Skywatcher scopes

Hi All

It's been crossing my mind of late about getting a fast refractor for deep-sky work, my first love is the moon, for which I use my f/10 SCT, but when the moon's absent I need something to look at, hence the refractor.

I have seen the Skywatcher 120mm and 150mm fast refractors, both f/5 advertised at Telescope-Service and I would to mount them on an alt-az mount, for a quick set up and quick slewing across the sky.

My question, eventually, is this, is there anyone out there who has experience of either of these scopes?

I look forward to any replies.

Paul

Hi Paul,

I have their little brother - the 102 F5. I really like it as a low power, wide-field scope. It does have issues though, some of which are:

* It's an achromat and chromatic aberration is visible on brighter objects
* The lens cell can not be collimated. Mine went out of collimation on a couple of occasion but I found that loosening the lens retaining ring and tapping the lens cell brought everything back into line.
* The focuser is not the best, but then again, for low-power work this is not so critical.

If both of the bigger scopes are F5 then chromatic aberration will be even more of a problem, but having not looked through them I couldn’t say how bad it would be.

All in all I’m happy with the ‘scope for what I use it for and I think they are a pretty good value.

Steve

Thanks Steve

For the price they are asking for I wasn't expecting an APO and the CA wouldn't be much of a nuisance on objects such as galaxies and globulars.

I would be buying it with expectations that would not be sky high, besides, Telescope-Service in Germany offer a Crayford type focusser for an extra 100 Euro which would be worth the investment.

I hear what you say about the collimation, the solution you came up with sounds like something you would do after a lot of prayer .

Many thanks for the reply, and welcome to the forum.

Paul

Here's my top tip for achromatic refractors:

For achromatic scopes of less than 125mm get a Baader Fringe Killer filter. For achromats of 125mm or more get the Baader Contrast Booster filter. Or if you are happy to spend a little more you should consider getting the Baader Semi APO filter, which is a higher end alternative. All three are available in both 1.25" and 2" sizes.

If you mostly don't use other filters and have a threaded barrel on your diagonal it's a good idea to screw the filter into that so that you don't have to switch it from one eyepiece or another when you change them.

Hey John

Thanks for the tips.

Paul