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Skywatcher Startravel 150 Refractor

Kef9

By Kef9
in Member Equipment Reviews

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Kef9

Kef9

Posted
Posted

Okay, I bought this telescope about a month ago and tonight was the first time I've had a chance to use it due to the recent weather and other commitments.

All I can say is for the money this scope is brilliant. I had a look at the ring nebula before and it stood out nice and clearly in my light polluted skies! I bought this scope for DSOs like this and it delivers big time.

Next I pointed to jupiter and I was expecting the worst from an F5 achro. I started looking through my 21mm ethos and jupiter was surrounded by a bright blue haze. I feared the worst but then put my 13mm ethos in. The image was better! with the blue haze now restricted to being just around the plannet. I then powermated the ethos to 6.5mm and used the speers at 5mm. Both eyepieces showed the cloud bands nice and clearly with only a faint blue haze around the plannet. If anything the telescope seemed to get better with more mag which is not what i was expecting. the clour abberation was also very acceptable and not a problem to me.

The scope has big aperture and portability to boot being shorter than my f9 apo. For the money I paid this was an absolute bargain!!! No collimating or messing around. Just stick it on the mount and off you go!

Now its time to go out and get a bit more observing done before work tomorrow!!! :(

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asteria

asteria

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These Startravel scopes are great. I have the 120 - used it last night on DSOs and was very impressed again. OK - false colour is not really an issue on the faint stuff, but it really does pick up these small objects really well.

Thanks for the review. Ed

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Kef9

Kef9

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I wish they would make an 8 inch version LOL.

One thing thats not good is the focusser. At high mags its very hard to focus due to the fast focal ratio. This though will be sorted in time!

A fringe killer is sounding like a very worthwile investment.

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Moonshane

Moonshane

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nice review - almost makes me want to go back to refractors (NOT!!!) :(:(:p:evil6: (and all the other friendly gestures required to prevent a war).

no doubt refractors provide a quick and easy (and sharp) image! a great buy from the sounds of things. look forward to seeing it in the flesh. although I am simply too scared to look through a 21mm Ethos :(

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Kef9

Kef9

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I can't believe you dont like refractors! Come round and see it when you like.

Regarding the 21mm ethos your right to be scared LOL - Imagine a darker sky than that shown in your 22mm panoptic with the FoV of your 35mm panoptic. :(

What you will definitely be scared of though is trying to balance it in your dob!

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Kef9

Kef9

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Such a shame!!

Just to add to the review when I went back out last night I also had a look at Uranus which I had never seen before. The green/blue colour was definitely visible on the disc although I could make out no detail.

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michael.h.f.wilkinson

michael.h.f.wilkinson

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Such a shame!!

Just to add to the review when I went back out last night I also had a look at Uranus which I had never seen before. The green/blue colour was definitely visible on the disc although I could make out no detail.

Even my C8 cannot get any detail on Uranus. Nice review, btw

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michael.h.f.wilkinson

michael.h.f.wilkinson

Posted
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Just to add that through my scope it came out more green than blue which I thought was interesting

The colour perceived by people varies greatly with adaptation to other light sources. Especially in blueish green (or greenish blue) hues there are inter-individual differences, and quite notably gender differences (women tend to classify such hues more easily as green, whereas men tend to classify them more as blue).

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Ever the peacemaker and never guilty of fomenting refractor mania on this forum (ahem) may I suggest a compromise here?? A six inch ST refractor would make an excellent finder on a 25 inch Dob. Now the ideal EP would be, say, a 21 Ethos with a cross of some kind scratched on the bottom element...

Olly

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Doc

Doc

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Very interesting post. I have a Bresser R152s refractor, have yet to use it, so your observations are a good indicator to what I might see. Apparently the Bresser is a petzval design so maybe a tad better at correcting CA.

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Kef9

Kef9

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Ever the peacemaker and never guilty of fomenting refractor mania on this forum (ahem) may I suggest a compromise here?? A six inch ST refractor would make an excellent finder on a 25 inch Dob. Now the ideal EP would be, say, a 21 Ethos with a cross of some kind scratched on the bottom element...

Olly

:)

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Kef9

Kef9

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Very interesting post. I have a Bresser R152s refractor, have yet to use it, so your observations are a good indicator to what I might see. Apparently the Bresser is a petzval design so maybe a tad better at correcting CA.

I love my fracs. So easy to use and take in and out of the house on a mount through the french doors. I just literally pick it up and walk into the garden with it. Set up is literally 10 seconds and then just wait a short while for cool down and off you go!

Regarding the Startravel and you might find this with the Bressier, I find that for low power DSO's and High power planets it's just the ticket. Where it falls down is when you look at really bright objects at a low mag which sounds strange I know. I think its simply to do with the light gathering. lots of light = chromatic aberation. Its funny because I thought that the planets would be horrible with the this but not so. Jupiter looks a lot worse at 50x than at 100x. The chromatic abberation to me gets less with more mag as light throughput decreases. I love this scope! Just need to upgrade the focuser! Wish they had a short tube 8" achro frac on the market.

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damnut

damnut

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Posted

Hi Vapouriser,

FRatio = focal length / Objective diameter, in this case 750/150 to give F5, you have just confused the focal length with the focal ratio.

It is an F5 scope with a focal length of 750mm.

Links below to help, just type in the data and they do the math

N.A.A. Telescope Math Calculator

http://www.12dstring.me.uk/fov.htm

Nice review also, I have the st120 and love it for its portability and the way it shrugs off sand, snow, dogslobber and being in the roof box or boot!.

Cheers

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