Skywatcher Skymax 127mm MAK - Help/Advice/Recommendations

[galaxy-gazer]

Hello All,

I am a newbie, still learning through various groups and forums..

Thank you all for your recommendations, specially @Tiny Clanger, I needed that extra push 😊

My 127 MAK has been delivered, and the overcast skies aren’t helping!

I tried setting it up and looking through some terrestrial targets, all seems fine but the focus isn’t “pin sharp”, specially on the 10mm EP (supplied) and not too great either the 25mm EP.

What do I need to do to improve it?
It’s brand new so I can always swap it if required..

Any recommendations will be more than welcome!

cheers!

Sam

PS - there are threads on the inside and outside of the visual back (where the diagonal goes in), Do I need to put something there, before shoving the diagonal? doesn’t seems right as the diagonal edge may damage the inside threads (makes a sound when diagonal goes in) 

 

[wulfrun]

Not an expert on that particular scope, so others will no doubt give you better advice. Some things to realise though:

Depending on what you're looking at, daytime isn't optimum for making a judgement. Haze, thermals, wind etc can all spoil the view, so better to wait until using it on the night sky. The Skywatcher 10mm lens is mostly not considered good quality, I've seen a few comments from folk saying it's OK but not many. The 25mm isn't too shabby but neither of them is intended to be much more than to "get you going". You'll probably want to upgrade both BUT use it for a while first to decide what your next ones should be.

The threads on the back are for attaching camera mounts and other accessories. If you can achieve focus you probably aren't doing anything wrong.*

* wait for someone more knowledgeable to confirm this, I've a feeling Maks have a "visual back" that goes on first?

(EDIT2: I missed the bit where you said you're using it)

Edited August 22, 2021 by wulfrun
* bit added

[Cosmic Geoff]

38 minutes ago, galaxy-gazer said:

I tried setting it up and looking through some terrestrial targets, all seems fine but the focus isn’t “pin sharp”, specially on the 10mm EP (supplied) and not too great either the 25mm EP.

What do I need to do to improve it?
It’s brand new so I can always swap it if required..

The problem will definitely not be caused by the scope itself. With the eyepieces supplied, the magnification delivered will be significant, greater than the suppliers of terrestial spotting scopes have found practical.  The 10mm starter eyepiece in particular is not great, but most likely the issue is caused by daytime heat shimmer.  You should try it on some stars, at night, after allowing it half an hour or more to cool down.

[Carbon Brush]

If you try the scope on an object some tens of metres away, that will be a better option for assessing focus and image quality in daytime.

Astronomy scopes often won't focus close - like on the bird table in your garden.
If you go for a horizon object, a couple of kilometres, you get shimmer, haze, etc reported earlier.

If you go for a TV aerial, street light, tree, phone pole, etc that is maybe 50 or 100 metres away, that is a good middle gorund.
The scope will focus at this distance, but it is near enough not to suffer shimmer or haze.
Of course if your line of sight takes you past a boiler outlet, or chimney🤨.

Hope this helps and keep asking the questions, David.

[Tiny Clanger]

First, and most likely, the focus on the mak needs very fine adjustment, a tiny fraction of a turn can make a big difference. The precision focus device I use is a plastic clothes peg clipped on the knob : cheap, easily found/replaced , and available in a range of tasteless colours. A fingertip gentle push on the end of the peg can help  make those tiny adjustments. Some folk make a larger disk to push on the knob out of a peanut butter jar lid (other plastic  lidded spreads are available 🙂 )

Is your poor image due to daytime use , or the stock eyepieces ?  I can't say, because I've never used my mak in the daytime except to look at the Sun (with suitable solar filter on the front, obviously) and when I bought it I already had some better eyepieces, so the stock ones didn't come out of the box.

Finally, and this has not been a problem for me at all, but I've read it occasionally is for some if the 'scope took a knock,  a mak can (quite rarely) be out of collimation when delivered . There are adjusting screws, but I'd avoid messing with them unless you are absolutely convinced you have exhausted every other possible  factor, and are sure the collimation is out. A search on how to check collimation on a maksutov will no doubt bring you plenty of information: if I recall correctly, there is a way of doing that in daylight by looking down it the 'wrong' way .

[Pixies]

30 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

if I recall correctly, there is a way of doing that in daylight by looking down it the 'wrong' way .

http://www.mira.org/ascc/pages/lectures/collim.htm

 

[etsatlo]

5 minutes ago, Pixies said:

http://www.mira.org/ascc/pages/lectures/collim.htm

 

Just a word of warning, I would definitely not consider collimation until you've used the scope at night. 

