ZS 66, the little scope that can

[essex sky]

hi all

well got first light last night with my latest toy the little zs66

what a superb little scope

works a treat on my porta mount.

as far as i could see there was no false colour what so ever.

the supplied swan eyepices were very sharp across a good 90%

of the field with good eye relief.

the focuser is truly superb and stars just snap into focus.

the rdf is a fantastic little thing made from solid alloy , i think this style is now marketed by several other companies as well.

the night was one of the clearest for a long while

with my SQM giving a reading of 19.40, the coma star cluster was visible with the naked eye using averted vision .

m35 was first up with the 15 mm e/p+2x barlow giving a wonderfull pin sharp view at 50x.

next i turned to m3 using my 8mm lanthanum super wide + the barlow for 90x started to show a few of the outer stars resolved with a nice grainy core.

onto m51 almost directly overhead , more difficult but the 15mm

showed a faint but distinct oval glow surrounding the star like

nucleus.

next up were m65+66 , i was not expecting to see them

as the smallest instrument i have seen them with are my 20x80 bins

but they were visible 'very faint', but using averted vision and slowly moving the scope so the eye picked up the movement

made them a bit easier.

the two things i really note about this scope are the superb build

quality and how sharp and true the colurs are through it.

oh and p.s i forgot to look at saturn;)

clear skies

lance

[gliderpilot]

Sounds like you had a good night with a quality bit of kit.

Mark

[Stardust]

I think it's a cracking little scope, really like mine.

[gary1968]

I have one, never really used it for visual yet, but I have used it for imaging. It is a cracking wee scope, once I got the marks of the objective lens that is, bought it 2nd hand.

It is now going to be my guide scope as I have the adaptors to image with my C80ed.

As you guys said the little ZS is a very good, well made scope. Mine is certainly a keeper.

Gary