I took out the Starmaster tonight for about 30 minutes before the fog rolled in and screwed up everything. :C
Only got to try to star test and the sky was not stable enough to get a good test, but the rings were concentric.
Did a few minutes on the moon and used up to 320x with excellent results. The contrast was very good and the details were high. Wife stated that it looked more 3D than she had seen before, saying she seemed to be looking down into the craters instead of at them.
A few minutes of checking out Orion showed the sky was not good and I could only see 5 of the stars in the Trapezium. The Nebula looked OK, but before I could use a filter or anything the sky started closing up fast.
I found that the open nature of the primary cell and mirror box, combined with a fan system I installed in the mirror cell, cooled the mirror very quickly.
I also made a very neat combination aperture mask and dust cover that is sweet!
I will post a picture later of it, I think that Rick should include one of these with every Starmaster. I am going to send him a picture and give him the idea.
I did a bit of detailing on the scope today, taking care of small nicks in the flat black paint from assembly. Also blacked out some areas in the secondary that had not been painted. I am picky about this kind of thing.
I also removed the Velcro that had been installed to hold the 9v battery for the secondary heater. Then I installed new Velcro vertically to hide the battery behind the secondary mirror instead of horizontal in the light path.
I also painted the chrome screws that hold the Alt bearings to the box black to match the Alt bearings.
I will post pictures of the changes made.
The wheel barrow handles were great, but when you leave them on they induce a lot of vibration into the scope. They keep it from dampening down quickly, so I will remove them from now on when I roll it outside.
Coma was not as much as I thought it would be at f/4.3.
It is not much more than the f/4.9 or the f/4.8 scopes that I own. The Paracorr corrects it well but I did not find it to be too distracting.
The scope was well balanced and the movement was so smooth it was like Teflon on butter. 8)
Hopefully I will get a better chance to evaluate this scope soon. Tonight was inconclusive, just not good enough conditions or enough time to get a good idea of the performance.
Floyd
Only got to try to star test and the sky was not stable enough to get a good test, but the rings were concentric.
Did a few minutes on the moon and used up to 320x with excellent results. The contrast was very good and the details were high. Wife stated that it looked more 3D than she had seen before, saying she seemed to be looking down into the craters instead of at them.
A few minutes of checking out Orion showed the sky was not good and I could only see 5 of the stars in the Trapezium. The Nebula looked OK, but before I could use a filter or anything the sky started closing up fast.
I found that the open nature of the primary cell and mirror box, combined with a fan system I installed in the mirror cell, cooled the mirror very quickly.
I also made a very neat combination aperture mask and dust cover that is sweet!
I will post a picture later of it, I think that Rick should include one of these with every Starmaster. I am going to send him a picture and give him the idea. I did a bit of detailing on the scope today, taking care of small nicks in the flat black paint from assembly. Also blacked out some areas in the secondary that had not been painted. I am picky about this kind of thing.
I also removed the Velcro that had been installed to hold the 9v battery for the secondary heater. Then I installed new Velcro vertically to hide the battery behind the secondary mirror instead of horizontal in the light path.
I also painted the chrome screws that hold the Alt bearings to the box black to match the Alt bearings.
I will post pictures of the changes made.
The wheel barrow handles were great, but when you leave them on they induce a lot of vibration into the scope. They keep it from dampening down quickly, so I will remove them from now on when I roll it outside.
Coma was not as much as I thought it would be at f/4.3.
It is not much more than the f/4.9 or the f/4.8 scopes that I own. The Paracorr corrects it well but I did not find it to be too distracting.The scope was well balanced and the movement was so smooth it was like Teflon on butter. 8)
Hopefully I will get a better chance to evaluate this scope soon. Tonight was inconclusive, just not good enough conditions or enough time to get a good idea of the performance.
Floyd
[SIZE="Large"][/SIZE][COLOR="Blue"][/COLOR] Floyd Blue
Amateur Imager
And a waxing moon to boot! Don't worry - it'll get better.
