Skywatcher Skyliner Flextube AUTO

[Bigwings]

They may know how we feel but in the world of units sold if they think that it may lead to a widespread loss of sales they will rethink.

At the end of the day they want to make a profit as does FLO and that's fine as for me I will not buy a Skywatcher product untill they either supply GOTO or explain why.

If they add GOTO I will buy one. Simple isnt it and if most of the community was of the same mind we would have what we want very quickly.

[Jarndyce]

Really tempted by one of these, and had some lovely views through it at SGL4.

Question: how do you do the initial alignment so that it tracks in the correct direction?

[James]

The only alignment needed is the following (needs to be done only once):

Point the OTA due north (ish)

Turn it on and use the handset buttons to move the OTA so that it's level and the index mark reads 0

Turn it off

Turn it on

Use the buttons to move it to 51 degrees (or whatever your latitude is) then press two buttons on the handset at the same time. This stores the latitude permanently (or until you move latitude and do this process again).

When using it at other times I just set it up and get going...

James

[Jarndyce]

The only alignment needed is the following (needs to be done only once):

Point the OTA due north (ish)

Turn it on and use the handset buttons to move the OTA so that it's level and the index mark reads 0

Turn it off

Turn it on

Use the buttons to move it to 51 degrees (or whatever your latitude is) then press two buttons on the handset at the same time. This stores the latitude permanently (or until you move latitude and do this process again).

When using it at other times I just set it up and get going...

James

Thanks James.

Now this is more like it. Alignment in the true "No fuss Dob" spirit.

The more I look at this scope, the more I like it.

Still confused about the whole "will it be, won't it be goto?" thing, but it's still very attractive.

Anyone actually got one or got some more pics or details?

[adamsp123]

Oh my sounds wonderful, so easy to set up.

Will they do a 14" or !6" I ask myself?

[FLO]

Some pix of the Alt bearing assembly, courtesy of James

HTH

[Jarndyce]

Cheers Steve (and James).

[athlon]

thanks for the pics!

will the base be available seperately? will the bearings for the OTA be availably seperately to? if so, it looks like it would be a breeze to turn the standard version, into the full monty ..

[GazOC]

thanks for the pics!

will the base be available seperately? will the bearings for the OTA be availably seperately to? if so, it looks like it would be a breeze to turn the standard version, into the full monty ..

My advice would be "Don't hold your breath";)

[Kai]

thanks for the pics!

will the base be available seperately? will the bearings for the OTA be availably seperately to? if so, it looks like it would be a breeze to turn the standard version, into the full monty ..

I think it would end up cheaper selling the scope you have and then buying a new Auto , not many people will be prepared to modify their OTA to fit the new bearings.

Like Gaz i cant see it being an option anytime soon

[calibos]

If and when goto becomes available I can see owners of other scopes buying the smallest and cheapest auto and stripping the parts to fit to their other scopes much like people would by the Orion XT6 intelliscope to strip out the DSC and then flog the spare 6" scope Way way cheaper than a servocat.

[jimness]

Hi guys,

I'm new here...currently using the little Meade ETX-90 but looking to upgrade that soon. This Auto Dob sounds like an excellent upgrade for me. However I have one burning question which I'd really like someone with some experience of this scope to answer...do you think the tracking on this scope is good enough for photography? From the sound of it there'd be no problem snapping the planets, but realistically how would this compare with more expensive GOTO CATs for photographing DSOs? Could someone give me an idea of the max exposure time at (say) prime focus before any drift would be noticeable? I'd be using it with a DSLR.

Many thanks,

Jim

[athlon]

Hi guys,

I'm new here...currently using the little Meade ETX-90 but looking to upgrade that soon. This Auto Dob sounds like an excellent upgrade for me. However I have one burning question which I'd really like someone with some experience of this scope to answer...do you think the tracking on this scope is good enough for photography? From the sound of it there'd be no problem snapping the planets, but realistically how would this compare with more expensive GOTO CATs for photographing DSOs? Could someone give me an idea of the max exposure time at (say) prime focus before any drift would be noticeable? I'd be using it with a DSLR.

