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Skywatcher 130/650 EQ-2
by pumfster As a keen follower of shows such as The Sky at Night with the legendary Sir Patrick Moore, I've always had a keen interest in astronomy. To this end, my wife bought me a telescope for Christmas a couple of years ago, and the model she decided to buy me was the Sky-Watcher Explorer 130P. Now I had a small telescope when I was a ... kid, and found it slightly difficult to use, with only a small magnification factor and so I didn't really know what to expect from my new present. Obviously I realised that technology had moved on a great deal since that first scope, but what kind of magnification could it offer? How easy was it to actually find an object in the viewer? Was it all worth it? Obviously with this being the UK, Christmas night was cloudy and miserable, and so these questions had to wait a while until the New Year bank holiday. This telescope cost £189 and I have had a quick look on the Internet and found it on sale on a couple of websites for the same price today. It is a Parabolic Newtonian Reflector, which is a description of the way that the telescope allows you to see the stars. This particular design of telescope was invented way back in 1668 by Sir Isaac Newton, and uses a concave primary mirror and a flat secondary mirror to focus the image into an eye piece situated on the top of the telescope. The other main type of telescope is a refractor, which uses mirrors to focus the image at the end of the telescope. I won't go into individual scientific terms or specifications here, as I don't think it will help the average consumer to make a decision, although I will provide a list at the end for reference for the more serious astronomer. The telescope is really easy to set up. The tripod can be height adjusted, making it suitable for people of all sizes, and also to be used whilst sitting down. The main body of the scope is then simply screwed into place, which doesn't take very long at all. This is all very straightforward, and with having the eyepiece on the top, makes it a very comfortable telescope to use, with no contorting yourself into weird positions to look down the end of the scope. One thing I should point out here is that once set up this telescope does take up a fair bit of room. This isn't an issue if it's going to be set up in a shed or some sort of observation shelter, but for the more casual astronomer such as myself, it can be awkward to store when not in use. It's easy enough to move around however so this shouldn't really provide much of a problem. I will also point out briefly here that the user guide states that this telescope can be used for terrestrial use, and I suspect it could easily be set up to observe things like rare birds nests etc, but I have never used it for this reason, and suspect that 99% of people who would consider purchasing this telescope would use it for astronomical observations. A very useful addition to this telescope is the rather grand titled red dot finder. This is simply a little assembly, which projects a red dot onto an image of the sky. It just slots into position on the top of the telescope, and is powered by 3V lithium battery. The first time the telescope is used, you follow a simple little procedure, which aligns the finder with the telescope, and from then on, you simply turn on the red dot, and line this up with the object you are trying to observe. This will then ensure that the object will be centred on or near to the telescope, making finding an object very easy. Now I will admit to being rather sceptical about this before using it, and I remember my old child telescope, which had a little view finder, but it was still virtually impossible to then find the star, no matter how centralised in the view finder it was, but to be fair I was suitably impressed with this little red dot. From starting off with the easy objects such as the moon, (Even I could find this on my own!!!), even faint stars, once locked onto by the red dot turned up in the eyepiece without too much hunting around. This meant that I didn't lose my enthusiasm getting cold whilst being frustrated moving the scope around for ages before finding anything to observe. Another fancy addition to this telescope is the auto tracking facility. This is basically a motor, which attaches between the telescope and the tripod, and can be used to track objects in the night sky, which is particularly useful for those people who wish to photograph stars, planets or even the moon with long exposure pictures. This tracker is electric and requires a 12V battery pack, which equates to 8 AA batteries, which is a lot, but to be fair it is a fancy bit of kit for such a reasonably priced telescope. Again you have to follow a little simple procedure, which is well explained in the user guide to calibrate the auto-tracker. This basically ensures that the tracker is set up for use at the latitude that you are at, to enable it to accurately track an object. Once this is done, you are ready to go. The operation of the auto-tracking device is done via a very simply designed hand control, which controls elevation and direction. You can vary the speed at which the device moves, as well as when its tracking. It is impossible to move the telescope when this device is active without using the hand control or you risk damaging