Telescope Reviews: What can I say

Mach1 first light –

Well, I’ve had the mount for almost two weeks now and finally had a chance to get it outside last night. The skies began to clear around 6pm but it looked like more clouds were coming in from the West. I thought: Right, there goes the CSC forecast….

After a brief nap and reading email, I checked the sky again around 8:30. Wow! Clear as a bell. I was tired after working all day but just couldn’t pass up this chance. If the forecast held, I should have at least 4 hours of cloud-free skies.

Looking over all the gear I wanted to setup and use, I decided to setup on the deck instead of in the yard. It had rained during the day and the grass was wet and cold. I’ve always had problems aligning and using my CGx mounts on my deck because of vibration and the deck boards flexing but really didn’t want to spend the evening in the mushy cold yard …

I was leery of how difficult setup and alignment would be, with the added instability caused by the deck. Just do it, I said … you have to get this puppy outside. You can’t let it sit in the den for another 2 weeks and then decide to do the initial setup away from home at a dark site with maybe something left behind ……

First off, let me say that the Mach1 and Eagle are easy to carry compared to my CGEM and its stock tripod. The Eagle is heavier than the CGEM tripod but is still easy to transport because of its design. The legs are held in-place by the center braces and don't flop around or bang into each other. The real advantage is the mount head itself. The CGEM head is heavier than the Mach1, probably due to it being rough cast instead of machined. It has always been a pain to pickup and carry. The Mach1 is lighter and stiffer in the axis so even if the clutches are loose, it doesn’t flop around in your arms ... :-)

I thought over the various ways given in the GTO manual for polar alignment or trying to use the Losmandy polar scope that came with the mount, but decided to try the first method listed in the manual. This involves sighting Polaris through the DEC bore hole and then using a sequence of slews and star alignments to adjust the mount's AZM and ALT settings to incrementally reduce the PA error. One very important point about this method. There is no initial GOTO slew to the first star that most of you who've used the Celestron firmware are familiar with. Instead, you manually move the OTA to the first alignment star and then the mount slews to where it calculates Polaris should be. This means that it's critical that you identify and know what star your using for the initial calibration slew to Polaris.

From a suburban sky, this is not a problem, but from a dark sky site where there are thousands and thousands of stars you can't see at home, it will be harder. So, for the initial alignment star, pick one that you can easily identify. I used Aldebaran. With this method, you can pick and choose what stars you want, until the mount begins to put Polaris in the cross-hairs of your reticule. On my first slew, the star was just slightly off center. I was amazed. I used another 3 stars just to check and refine the alignment and the final slew put Polaris dead in the center.

The next test I wanted to perform was guiding using PhD and my 9x50 SSAG setup. This was an important test since it's the lightest guide setup. All my ring assemblies and the C8 have a Vixen dovetail mounted on top to use this guider or to carry the AT65Q. If the 9x50 and PhD worked well, that means I could use it as the guider and piggyback it atop the AT65Q that would ride the AT106 or C8. The 65 and 106 or C8 could then be used strictly for imaging and not have to exchange roles to guide. Some mount their 9x50 in a finder bracket. I prefer to simply use a V clamp and rail that keeps it firmly inline with the imaging train. No flexure. I reset PhD to its default settings, picked a star in the west and began calibration. PhD ran through 15 steps W, E and then 15 steps N, S. Locked onto the star and that was it. Coming from the trials and tribulations of having to watch PhD during guiding with my CGEM, I sat there for some time. Here's a sample of the guiding:

Edited by BlueGrass (03/16/11 12:55 AM)