| Date: |
NA |
| Price: |
$499.99 |
| Design: |
6”
reflector with 750mm focal length at f/5 |
| Description: |
6”
reflector on Equatorial mount. Comes with (2) 1.25” Plossl eyepieces at 9mm
& 25mm. It also includes a moon filter, a 6x30 finder scope and a Polar
alignment scope that goes
in the EQ mount itself. |
Circumstances
behind this Review
Born
in Peru in 1965, I’ve been always interested in astronomy… but because of
the way things are down there, owning a telescope was totally out of the
question… I was unable to own one. (way too expensive)
I
used to borrow my grandfather’s binoculars and enjoy the view as much as I
could with his Carl Zeiss 7x50’s… and hoped that one day I would be able to
own a scope of my own…
I
moved into the United States about 13 years ago… and it is until now that I
was able to get me a scope, not as big and expensive as I wanted, but a very
good starter scope nonetheless…
I
did a lot of research before I bought it… I made myself member of several
Astronomy groups, on the Web and around the area where I live (Coconut Creek,
Florida), and asked as many questions as I could think of, looking for answers
and recommendations.
The
Telescope and Accessories
I
can’t describe how excited I was when I received the scope… it came properly
packaged, and even though it comes with a good small manual, it was very easy to
set up.
You
can actually see & feel the quality of the scope as soon as you start
getting the pieces out of the box. Everything is made of metal… there are no
plastic pieces involved on any of the main parts that belong to the mount or the
scope.
The
telescope tube, rings, focuser, mount, tripod, accessory tray, finder scope,
finder scope rings are all made of metal.
The
Plossl eyepieces that come with the scope are of good quality, they are of the
1.25” size (standard).
The
focuser is well built and very smooth…
Collimation
As
of now I have not had the need to collimate my scope… it came perfectly
collimated from factory (instruction on how to collimate are included in the
scope’s manual)
Observations
So
far this month (January 2001) I had about 12 good nights of viewing, in which I
tried the scope on several objects.
The
only bad thing is that where I live there’s a lot of light pollution, so
finding some of the objects is a very time consuming task…
The
views of the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus are great… very sharp and
defined.
I
had no problem viewing M42 (Orion’s Nebula) which looks great… and also the
Pleiades group of stars looks very nice on the 25mm Plossl.
I
had a hard time finding M31 (Andromeda galaxy), but not because of the scope,
but because of my skies…
I
can’t wait until I take this scope to darker skies to “really” see what it
can do!
Conclusions
I’ve
always wanted to get a computerized scope… but after doing all the research I
did, finally came to the conclusion that a “good computerized scope” would
not be on my price range but probably around $1500+, so I decided to get a good
standard scope instead.
There’s
not another scope under $500 that I would recommend more… (besides the
Orion’s XT8 Dob if you’re only thinking about viewing and not taking
pictures)
I’m
very satisfied with this scope performance and quality.
Submitted
by Ivan E. Gastaldo - gastaldo@bellsouth.net
- Coconut Creek, Florida
The Review
I've wanted a telescope as long as I can
remember. To be able to zoom into the heavens has always been my dream.
After months and months of reading reviews, I decided to invest in the
Orion Skyview 6" Deluxe telescope. This is my first telescope, and
I've only been using it for a couple of months, so bear with me.
Setting it up took an hour or two. Hey, it was my first time! The parts
are all finely crafted, and are very strong, well worth the money. The
mount is very steady. After screwing in the finder scope, I sat back, and
stared at the beauty. My God, what a finely crafted instrument! I couldn't
wait to get it outside. Unfortunately, the sky was full of clouds for the
entire week,
and I was going to Lake Tahoe the week after.
Two weeks later, I FINALLY got the chance to test it out. The telescope
came with two eyepieces. A 25mm which performs very well, revealing sharp
images and a wide field of view. It's great for lunar observing and
viewing star fields, but with the low focal length of the Skyview 6, It
doesn't yield enough magnification for going further with planets and deep
sky objects. I thought Jupiter was another star! Which brings me to my
second point, buy a star map. The telescope comes with a CD-ROM called
Where the Stars Are, which is pretty useful. However, for the beginner, it
might be a little confusing. A GREAT computer program is Starry Night,
which has you sitting in the middle of a field. You just type in your
Latitude and Longitude, and you have your night sky plotted out exactly as
you see it.
Anyway, the other eyepiece the scope comes with is a 9mm with a very low
field of view. It yields an 83X magnification, and yet the view is still
fairly blurry and mushy. I figured this had something to do with the
collimation, so I started tinkering around with the collimation screws.
DON'T EVER mess with the collimation screws until you know what you're
doing! That's my word of advice. Images were still clear with the 25mm,
but they were even worse with the 9mm. Even today I'm still getting the
hang of collimation, and I'm still never sure if my scope is correctly
collimated. The manual does NOT have very clear instructions on
collimation, and the majority of websites are very confusing in their
instructions. One of the
employees in the store offered to show me firsthand how to collimate, and
I think I'll be taking him up on that offer.
I recently purchased a 3X Barlow lens, and it is superb. It's a must for
this scope, as the focal length is pretty low. With the 25mm you get a 90X
magnification, which is perfectly clear. It's still a bit hard to make out
detail in Jupiter, but that might have to do with the collimation of my
scope. You can make out the rings in Saturn, view the awesome colors of
Pleiades, etc. I love the 25mm. With the 9mm you yield a 250X power, which
is pretty useless. Jupiter will appear as a big blob. Saturn will look
like a blob with two blurry lines sticking out of it. I don't know what to
make of the 9mm eyepiece.
So far I have been very impressed by this scope. A few obstacles have not
gotten in the way of a great night out viewing. I'm going to try out
Astrophotography later on. Seems challenging, but fun. I'm also going to
invest in a 17mm Plossl and a 12.5mm Plossl, and maybe some Orthos along
the road.
Clear skies and happy viewing!
Submitted by Gunky Boy - gunkyboy@hotmail.com
- USA
|