I have the Skymax 102 and the daytime views using both eyepieces (10mm and 25mm) are fairly underwhelming due to the hazy, thick, and thermal-y air you're looking through. 

Come night time it's a whole different story so don't worry. 

Edit: in fact daytime views through any of my other eyepieces (Plossls) are much the same so don't worry about running out and replacing those too soon either. 

Edited August 23, 2021 by etsatlo

[Pixies]

6 minutes ago, etsatlo said:

Just a word of warning, I would definitely not consider collimation until you've used the scope at night. 

I have the Skymax 102 and the daytime views using both eyepieces (10mm and 25mm) are fairly underwhelming due to the hazy, thick, and thermal-y air you're looking through. 

Come night time it's a whole different story so don't worry. 

Edit: in fact daytime views through any of my other eyepieces (Plossls) are much the same so don't worry about running out and replacing those too soon either. 

Sorry - yes, I meant to say that. The only time I ever needed to collimate my Mak was after I had it in bits!

[galaxy-gazer]

2 minutes ago, Pixies said:

Sorry - yes, I meant to say that. The only time I ever needed to collimate my Mak was after I had it in bits!

Hopefully tonight - if there aren’t any clouds🤞 

[galaxy-gazer]

47 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

First, and most likely, the focus on the mak needs very fine adjustment, a tiny fraction of a turn can make a big difference. The precision focus device I use is a plastic clothes peg clipped on the knob : cheap, easily found/replaced , and available in a range of tasteless colours. A fingertip gentle push on the end of the peg can help  make those tiny adjustments. Some folk make a larger disk to push on the knob out of a peanut butter jar lid (other plastic  lidded spreads are available 🙂 )

Is your poor image due to daytime use , or the stock eyepieces ?  I can't say, because I've never used my mak in the daytime except to look at the Sun (with suitable solar filter on the front, obviously) and when I bought it I already had some better eyepieces, so the stock ones didn't come out of the box.

Finally, and this has not been a problem for me at all, but I've read it occasionally is for some if the 'scope took a knock,  a mak can (quite rarely) be out of collimation when delivered . There are adjusting screws, but I'd avoid messing with them unless you are absolutely convinced you have exhausted every other possible  factor, and are sure the collimation is out. A search on how to check collimation on a maksutov will no doubt bring you plenty of information: if I recall correctly, there is a way of doing that in daylight by looking down it the 'wrong' way .

I will surely try out the “precision focus device” 

[galaxy-gazer]

2 hours ago, Tiny Clanger said:

First, and most likely, the focus on the mak needs very fine adjustment, a tiny fraction of a turn can make a big difference. The precision focus device I use is a plastic clothes peg clipped on the knob : cheap, easily found/replaced , and available in a range of tasteless colours. A fingertip gentle push on the end of the peg can help  make those tiny adjustments. Some folk make a larger disk to push on the knob out of a peanut butter jar lid (other plastic  lidded spreads are available 🙂 )

Is your poor image due to daytime use , or the stock eyepieces ?  I can't say, because I've never used my mak in the daytime except to look at the Sun (with suitable solar filter on the front, obviously) and when I bought it I already had some better eyepieces, so the stock ones didn't come out of the box.

Finally, and this has not been a problem for me at all, but I've read it occasionally is for some if the 'scope took a knock,  a mak can (quite rarely) be out of collimation when delivered . There are adjusting screws, but I'd avoid messing with them unless you are absolutely convinced you have exhausted every other possible  factor, and are sure the collimation is out. A search on how to check collimation on a maksutov will no doubt bring you plenty of information: if I recall correctly, there is a way of doing that in daylight by looking down it the 'wrong' way .

So…going forward would you recommend me changing the diagonal? if yes then prism or dielectric? and what assortment of EPs would you recommend? The only one I own is a celestron 32mm plossl, apart from the stock ones which came with the scope.

thanks

sam

[Tiny Clanger]

9 minutes ago, galaxy-gazer said:

So…going forward would you recommend me changing the diagonal? if yes then prism or dielectric? and what assortment of EPs would you recommend? The only one I own is a celestron 32mm plossl, apart from the stock ones which came with the scope.

thanks

sam

I'm not really qualified to answer on the diagonal question : I've never used a prism, just dielectric ones , a nice second hand skywatcher one on the mak, and cheap Chinese ones in my refractors. As mentioned on another thread, I already had some heavier eyepieces than the stock  ones when I bought the mak, and I found the mechanical weakness of the stock diagonal worrying.

