Orion Optics 8" F/6 Europa+EQ5

[zanes]

A recent thread on OO made me remember I haven't done a little review/walkaround of my scope. So, here are my impressions. Please remember that this is my first "real" scope, and please also remember that people would accuse me of being biased if I was a professional optics-guy-chap-thingy. There are enough threads on OO, so I don't think this needs to turn into a discussion on the finer points of the company.

Anyway, enough prattle and here we go;

Firstly, I think it's worth taking a few moments to think about what an 8" reflector is really for, and where the Europa sits in Orion's range. IMHO a 6/8" reflector at around F/6 is an "all round" scope. We expect it to be able to do most things we ask of it, at a fair price which we then trade off against portability. Make no mistake, this scope is big.

The Europa as far as I can see is Orion's "bread and butter" model. It seems it's been in production for at least 12 years (yes, 1997 was that long ago ) according to usenet and as you might expect it's gone through seemingly many changes- tripods, mounts, spiders etc but it essentially is unchanged- a basic, british made reflector on a far eastern made mount at a reasonable (entry level for Orion) price point.

That all said, I couldn't resit a couple of options from the standard list- The dual speed (10:1) crayford and the upgrade to 1/8PV optics. I believe that Orion will customise orders to spec (I know mine was built to order), but as this was my first scope I left the basics pretty much unchanged.

First impressions often tell me more about something than I care to admit. Arriving at Crewe (9 weeks into a 4 week wait....) I was pleased to see that OO's operation was pretty much as I expected- a couple of small industrial units staffed by some very dedicated staff (18 hours hand grinding a 400 mm mirror?) with very flexible production methods, allowing a huge amount of customisation.

Getting the thing home, it was time to assemble it all together and see what my hard earned cash had bought. First niggle- No manual whatsover (not even in the sealed box containing the EQ5. No biggie, a quick google found me a copy of the Skywatcher manual for their eq5 clone, which helped considerably. Once all the bits of the mount were together, the OTA slotted in nicely on a finally milled and anodised dovetail. The Orion branded 9x50 finder fitted well into a generic mount (obviously bought in from somewhere else by OO) and the nice visual extension tube slotted and tightened very well into place on the crayford (after a brief email conversation with OO that confirmed my idiocy to them, but that's in another thread....)

Included within the package were two plossls (eat that spellchecker), a 12 and 25mm. I'm sure I saw some "GSO" branding on some of the packaging but don't have it anymore. From this I deduced they are probably like the lenses included with SLRs- Enough to get you going but soon you'll be wanting more (how true this turned out to be....)

Everything (focuser, OTA, finder and eyepieces (both ends)) had well fitting dust caps, which was nice to see (and somewhat comforting!). Before I went out at night with the scope the finder was roughly aligned, the mount proved to have a nice easy to use system of adjustment. This is probably standard these days but it was a pleasant surprise.

A brief play with the mount revealed the most serious problem with the entire setup- Play and "notchyness" in the two axis. This is not a show stopping problem, it is only slight (and not noticeable when tracking slowly with the mount) but it does cheapen the feel of the mount somewhat. I suspect it is a classic case of the manufacturer using horrendously cheap gelatinous grease (when will they learn proper lithium grease is not hugely expensive and works very very well?) and then needing to loosen the gear engagement to get easy movement. Looking around the web this is a common problem, and a strip-clean-adjust type operation should sort it out nicely. But I'll leave that for a while.

In summary, the OTA is exceedingly well assembled. All of the OO made parts are very well machined, assembled and finished. The use of an outside finder mount and tube rings cheapen the appearance slightly (they don't match the rest of the items perfectly and have "mottled" appearances) but their inclusion is understandable as they are items that I would think are fairly difficult to manufacture. I'd rather OO concentrate on the optics. Believe me, they have.....

First night out, poor seeing with lots of high thin cloud. Get the scope set up, wait ten minutes for scope to cool down slightly, get bored, get onto jupiter.

So, poor seeing, hot scope and novice. Not the best setup me thinks, but still. OH. MY. GOD. With the 25mm eyepiece, easy banding, moons and a much larger image than I expected. Get the 12mm out and it just blows me away. Awesome. Also, some filtering would be good. It is sooooo bright!

From Jupiter, I get onto Alberdio. Beautiful colouring and separation, better in the 25mm, too bright in the 12mm. From there, I go on a brief tour of some open clusters (which, to my surprise I think are my favourite targets after planets). This is where the limitations of the included eyepieces show up. The fact is, the field of view is just too narrow to appreciate them properly even in the 25mm and so a lower power eyepiece with a wide AFOV is the first item on my list.

I sometimes just wander around the sky randomly, the reasonably large aperture means most areas are full of interesting (to me) stars and patterns.

Unfortunately since the first few nights the weather hasn't played ball so I am still missing many targets that are on my must see- Moon, Saturn, Andromeda, Ring Neb etc but I think I have spent enough time with the scope to get an idea of it and what needs adding/improving.

In summary;

Pros;

Great Optics

Excellent company/customer service

Fully customisable from factory

Nicely finished product

Cons;

Distinctly mediocre mount

Essentially expensive for a 8" reflector on an EQ5

Where next;

Investigate mount issues

More eyepieces/filters- Seriously considering buying a cheapy celestron eyepiece/filter set and ransacking it for the filters and carrying case and selling the eyepieces

Pictures to follow when I can get the craptop communicating with the camera.....

Edit: Hmmmm, that got a bit rambly perhaps. Oh well, ask any questions you like

[zanes]

[nitram100]

Excellent review mate and thanks for the photos. I've owned an Europa scope for nearly 10 years now and i love it to pieces.

[FLO]

That was an interesting read Zanes

You really cannot go far wrong with an 8" f6 Newtonian, a classic spec' and a good all-rounder.

[fmeireso]

How do you like the focuser. Mine is a bit bad, because it's the older Crayford style focuser.

But other then that it's a great scope!

[zanes]

How do you like the focuser. Mine is a bit bad, because it's the older Crayford style focuser.

But other then that it's a great scope!

It's a bit rough and un consistent on the hi speed adjustment (although it does feel like it's starting to wear in, and there are adjustments possible) but on the 1/10 speed it is absolutely superb. I don't find I really use the hi speed much whilst observing anyway, just on the start of session wind out and end of session wind in.

Very glad I went for it, makes focusing a breeze!

[fmeireso]

Seems OO update their focusers .Mine has a badly drilled hole. OO offert to replace it when i complained but in the end i overcame the problem. I had to put my mirror further backwards too because i ordered a custum sec but OO did not adjust the distances between the mirrors

But OO are fine scopes, superb optics, lightweight tubes. Mine is on a Vixen GPE fully set up in the living room, takes me 2 minutes to put it outside...some cooling and i can observe.

Have fun with yours!