Trying New Stuff...

[Captain Scarlet]

(well, new to me)

Over the last few weeks I've acquired a SkyTee2 manual mount, a Baader Skysurfer V RDF, and a 3mm DeLite eyepiece; all of which, after a couple of slightly embarrassing teething troubles, I am very happy with.

Recently back from holiday in dark SW Ireland, I went out over the weekend in SW Greater London with my 105 f/6.2 refractor for a very quick session just to see how my new accessories toys worked.

I learned

- that the SkyTee mount would work best with the main unlock knobs facing you rather than away;

- that RDFs work much better when pointed forwards rather than towards you;

- what the star-test pattern for a refractor with an erect-image roof prism looks like (a regular series of diffrection-rings with a prominent vertical "fire-break" running straight down through it, from the "crease" of the roof I guess. Also, it creates a pair of diffraction spikes, which on a 'frac confused me to begin with.

The mount is brilliant, a huge contrast to the wobbly set-up I had to use in Ireland, i.e. a regular photographic 1/4" tripod-plate holding up a 7kg+ refractor on a light-duty video pan-tilt head. That just about worked, I got Saturn with it but very far from ideal. The SkyTee2 is rock solid with those sorts of loads.

The Baader SkySurfer V also I like a lot. However the two dot-position adjusters are covered with screw-on plastic covers, and once removed a small coin is required to actually turn the adjustment knobs for alignment. If they could've put a suitable ridge on the the TOP of those covers, to use the covers themselves to adjust, that would have been ingenious. But a coin works. The tiny pinhole in the front apparently-solid lens-cover, designed to project the Sun's image onto the reticuled rear cover, IS ingenious though.

Observation-wise, I had to really look hard to find Hercules' main square naked-eye; I observed a much-diminished M13 (diminished from my views from Ireland); Albireo was as lovely as ever; Double-Double was easily split especially with my new 3mm at 216x; I saw M27 Dumbell just about. A short series of targets, but it was all about getting over the newbie problems with new kit.

Cheers, Magnus

Edited September 3, 2019 by Captain Magenta
Wrong mag on 3mm

[Knighty2112]

If your scope is quite long then you can take one of the knobs off on the slow motion controls on the Skytee 2 and fit these instead which make it easier to adjust if the scope length is an issue to reach the slo mo controls.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-mount-accessories/flexible-slow-motion-control-cables-for-sky-watchercelestron-mounts.html

[Captain Scarlet]

On 02/09/2019 at 17:08, Knighty2112 said:

If your scope is quite long then you can take one of the knobs off on the slow motion controls on the Skytee 2 and fit these instead which make it easier to adjust if the scope length is an issue to reach the slo mo controls.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-mount-accessories/flexible-slow-motion-control-cables-for-sky-watchercelestron-mounts.html

Yes thanks - the seller did actually include these as well, though I didn’t use them this time. The scope isn’t terribly big, an APM with telescopic drawtube, but even so I’ll don them next time just to familiarize 

 

M