Lidl "Refractor Telescope" forum

Have gone to one or two astronomy sessions over 25 years ago.
So I consider myself a beginner.

Got the Skylux.
We bought it because we could not get the computer model.

My wife spent an hour put it together on Tuesday.
No major problems. A few minor issues:
1 One of the screw for fixing the tripod is too small - replaced it with one from DIY toolbox.
2 There is traces of grease here and there - can be cleaned off.

Some of the parts looks a bit cheap
but the overall impression - very reasonable quality for the price paid.

We have used it to look at the moon last night using all the eyepieces.
Managed to see the crater - the image is actually better than expected.

In regards to whether this is a good investment.

If you are a beginning and not sure whether you would stick with the hobby.
Buy it and use it for a while ... before you spend more money.
That is the main reason why we bought ours for the children.
They are very excited to see the crater on the moon.
So far so good.

If you are more mature... then may be you should spend a bit more money to get a bigger one (if you can afford it).
A bigger one should give more flexibilities for next few years.
That is what we plan to do with our children if they continue to show interest.

The bottom line.
The Skylux sample we got works exactly as (hmm... better than) we have expected.
It will not be the only one we will be using if we are still looking to the sky in 18 months time.

I bought a Skylux last year and am very happy with it. Earlier this year I bought a Thousand Oaks Solar filter for it and use the scope mainly for solar observing. I also have a 222mm Dobsonian that I use at night.
I made some alterations, like replacing the bolt that holds the mount to the plate that the top of the three legs are bolted to, as per the Stardust article, with a "wing nut" headed bolt. It makes transportation and reassembly so much easier.
Another modification that I did, to get rid of the grating that Séanie referred to above was to flatten the ends of each axis locking screw with a file. The pionty ends just make dents in the plactic and the screw will always try to reenter a previous dent. Making a flat about 4mm in diameter in the end stops this and if the setup is properly balanced, the flattened ends hold everything in place fine.
I also broke one of the slow motion arms but nearer the middle. I was able to carve a new square end on the remains and re-attach the wheel. I also carved the plastic to smaller diamater to restore the flexibility and prevent further breakage.
As a comparision to Dave Lillis's image of the Moon on the Meade forum here is an image that I took two weeks ago.

It is just cropped from a larger image and no processing done on it. There is a slight green/blue tinge to the edge of the moon but I think that it compares very favourably th the Meade's image.
There are more images taken with this scope on our club's website ( Kerry Astronomy Club , link on this site) including sunspots, Venus transit, etc.

Michael Scully
Chairman KAC, Webmaster KAC/SAC[/url]

Michael,
There seems to be less chromatic distortion in that images on the limb of the moon, presumably since the skylux has a long focal length.
Nice pic.

Hi all,
I bought one of the Lidl refractors last year and have put it to great use, observing planets, the Moon, the Sun with the appropriate filter and even whale watching off the south coast (from land of course!)
I managed to watch the transit of venus with it as well.
However I did read up on it before I bought it and found many German websites which deal with it and share their experiences.
Most of them are in German but this one www.easter-vivian.clara.co.uk/astro/skylux/index.htm
is a good synopsis of the German sites in English.
I have taken the scope apart completely and removed the sticky grease from all the gears. I regreased it with a standard high melting point grease which can be bought from car shops and hey presto the whole thing runs a lot smoother. There were definitely a coouple of of dodgy teeth and/or misalignments on my slow motion controls but the more you use it these wear down and eventually become unoticeable.
I also bought a much better zoom eyepice from the lads in Andromeda Optics (twice the original price of the scope) but what a difference that has made.
Regards
Brian

Tried that link can't seem to get on to it....

www.easter-vivian.clara.co.uk/astro/skylux/index.html