the unit. Once you are happy with the object you have found, you simply set the device into tracking mode, and the telescope will automatically adjust for the rotation of the planet and keep the target object in the middle of your eyepiece at all times, which is great for distant objects such as stars as they quickly disappear out of view (Its amazing just how fast the planet really does rotate, and the effect is all magnified by looking at distant objects). It is also very useful as I previously mentioned to take long exposure photographs of nebulae, stars, planets or any other astronomical feature of your choosing. The telescope has a maximum useful magnification factor of x260 depending on what choice of lens you use. The telescope came with 3 different lenses, although many others are available to purchase at a later date, depending on how seriously you take your astronomy. 2 actual eye pieces were provided which were a 25mm wide angle lens and a 10mm lens, which provide x26 and x65 magnification respectively. The wide-angle lens, despite having a lesser magnification factor is very useful for looking at little clusters of stars or the moon as it's wider angle allows more features to be observed. The 10mm lens is a good all round lens, which offers good magnification on objects such as the planets, and as an example I have clearly observed the planet Jupiter along with the 4 larger Galilean moons with this lens. The third lens that the telescope was supplied with is a x2 Barlow lens. Now this is not so much of a lens in itself, but works in conjunction with another lens. It is basically a diverging lens, which will magnify the image further, and in this case rather unsurprisingly given the name adds a further x2 to any lens used with it. This effectively means that the two other lens can also be used with this to provide x52 and x130 magnification respectively. This allows objects to be viewed a lot closer, which I have found makes looking at individual craters or other features on the moon especially awe inspiring. As I said, other lens can be purchased as can Barlow lens of x3 and x4, but for this telescope I wouldn't recommend anything more than a x3, as it will quickly exceed the useful magnification factor of x260 of this scope. This means that the images produced will be more and more distorted due to interference from the atmosphere. So to sum this up, I would say that this is a fantastic telescope for the inexperienced astronomer and is ideal as a first telescope. I happily categorise myself in that bracket, as I don't think my little child's one really counts in this day and age. It is suitably simple to set up, with a good user guide, which gives step-by-step instructions for all features of the telescope. It also provides a very good level of magnification for the price, which is also ideal as an introduction to astronomy, as it won't break the bank if you don't really take to it. The additional lenses mean that this telescope can continue to be of use to people even if relatively experienced, and I would seriously recommend it to anyone with an interest in purchasing that first telescope or to anyone who watched the Brian Cox and Dara O'Briain astronomy live television shows a few months back and thought that they would like to give it a go. Finally here is the list of technical stuff for those that are interested: - Eyepieces Supplied (1.25"): 10mm & 25mm Magnifications (with optics supplied): x26, x52, x65, x130 Highest Practical Power (Potential): x260 Diameter of Primary Mirror: 130mm - 30% more Light Gathering than 114mm ALL Sky-Watcher reflector mirrors are Multi-Coated with Silicon Dioxide as standard for Optimum Durability and Long Term Performance. Telescope Focal Length: 650mm (f/5) X2 Barlow Lens Parabolic Primary Mirror 0.5mm Ultra-Thin Secondary Mirror Supports Red Dot Finder EQ2 Equatorial Mount Aluminium Tripod with Accessory Tray Thanks for reading this review, and it will also appear on Ciao under my same username. Read the complete review |
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Sky-Watcher 2 Inch ED Deluxe Barlow Lens
by Revier A good Barlow is a wonderful thing to have, a very important piece of kit for the casual and die hard astronomer alike. For you see, it has the invaluable effect of saving you money in the long run and in a hobby that's a notorious drain on resources, this is a very welcome effect. The Barlows primary function is to multiply ... the focal length of any eyepiece inserted into it by the specified number. In this case the Barlow offers x2 magnification, this effectively doubles an eyepiece collection, one eyepiece can now yield two magnifications. As well as instantly bolstering the number of available focal lengths by a factor of two, the use of a Barlow allows you to retain a comfortable eye relief, even at high magnification. In plain English, that means you don't have to push your eyeball right up close to the lens, thus avoiding potential headaches and eye strain. I have owned several Barlows in my time and must admit that on occasion I have fallen into the trap of buying cheaply, there are numerous examples of dreadful Barlows that litter the market which makes the likes of the Skywatcher ED Deluxe even more special. A mid priced magnification solution that delivers on every front, while it may not measure up to the mighty