Helios/Skywatcher Explorer 130M - Opinions?

Ian

I posted the following on another NG
(uk.sci.astronomy) just before Christmas. I hope
it helps.

To answer your another of your questions - I
suspect that the drive will be woefully inadequate
for through the telescope photography except for
the bright planets and the moon. It would
probably be fine for piggy-back though. Drives
suitable for long exposure through the telescope
images tend to be quite expensive.

Adam

Quote
I was out last night testing one for a nervous
friend who has bought it for her husband for Xmas.

To tell the truth, I was very pleasantly surprised
with the optics. I was expecting much worse.

Summary (Using my own high quality plossl EP's):-
Star test shows obvious bad undercorrection (well
it would with a 5" spherical mirror at f/6.9!)
In-focus, stars were quite tight.
Cassini Division on Saturn discernable at sides of
the planet
Bands in Jupiter easily visible (in poor seeing at
low altitude)
Castor very easily split
Double-Double (just) clearly split
Hole in Ring Nebula visible (in full moonlight)
M13 showing signs of granulation (in full
moonlight)
Trapezium obvious and clear in M42 (well it should
be, shouldn't it..)
Moon - very nice for a "beginner scope"

The supplied eyepieces are not as good as my own,
but were not unreasonable. The Barlow was not
tested.

The supplied finderscope is execrable (or worse!),
and I couldn't quite get it collimated with the
main OTA.

The telescope was badly mis-collimated as
supplied, and the mirror is not centre-spotted.
Collimation is easy however, and well explained.

I tested the OTA on my own substantial GEM, so
could not evaluate the supplied mount.

HTH

Adam




--

"Ian Neill" wrote
in message
...
Hi,

I am considering the above scope...

Whats is it like? Are the optics good/bad? Is
the mount sturdy? Is the scope
reasonably portable?

It has an RA motor, but is this good enough for
astophotography? Is there
significant periodic error?

All opinions welcome, before I buy.

Many thanks,

Ian Neill