Cheap thrills Part1~ Skywatcher 70mm f900 refractor ota

[SiriusB]

Back in the Summer I obtained a new 'capricorn 70' ota for the price of a cheap eyepiece, around £30 plus shipping.

I guess i wished to revisit my 80's roots with a small refractor. Certainly it was an 'impulse' buy, i didn't really need one.

At f12.8 this is the 1st achromatic refractor i've ever looked through which could be considered genuinely achromatic, ie it meets & exceeds the 'sidgwick standard' by a significant degree.

1st impressions were it was very lightweight & rather a long tube for a small scope.

The focusser being partially plastic is a weak point & not ultra precise, but given the 'lazy' focussing of long focal ratio instruments proved adequate under the night sky.

I wasn't expecting much for the price, after 1st light a couple of minor modofications were made before a more extensive evaluation.

The two m3 bolts provided for attatching a RDF were removed,then the holes carefully tapped out to m4 which enabled a SW finder shoe to be  fitted along with a 6x30 finder from the 'parts bin'

The inside of the dewshield was unpainted & very shiny. I flocked this, along with the 1st section of the tube (to the 1st baffle) with FLO's flocking paper.~much better!

Now to the night sky, lowest mag & max field of view were 28x & 1.75 deg approx with a 32mm eyepiece. I found even @ 120x or  142x on a suitably steady night, Jupiter still gave remarkably good views for such a small aperture.

The moon was, superb. I have yet to see any discernable false color in this scope,( with these eyes), regardless of mag or target.

Note, it's not an apo, always an achromat appears to  very slightly yellow the view (to me) compared to the view through say an 80ED.

As my backyard is now not terribly good for DSO's the 70mm aperture struggled a bit on these, but suprisingly good views of the brighter ones were still noted.

The long focal ratio meant  any eyepiece abberations near the edge of field were very minimal. Basic ep's worked well!

I've yet to do a direct head to head with my 80ED. Yeah sure the 80ED is better, but @ 10x the cost it's really not that much better optically. Mechanically, there's a big gap.

I've been using it on an az3, which is adequate, but the long tube length makes focussing a little wobbly north of 100x

   Summary: I've really enjoyed using this scope, without a doubt the best 🙂 per £ of any astro equipment i've ever bought in all my astro years. No really!

It's probably not a 'serious' scope, but i think it's a keeper.

Very lightweight, would make a great,cheap grab & go.

Your only scope? I don't know. It would however complement something larger for those 'quick peek between the clouds' sort of nights.

Not sure about the eq1 mount it normally comes bundled with (do your own research) but the ota gets a big budget thumbs up here 👍

I really have been quite suprised......Don't cancel your Takahashi order just yet mind.😉.......

Part2....some budget ep's......???