Televue, at less than half the cost it certainly justifies its own existence. Using a glass with particularly low dispersion means Skywatcher have avoided the most common complaint, inherent in lower quality Barlows, that of false colour. Lower quality systems use lower quality glass which seperate the different colours of the spectrum into their constituent parts, the result is spurious red and blue light eminating from the observed object. This is not the case with the ED Deluxe, colour fidelity remains true and objects display colour naturally. Views are sharp & solid and remain so throughout the entirety of the field of view. As well as being a great optical performer, with a quality lens system the ED has some nice practical features that aren't seen on every Barlow. Namely it features a copper compression ring rather than the more traditional system of metal pegs that can marr or blemish your eyepieces as they are crudely anchored within the Barlow. The ring means eyepieces remain unmarked and present themselves flatter to the optical path which makes for a more even field of view. A textured rubber grip circles the body of the Barlow which is handy as it is heavier than you might expect, due to its 2 inch size. It's not weighty enough to produce significant balancing issues when removed though and it comes with a 1.25" adapter so it will cover your whole ep collection. A definite recommendation, no false colour, reasonably priced and can accept both 2" and 1.25" eyepieces. A quality accesory that is well worth the purchase. Read the complete review |
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Skywatcher HEQ-5 Range Equatorial Mount
by Revier A good mount is important in Astronomy, after all, it's what you will be attaching your precious telescope to. If you are a purely visual observer and use a light scope such as a schmidt cassegrain or small refractor then chances are you can get away with the cheaper and more flimsy mounts out there such as the CG-4 from celestron. But, ... when using heavier telescopes like big apeture Newtonians or getting into astrophotography the quality of the mount is of paramount importance. Integral to the use of any mount is the quality of it's motors and it's weight capacity, let's start with the motors. I will spare you the technicalities of gear ratios and resolutions at this point as I know some people are not keen on vast reems of numbers (me included). Instead I can say this, my old CG-4 mount would allow me to take exposures with a maximum length of 12 seconds before periodic error and mount instability would smear the image, with the HEQ-5 I can times that number by 10 and then some, with exposures of upto 2 and a half minutes possible. Providing an accurate drift alignment has been performed the mounts robust weight capacity of just under 40lbs (39.6lbs) handles my 120mm refractor with camera and accessories no problems and is alot smoother than the CG-4. Controlling the mount is easy to. Movement in R.A and declination is achieved by pushing one of the four buttons on the hand controller, the type anyone who has used a low to mid end motorised mount will be familiar. For those who haven't it is incredibly intuitive and won't take long to get to grips with. There are 3 slewing speeds of 2x, 8x and 16x to center an object in the FOV. At just shy of £500 this is a perfect alternative for those who struggled with the interminable bulk of the EQ6 with the HEQ5 6cm shorter and 8.5kg lighter than it's bigger cousin. The HEQ5 is cheaper and more portable but doesn't have quite the payload capacity as the EQ6 (which is around 55lbs). To conclude, if you have the extra £100, have room in your boot and are of average fitness then I would recommend the EQ6 as the best mount in the low to mid range price band, having said that the HEQ5 is a great mount and is a considerable step up from the EQ3-2 and CG-4. It's sleek and stylish black finish, ease of setup, portability and quality make the HEQ5 a good buy if your budget cannot exceed £500. Skywatcher have shown why they are so well respected in the field of Astronomical mounts with another excellent example of their work. ***For those who are interested in figures here are the technical specs*** RA Gear Teeth: 135 RA Gear Ratio: 705:1 Microsteps Per RA Revolution: 9024000 Microsteps Per Worm Revolution: 66844.44 Resolution: 0.143617(arcseconds) Microsteps: 64 Read the complete review |
Skywatcher Telescope |
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1 review Manufacturer: Skywatcher / Type: Telescope with tracking |
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1 review Manufacturer: Skywatcher / Telescope / Type: Eyepiece / Size: 5 mm |
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1 review Manufacturer: Skywatcher / Type: Collimating eyepiece for refractor telescopes |
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Manufacturer: Skywatcher / Telescope / Type: Eyepiece / Size: 10mm (available in a range of sizes) |
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1 review Brand: Skywatcher / Type: Reflecting telescope |
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1 review Brand: Skywatcher / Type: Reflecting telescope |
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| Skywatcher Telescope Recommendations 1 2 back | ||
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