Skymax 127 - a quick first light !

[Olli]

So I have been eyeing to get a decent planetary scope for a long time and have been looking at the Skymax 127 for the last couple of years and decided to finally take the plunge the other day from Flo. Once again the service was great and the scope arrived within  2 days. Who would have guessed it would be clear skies (ish )! 

Upon unboxing the build quality seemed great as always from Sky-Watcher scopes it came with two eyepieces and a red dot finder it. Which unfortunately when  mounted  on my az5 it is unusable due to the finder shoe being on the bottom left so as a result I decided to Mount my telrad for the time being. This also made the focuser fairly uncomfortable as well.  I was surprised how lightweight and small this scope was and seemed like a great grab n go planetary setup which is my intended use for it.

Once  set up , I was expecting it to be a pretty cloudy night however I was pleasantly surprised when dusk hit as the clouds started to appear. I left the scope out about 15 minutes prior as due to the scope needing a cool down and this seemed to do the job. My main target was Saturn as it was fairly high and was in between the clouds. Once located in the telrad I then used the focuser, so far I am not the biggest fan of this and did find quite awkward after being used to the traditional focuser. Will definitely try it with a peg next time.

 once I finally looked through the eyepiece I would  be lying  if I was not blown away  by the views. After viewing it previously with my frac It was no more than just a disc with some definition of the rings. Though  with the Mak and a 14mm eyepiece I could clearly see the rings in detail with a hint of the Cassini divisions and could see great detail of the planet itself. Overall apart from the fiddly focuser and getting used to the field of view .  I’m super excited to try this on Jupiter and also the moon .

 

clear skies!

[Zermelo]

Yes, the clothes peg is a must, I'm surprised SW don't include one as standard.

Cheapskates.

[lawsio]

I've had one of these recently and so far only used it on Saturn like yourself but very impressed so far!

[RobertI]

6 hours ago, Olli said:

Which unfortunately when  mounted  on my az5 it is unusable due to the finder shoe being on the bottom left

Can’t you unbolt the arm of the AZ5 and pivot it to the other side - that way the finder shoe should be at the top when you mount the scope? 

[bosun21]

On 14/09/2023 at 12:05, Olli said:

I left the scope out about 15 minutes prior as due to the scope needing a cool down and this seemed to do the job.

I found that 15 minutes wasn’t long enough for the Mak to reach equilibrium temperature. As a general rule I always gave it at least 45 minutes and even longer the colder it was outside.