The 127 mak is not a fussy telescope when it comes to eyepieces, so there is a huge range to consider, from plossls to esoteric stuff that costs more than the 'scope... so it depends on what you want to spend. I recall you are interested in high magnification views , so an 8mm eyepiece gives 187.5x magnification, and so far I've found anything of higher magnification gets very little use from my back garden, atmospheric conditions are seldom good enough. So to start off with I'd suggest no more than 8mm as the highest ep . There's a good thread on here about this topic:

 

[galaxy-gazer]

Thanks for your response, I had read that article too, according to the calculations recommended my EP comes to 8.85 as the highest magnification EP, I am really after second hand stuff to get me going!

 

[Tiny Clanger]

BST starguiders are highly recommended as good basic eyepieces , as they are so popular they frequently pop up second hand on here for around £35 when people upgrade , but you need to be very fast to get in before the rush ! The 8mm or 12mm are nice in the mak (and my other 'scopes too)

I'd not suggest a high magnification plossl , because it would have poor eye relief, but a medium mag. plossl from a reputable brand at around 17mm would fill the gap between an 8mm BST and your 32mm plossl nicely , Skywatcher super plossls  and FLO's own 'Astro Essentials' range are impressive for the price (£20-£25)

[etsatlo]

1 hour ago, Tiny Clanger said:

, I already had some heavier eyepieces than the stock  ones when I bought the mak, and I found the mechanical weakness of the stock diagonal worrying.

 

Interesting, I have a binoviewer and two Plossls coming in at around 800g hanging off the back and I've found the stock diagonal pretty sturdy. Maybe they've changed it recently depending on how old yours might be?

[galaxy-gazer]

16 hours ago, Tiny Clanger said:

BST starguiders are highly recommended as good basic eyepieces , as they are so popular they frequently pop up second hand on here for around £35 when people upgrade , but you need to be very fast to get in before the rush ! The 8mm or 12mm are nice in the mak (and my other 'scopes too)

I'd not suggest a high magnification plossl , because it would have poor eye relief, but a medium mag. plossl from a reputable brand at around 17mm would fill the gap between an 8mm BST and your 32mm plossl nicely , Skywatcher super plossls  and FLO's own 'Astro Essentials' range are impressive for the price (£20-£25)

**Update**
Last night I observed the moon/Jupiter and Saturn.

moon was simply magnificent (pin sharp, bright) with the stock 25mm EP and not so sharp with stock 10mm EP, actually a tad blurry, and dull..

Saturn was very bright/sharp but small with 25mm.

Bigger but  Dull (lack of contrast) and blurry with 10mm EP.

Same with Jupiter!

Is it the seeing or the 10mm stock EP isn’t great! probably the latter!

cheers!

sam

[etsatlo]

42 minutes ago, galaxy-gazer said:

**Update**
Last night I observed the moon/Jupiter and Saturn.

moon was simply magnificent (pin sharp, bright) with the stock 25mm EP and not so sharp with stock 10mm EP, actually a tad blurry, and dull..

Saturn was very bright/sharp but small with 25mm.

Bigger but  Dull (lack of contrast) and blurry with 10mm EP.

Same with Jupiter!

Is it the seeing or the 10mm stock EP isn’t great! probably the latter!

cheers!

sam

I found seeing fairly good in general. I'd recommend a 17mm Astro Essential Plossl from FLO (£20 if memory serves correctly) as it is a nice middle ground. I too find the 10mm pushing it a bit

[Alan64]

18 hours ago, galaxy-gazer said:

So…going forward would you recommend me changing the diagonal? if yes then prism or dielectric? and what assortment of EPs would you recommend? The only one I own is a celestron 32mm plossl, apart from the stock ones which came with the scope.

thanks

sam

Mirrors, by their very nature, scatter light, more so than a clear lens.  This is an example of light-scattering...

A Maksutov already has two mirrors within its optical train, therefore I would suggest a quality star-prism diagonal. 

[Cosmic Geoff]

I saw an obvious improvement on close double stars after upgrading the 9 or 10mm stock eyepiece that came with my 127mm Mak.  I also upgraded the stock diagonal to a prism one but TBH I could not see any difference.  In fact, don't expect to see much of a difference if you do change your diagonal - if you read the results of multible comparative tests you will see that they are all good enough in terms of optical flatness but vary in build quality, % reflectivity and other technical parameters.

If you are still disappointed with the performance of your Mak on planets after upgrading the eyepiece(s) and diagonal, planetary imaging will squeeze some more performance out of it.

[Alan64]

In any event, get a quality diagonal, as the one included with the telescope or kit is just that, a freebie, something thrown in to get one started.  The kit-diagonal is most likely a mirror.