First proper outing with my new C6

[Ags]

Tonight was my first real session with my new C6, which is the second attempt I am making to go up in aperture from a 4 inch Maksutov. I have been hankering after something bigger since 2009 - so no pressure on the C6 to perform! 😀

On the day my C6 arrived last week, I had a brief session with the uncooled scope looking only at the Moon in poor seeing. It was hard to judge from that but the views were exciting and detailed.

Fast forward a few days and the Moon is out of the way. The skies were clear all day so the C6 went out at dinner time to cool in anticipation of the evening's activities. To be honest I wasn't in the mood for astronomy with my knee giving me trouble and it was a very windy night. I knew I would regret it if I just watched Rolling COVID News though!

The first half hour was spent trying to get the red dot finder aligned with the telescope, but it's impossible - either I need a new red dot finder or I need to do something to the finder shoe. I've read in reviews other C6 owners have had the same problem. Not really acceptable in what is (for me anyway) a very pricey scope. Eventually I simply accepted the one-degree offset, and compensated accordingly for the rest of the evening.

I didn't set up GOTO at first - I wanted to get on with looking at some brighter doubles to assess the star shapes and general "feel" of the telescope. First up was Procyon to do a star test - to my relief the rings were concentric inside and outside focus so good news. There was no annoying focus shift either. Then I moved to Polaris: it's been in the news because its mass calculated from its brightness differs wildly from its mass calculated from the orbit of its companion star. I thought it was an easy split at 60x. I pushed up the magnification to 150x but didn't much like the view, the stars were soft and the companion too faint at that magnification. I dropped back to 94x which was a good compromise. Aesthetically the star shapes in the C6 are better than the 150PDS Newtonian I used to have (slightly larger even when in good focus, but thankfully lacking the extended hairs of Newt stars). On some levels I preferred the C6 stars to refractor stars as the tightness of refractor stars makes it harder to see differences in stellar brightness and color. But I did have a nagging memory that the stars in my Skymax 102 were that bit better... Still overall I found the view through the C6 pleasing and competent.

I quickly bagged Mizar and Alcor (60x, very nice), and Castor (94x, good color). Faint stars don't seem much brighter at 6 inches aperture than they did at 4 inches, but bright stars are really on fire!

I did a quick one-star alignment on Capella - figured that this rough alignment would be enough to get me close to the Messiers in Auriga. Wow Capella is bright! M38, M37 and M36 were much improved with my increased aperture, particularly M37 and M36. The clusters were sitting over my upstairs neighbor's chimney so it's the end of Auriga season for me. 

Just for fun, I told the AZ-GTI to slew to M97. I've never seen this object so I hoped tonight I would get lucky although I did not expect the GTi to slew accurately that distance based on a one-star alignment. I still couldn't see M97 despite scanning the region carefully. How hard is that nebula? I sent the GTi to M82 and to my surprise the GTi got it in the 1.1 degree field of my scope. I couldn't resolve any detail in the galaxy however, while I have previously seen some mottling in it with the Skymax 102. I am sure that will come on another evening though - the scale of the galaxy was impressive in the C6.

Writing this I regret now that I didn't slew back to M97. It must have been in the field of view and maybe knowing it was there would have helped me find it...

Overall the evening was reassuring - the telescope produces pleasing views and the stories of horrible star shapes in SCTs don't seem to be true, for my eyes and this SCT anyway. The AZ-GTI carried the C6 well and even gave superb GOTO performance. I will however not slew at speed 9 in future - I had the sense that the highest slew speed produced too much torque when the AZ-GTi was slowing down at the end of the slew.

Edited March 12, 2020 by Ags

[RT65CB-SWL]

Good to see you are enjoying your new 'scope. Just wait 'til you see Jupiter and Saturn with it... 😜

[Ags]

Yes looking forward to that.  I am planning some early mornings in April to catch Jupiter and Saturn. Not just visual but also imaging. And I am waiting for the Moon to come back 😀

[RobertI]

Nice report, looks like you have a good one there. How did you find the stability of the whole setup? Did you feel the AzGti mount head was man enough for the C6? What about the tripod - seems to be the weak link? 

[Ags]

I am not using the stock tripod - I am using a wooden Berlebach Report 112 (rated for 25 kgs load) so it seems to cope very well. As for the mount it was stable and accurate. Only thing of concern I noted was that there was too much angular momentum when slewing at max speed - I an going to slew at a slower rate in the future. 

It might be worth noting that the tripod is topped with a 25cm Uni extension tube.

Vibration damping is one second or so (bearing in mind the upgraded tripod) and that is more than adequate.

Edited March 13, 2020 by Ags

[RobertI]

Thanks for reply, sound like a good combination of scope and mount. Am I right in thinking it is ‘freedom find’ so you can move the scope manually and still retain the alignment?

[Ags]

I normally use freedom find but not last night. I let the motors take me everywhere. This is because I wanted to avoid the risk (inevitability?) of slightly unscrewing the GTi from the extension tube and losing alignment altogether.

[happy-kat]

Isn't there something in the manual about lining notches up to create a secure fitment so as not to cause undoing?