Many thanks,

Jim

Hi there

my guess would be that due to field rotation, this is only really practical when tracking for visual observing.

[drummerp]

We haven't had our Flextube 300p that long and it doesn't have any motors but regardless of having motors or not, I wouldn't want to puchase a GOTO for it I find the manual trawling much fun and really easy and smooth it also help to keep in touch of where everything is in the sky and if you know what you want to see and where it is you shouldn't really have a problem locating it without GOTO. We might upgrade to a motorised model later but it would only be to alow us to view DSO's at higher mag for a longer period of time.

Although, everyone has a different reason for why they want to enjoy these great scopes.

Cheers

Neil

[Jamie]

Hi there

my guess would be that due to field rotation, this is only really practical when tracking for visual observing.

Yep you guessed right on the field rotation (for longer exposures)

You could easily image the moon and planets on this driven setup.

A Dobsonian mount is a visual only mount. Though some have been adapted for imaging they then by definition are no longer Dobsonians...

[jimness]

Yep you guessed right on the field rotation (for longer exposures)

You could easily image the moon and planets on this driven setup.

A Dobsonian mount is a visual only mount. Though some have been adapted for imaging they then by definition are no longer Dobsonians...

Thanks for the replies chaps, I thought it sounded too good to be true! Looks like a more traditional Newtonian on an EQ6 or something for me then...

[dph1nm]

Actually with a large aperture tracking dob I would have thought that DSO imaging would be reasonably practical - you are limited to that same exposure times as a small scope (up to say 30sec - depends on how large a field you want and your pixel size etc) but you have a lot more photons.

NigelM

[calibos]

Update:

A New Zealand poster on CloudyNights forum has just posted a review of the Flextube Auto with................

GOTO upgrade!!

You may remember that while all other international Skywatcher distributors back tracked on the goto upgrade and claimed it was pulled for technical reasons and removed mention of Goto from their advertising, there was the Kiwi distributor that advertised the scope with not just a goto upgrade 'option' but actually stated they were including the Goto with the scopes. People assumed they just hadn't updated their website to remove mention of Goto like the rest of the internatiol distributors.

So the plot thickens!!

Does this prove the removal of the goto option everywhere else was a business decision and not technical issues like they claimed or is New Zealand just the Guinea pigs for Skywatcher. ie maybe SW are not 100% happy with the goto accuracy but want to test the waters with some consumers to see if the accuracy the system currently has is enough to keep people happy, in which case they don't have to do a redesign and will risk ship[ping the upgrade to other territories.

[FLO]

Has anybody actually seen the GOTO handset? I'll be surprised if it is available in New Zealand and nowhere else.

[johninderby]

The info from the dealer in NZ just says "we supply a GOTO handset" no mention that it is a Skywatcher one.

Anyway I've emailed them to see if the handset is available seperately, and I'll post something when I get a reply.

John

[calibos]

Its just a Synscan handset with different firmware isn't it. He mentioned the version on his was 3.06 whereas the version available on the SW website for the GEM synscan handset is 3.05. Might not have the version numbers exactly right buts its newer than the version on the website anyway.

Certainly the pictures in the Sky @ Night advert that wasn't pulled in time showed a handset identical to their GEM syscan handsets.

[Ian_A]

Sorry to open this thread after a year, but i've just joined, and just started star gazing. I've been using a 3" newtonion and want to upgrade !

are there any issues with collumation with the flextube skywatchers ???

[Albireo380]

no issues at all Ian. i had to mount the mirror cell in my new 14" GOTO Flextube, then collimate. It was easy. I used a laser collimator, firstly tweaking the secondary to get the red dot in the middle of the circle of the primat mirror, then using the collimation bolts on the bottom of the primary to get the "return" red dot in the centre of the collimater grid. It took about 2 minutes. Simples.

I had previously collimated a 12" Flextube every time I used it - about 1-2 minutes every time.

Tom