ETX 105

Hi all

I recently picked up a second hand ETX 105 PE with Level North Technology. There were a number of reasons that I bought it, I wanted a scope for lunar, solar and double star observing, and I felt an f/14 scope like the ETX was the way to go. The second reason was for public outreach nights, dragging the 12" dob was a drag, on one occasion I hurt my back getting it out of the car, this will solve that problem.

I got out tonight and gave it a test run, it was after midnight, the moon was too low for observing, I'll get it another night. I wanted to see how the scope worked, how it tracked and the way the GoTo worked. Earlier in the week I trained the drives as described in the manual, this was an easy job only taking about twenty minutes. The scope has to be set up start position with includes rotating the scope counter-clockwise until it stops and putting it roughly level and roughly pointing north. The guy I bought it from was from Dublin, so the city was entered into the Autostar, Auto Align is selected and the scope goes about its business. When it has finished it will then select two stars to centre in the eyepiece.

There is a neat feature in the Autostar called Spiral Search, when the scope finishes slewing it beeps, if the star is not in the eyepiece then you can press the GoTo button and it slowly spirals around, when you find the object hit the enter and it stops moving, this feature is also useful when you are looking for deep-sky objects, double stars etc.

I got the two stars centered and and the scope was ready to go. I selected M57 from the menu and pressed Enter, then GoTo, the scope slewed and beeped when it had finished. M57 was in the FOV in the 26mm eyepiece, just off centre. I tried Albireo, M29, M13, M4, Antares, Polaris, Izar and numerous other objects and the scope found them all. Very impressive considering the small field of view at f/14.

I wanted to check the tracking, when I had M13 in the 13mm Nagler I went off and made a cup of tea. I can back ten minutes later and M13 was right where I had left it. I plan to attempt some lunar sketches and if the moon stays in the FOV then this will be very helpful.

I have to say that I am very impressed with the scope and its ability to find objects.

A quick note on the Autostar, it has a number of functions, pressing one of the numbers will change the speed that the scope slews, when reading the info displayed when the ? button is pressed, pressing the up and down buttons at the bottom with increase or decrease the speed that the script goed through the display. There are many other features that I will have to read up on.

There are a couple of things I need to mention, the motors are a little loud, louder than a CG-5 that I had before. The focuser is a little fiddly and touching the scope causes the image to jump around, I have ordered a flexible focuser that should cure that. Cool down is an issue, at this time of the year I doubt if the scope can get cool enough due to warmer temperatures and the image will not be at their best.

Two accessories I believe are essential, a flexible focuser and a dew shield, when autumn and winter come that lens is going to fog up. For myself I will need a 32mm eyepiece, the 26mm is adequate, 32mm will be better.

Overall I beieve that it was money well spent, the GoTo is accurate, the tracking is superb, the views are sharp, the optics are perfect and I can't wait to try it on the moon. The noisy motors are probably the only let down,

I am down in Cobh next month with the cub scouts, I was going to drag the 12" down, it could be left behind for the ETX.

Now I'm watching the US Open golf and then I'm going to go out and see if I can bag comet McNaught.

Thanks for the time.

Paul

I've downloaded some images.



The scope itself.



The business end, note the dust.




Side view.



The lurid colours are just a reflection of the clothes on the line.

Paul

So are the lurid colours a property of the clothes or the reflection?

Seriously now - I made a focus extender for an ETX 70 using a minimum
of bits which including a short section of curtain wire and inline
coupling to attatch to the end of the focuser shaft. The focuser knob
was then attached to the end of the curtain wire which fitted very well
after removing some of the plastic from the end of the curtain wire.
Was very successful.

But I suspect that the 105 may have a more substantial mechanism and may
be more difficult to improvise.

I got my bits from (actually from a local maplin store)

www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=9335#spec

Just in case it helps.

Mark

So are the lurid colours a property of the clothes

The sixties live man :rock:

I ordered a focuser from Ebay for a tenner, hopefully it will be here soon.

Paul

The focuser I ordered from Ebay four days ago arrived this morning for the US. I would imagine that the chap who sold it makes them as a home business. It works perfectly and for a tenner you can't go wrong. There are good things to find on Ebay.

Okay, there's also a lot of c**p.:lol:

Best of luck with the Scope!
My ETX125 served (and the OTA still does) me well.
Pity I didn't catch this post earlier.
I've an ETX focouser I don't use... doh!