[Ags]

I'm not using the SkyWatcher extension tube.

[RobertI]

Sorry to keep quizzing you, I have a friend who is a relative noob, they currently have a very simple Celestron Travelscope 70 and want to upgrade and this setup seems ideal. I like the idea of the Az-Gti as, if they the find the goto a bit complicated at first, or just can’t be bothered with power, they can still use it manually (unlike the Celestron mounts). Do you think this is a good beginner setup? How easy do you find the app for aligning and finding stuff?

[F15Rules]

Always nice to read of a first light with a new scope😀.

It's good to hear you are happy with your new C6/mount combination and it's initial performance.

In the past I have often found that it takes a while to get used to new optics: sometimes, I've even felt mildly disappointed at the initial lack of obvious superiority to an older, smaller scope. I had exactly that feeling when first going up from a 4" refractor to a 5"..but having got used to the 5" level, with a few good sessions under my belt, and crucially, good dark adaptation, it is amazing how many extra faint stars and objects just "pop" into view, and in so doing, really add to the overall view.

The same goes for those subtle planetary features and shades. I wouldn't mind betting that when Mars and Jupiter come properly into view later this year, your C6 will deliver you some wonderful views!

In the meantime, just use the scope as much as you can and get to be so familiar with it that the operation of it becomes second nature, and you can then just concentrate on extracting every last photon from your optics 😊👍.

Congratulations!

Dave

Edited March 14, 2020 by F15Rules

[des anderson]

The C6 is a smashing little scope, and I`m sure your get lots of enjoyment from it. I do, although I `ve got a 9.25sct in the "shed" I still get the little man out and have some fun with him .Des

[Ags]

3 hours ago, RobertI said:

Sorry to keep quizzing you, I have a friend who is a relative noob, they currently have a very simple Celestron Travelscope 70 and want to upgrade and this setup seems ideal. I like the idea of the Az-Gti as, if they the find the goto a bit complicated at first, or just can’t be bothered with power, they can still use it manually (unlike the Celestron mounts). Do you think this is a good beginner setup? How easy do you find the app for aligning and finding stuff?

I'm very happy to talk about my setup so don't worry! My long-suffering family can testify to that... 😀 And thank you for the compliments.

My idea with the setup was to get the most aperture out of the smallest and lightest possible setup. The AZ-GTi and Berlebach Report 112 weigh 4kg together. I added a Berlebach Uni extension tube of 25 cm to get a bit more height and to let me retract the tripod legs slightly so that I can carry the whole setup through doorways easily and without bumps.

By the way, there is a cheaper and better SkyWatcher extension tube specifically for the AZ-GTi but it doesn't attach securely to the Report tripod so I payed more for the Uni extension tube.

I hemmed and hawed about getting a Skymax 127 or C6 for the setup. In the end aperture won out! There didn't seem much point upgrading from 102mm to 127mm, I knew I would regret that so I went for the C6. It is too early for me to say how well the combination works unfortunately, both regarding the mechanicals and the opticals. I have only had two proper sessions, the one in this thread and last night I had another session - but I was just messing about with a camera not looking through it.

Why a C6? Firstly it is a good choice for planetary imaging with my ASI 178 MM. Secondly I need the aperture to enjoy planetary visual observations as my eyes don't do well with small exit pupils (I have lots of floaters in my eyes). Thirdly I also have a Berlebach Castor giro-style mount, and the C6 will be dual mounted on that alongside an ST80 for no-electronics visual astronomy - the ST80 does the finding and the C6 provides the aperture.

The AZ-GTi offers many possibilities. For example, I am also going to try doing ultra-short exposure DSO lucky imaging with C6 on it - that's what I was experimenting with last night (but I got dewed out). In combination with camera lenses I will do widefield DSO imaging. The GTi even offers the possibility of guiding down the line for me. Being so small and light it's a great travel mount (and the C6 is the biggest aperture that fits in airline carry-on baggage). With the ST80 I do some EEA (or is it EAA?) astronomy. I am thinking of getting a 100P reflector for EEA/EAA duties though so that the ASI 178 MM chip can utilize all wavelengths - with the ST80 I have to filter out a lot of light due to chromatic aberration.

Into your specific questions: You can use the GTi manually with clutches released but only for rough pointing, it is not in my experience really good for undriven astronomy and at 1500 mm focal length that is even more true. I know some people do use it like that though with 3-4 inch refractors. From the point of view of a beginner, maybe 1500 mm focal length is a bit long and if the goto fails to find stuff it might get frustrating due to the narrow field of view. A beginner might want to look at the AZ-GTi + Skymax 127 package deal available - that will be a lot cheaper, offers a nice upgrade over the Travelscope 70 and the tripod can be easily upgraded when funds allow. The Mak is also more robust and but of course it is also a 1500 mm FL scope. One thing to think about is the C6 can be paired with a 0.63 reducer, cutting the focal length to 945mm, which would make life generally easier! That's something i am going to add at some point.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Ags

[Ags]

Added a fine focusser:

Edited March 14, 2020 by Ags

[Ags]

And I have ordered a dew shield and Bob's knobs.