Does anyone have Skywatcher 70mm Refractor My first Scope?

[JamieH]

I know this is nowwhere near the high end serious advanced kit people have on these forums. But it's my first telescope. I love it to bits. I hope it's a good scope & worth the money. The pic is a promo. I'll make an effort to get some real photos.

I would like to know if anyone else on the forums has the same scope. It's actually a Mercury 707 Refractor telescope. Depending where you buy it, it comes in a nice Metallic blue version, but mine is supposed to be a metallic Black. But it really looks more like a bornze like chocolate brown metalliic colour. It looks expensive.

It's a 70mm 700mm focal length. I heard it might have a good crayford focuser. Not sure how good the optics are in it. Are they any good. I know it's not a ApoChromatic & I don't think it has schott glass. But it got a award & recommended by Sir Patrick Moor apparently. A 2x barlow was included. They are all metal ones. 25mm and 10mm eyepieces offer a wide range of magnifications 35x, 70x and 140x. Not sure how practical or how much light I will actually get with it. I haven't had a clear night to get it out yet in my back yard.

It has a electronic red dot finder. Which is cheaper according to some people. Because I found out that Skywatcher are doing one that looks like mine a Skywatcher in the same colour, more money with a larger aperture 100+ & a 500mm that is shorter tube than mine & comes with a better finderscope. But it's too late to buy that one now. Also it had a larger 4-4.5" whereas mine is 2.5" which suppoesdly isn't considered good enough. The only thing I am concerned about is setting up red dot finder. As much of the horizon around is hampered by things nearby. I have a view in front garden of the Shevin Horizon but not sure if I'll find anything liek a pilon or church spire. As everything is closer

My lower North & West are obstructed by trees in back garden. North is a bit more viewable in Front garden but I don't have full view of the North because we live in terraced houses on a Hill side road which harrogate road passes across. My South is more viewable & upper part of West in the back garden. I wanted to ask which star can I do the first 2 star alignment with. It needs to be preferably in the South or West for me for my first alignment & setup in the back garden. After that I can go to front garden & have a fairly clear but not full wide field view of the North & look at Shevin Moor due to houses on both side of road, reason being wide the view is hampered. The Harrogate road crosses the road we live up. Which would be my brightest star to manually find as a first alignment star. I thought about trying to use Altair in the West in back garden. I hope it's not absolutely neccessary to polar align it to the North do I? With view being hampered I might not see the polaris or whichever North star. Can I just align it to a southern Star even?

Please tell me what you think about the scope. And who else has one exactly the same I would be interested in talking to them about it. I choose this over Reflector because of their higher maintenance & colimation & stuff whereas I was told a refractor won't have these problems. Also I would like to know which quality accessories I could buy to get the best magnification & best use out of the scope. I have been given a large ruler type black plastic Spirit level so I can try & get the legs & the AZ Alt-Azimuth AZ goto Dovetail Mount even in the back garden. The front garden is grass, but the back garden is Flagged. driveway.

Thanks,

Jamie

[russ]

They are a great little scope. I had a similiar spec (Bresser 70) scope for 7 years. Supposed to be my kids scope but i commandeered it as my solar scope. But it was a fine performer on the planets too, easily providing satisfying views of Saturn and Jupiter. You'll be very happy with it. And the kids thought the moon was awesome with the Bresser.

[oldfruit]

I think the most important thing is that you are happy with it and you obviously are. They are good scopes, so much better than the cheap nastys that are out there, and will show you lots of interesting objects.

[JamieH]

Nice to meet you russ & oldfruit. Cool, thanks. You really mean I have a great scope? If so I am really chuffed & happy now about my purchase. Well actually my dad purchased it & I boguht it off him, he didn't want to mess around the the electronics & things he didn't understand. After I saw the new Skywatcher Startravel like mine but shorter tube & what they said about it being ideal because it has at least 4.5" & mine being less I began to worry a bit. Then they S n S mentioned Startravel having a 6x30 finderscope. What is the magnification of my red dot finder & is it good?

Also I have a question about the Polar alignment & red dot finder. The only partially clear view I have hte bit of North we can see. With houses at both side of the road the hill we live up. Not sure if I can focus the red dot on a church spire or pylon.

Eveyywhere else around are houses close by, Houses that are the furthest away are not far enough, certainly not 2 miles. How would i do the red dot finder in my back or front garden? Maybe there might be something on the Shevin I can focus on. I hope

[LukeSkywatcher]

I have a Celestron 90mm first scope. Similar to this but totally different mount. The scope is a really good performer. I dont use mine because i dont get along with my EQ mount.

[russ]

Don't worry about not having the Startravel. The Startravel is a great scope providing you realise it's limitations. It's something of a one trick pony and needs a sidekick, like a Skymax or Evostar to compliment it. Your 70 will happily give a more pleasing view of the planets than even the 102mm Startravel. As Planetary viewing goes, the Startravel is perhaps the worst performing scope you could possibly buy.

For red dot alingment, try and find a distant rooftop ariel and then align with the main scope.

[sixela]

Nice to meet you russ & oldfruit. Cool, thanks. You really mean I have a great scope?

Yes, you do. You might see countless threads where people would debate what scope to buy given a similar budget (each suggesting something different), but now that you've bought a scope, that's all behind you.

The optics are actually fairly nice: the longer focal length means that for an achromat, it gives fairly pleasing high power images (a lot better than the more widefield oriented ETX70) - "high" for this scope being 100-140x.

mine is 2.5" which suppoesdly isn't considered good enough.

There is lots to see with a 70mm scope. Less than with other scopes, but that's even true if you get a 400mm scope like mine. Eventually, you might succumb to aperture fever, but it's even possible you then may keep this one (if you have a scope like mine with a focal length of 2050mm, you appreciate that some objects are actually nicer to get a complete view in a scope with a smaller focal length because you can still fit them in the field of view. That 70/700 refractor can show a piece of sky that is four times bigger!)

I've got a scope with more aperture, but I still like to peer through smaller scopes at star parties and show people some objects that look really good on those scopes.

[Helen]

Yep, you've got a great start there!

The red dot finder doesn't magnify, but personally I think red dot finders are MUCH better than a 6x30 finder. With a red dot finder, once you've aligned it, its much easier to use to see where you are with the scope. If you can set up in daylight first that will help. The further away your target the better, but even if you can't see anything too far away by getting it close in daylight it will make fine tuning at night much easier. You can then use the moon to get better alignment, and then very fine tune on a star or say Jupiter.

I haven't used your type of mount, but I would have thought that a compass would get you close enough to north to start an alignment (if that's necessary).

Have fun

Helen