), equipped with the Seben 8-24 zoom set at 24 mmf (=16,7x mag) and the Penguin with 15x. Details near the terminator of the hazy moon stood out well in both scopes; especially some already lit crater limbs and mountain tops in the shadowed part showed very contrasty; and the Penguin was able to keep up quite well. The same went with M 81/82 - despite moonlight and haze, they could be made out as faint smudges, but with their characteristic orientation and shape, almost equally in both scopes (the frac slightly better, but with more aperture, no obstruction, and a better eyepiece). Btw, the Penguin's 15x eyepiece is rather sensitive regarding the view - if you look into it at a slightly different angle, you have to refocus (a tiny bit). No wonder at a price of under 10€, and with a f/4 scope. But, all in all, a nice little widefield grab-and-go scope, for less than 60€ atm (from astroshop - no affiliations etc.) If you are using a Rigel and have a second base lying around, it's well worth a try.

Stephan