Sky Watcher Star Adventurer, Part II

I had an old counterweight shaft and counterweight for an EQ1 mount lying around (the EQ1 had already broken some years back and I had thrown it away).  The shaft has a large-pitch thread on one side, and an M6 tapped hole for the toe saver on the other side.

I drilled out the M6 tapped hole with an 8mm bit, then epoxied an M8 bolt into the hole.  I then cut off the head of the bolt leaving the M8 threaded portion exposed.  A more robust solution would have been to drill out the M6 hole with a 6.5mm or 7mm bit, then use an M8 tap to cut threads into the hole.  The M8 bolt would then screw into the threaded hole, a more secure fastening than just epoxy.  But I did not have an M8 tap handy.   The epoxied bolt seems secure enough (I used Araldite brand epoxy) and hasn't wobbled through a 2-hour plus testing session.

With the stock EQ1 counterweight, the Stellarvue SV80ED still would not balance; however the result is much more in balance than having no counterweight at all.

However, the counterweight did not really improve the guided performance, or reduce the periodic error to in any meaningful way (and I did not expect it to).  Guided performance is still around 2" RMS, which I believe is the best this mount is capable of.  Hence it should be used at a pixel scale of 4" to 6" per pixel, or 200mm to 300mm focal length.

A longer sampling period has confirmed that the worm fundamental is 10 minutes, hence the worm wheel has 144 teeth (like the Vixen Polaris, Great Polaris, and CG-5).  This was confirmed by a poster on Stargazers Lounge who tore down the Star Adventurer.  The fundamental is about 30" peak-to-peak.

I got a better polar alignment this time (as shown in the minimal DEC drift in the graph above) and in the process noticed that the polar scope is pretty well-aligned - better than my PASILL3.  It's not perfect, but it's good enough that I'm not going to mess with it.

Sky Watcher Star Adventurer Portable EQ Mount

I purchased this portable mount in London from The Widescreen Centre in London (very close to Baker Street!) instead of lugging my old Vixen Polaris to the UK.  I got the "Astro-Photo Bundle" for £299.00 (about US$ 500) and am still waiting for the £40-odd VAT rebate, which would bring the price down to about US$ 400.  This mount is also available from Perseid in Malaysia for 1700 MYR, or about US$ 540.

The build quality is better than expected, with some nice touches such as the worm-and-sector drive for the altitude axis of the equatorial wedge, a design very reminiscent of the Astro-Physics Mach1 GTO, albeit with much slacker tolerances. There even is a ratchet on the altitude locking bolt (again, just like the AP). Here I have secured it via the 3/8" bolt to the aluminum tripod of the Vixen Polaris.  The mode dial and power switch is also visible here:

Right Ascension and Declination clutches are the large knurled plastic wheels.  On a less sturdy tripod, it is quite easy to knock off the polar alignment when tightening or loosening these clutches.

The declination slow-motion knob is visible in the photo below.  Note that the equatorial wedge, declination slow-motion, counterweight shaft, and counterweight, are all part of the "Astro-Photo bundle" and are separately priced if one purchases the base package.  On the other side of the Star Adventurer body are two electric RA slow motion switches (12X sidereal) to assist in centering objects, since tightening the RA clutch is a fiddly affair that tends to throw objects out of the field.

There is a fairly nice polar scope, although the reticle illuminator is attached to the far end of the polar scope bore, which is obstructed by the declination assembly.  Hence use of the illuminator requires removing the entire declination assembly (and any payload on top), which throws off the polar alignment.  The 4x AA batteries are under the top cover, and are supposed to last for up to 72 hours of tracking. Maybe that's with lithium batteries.

Below is a 100% crop of the area around Deneb, 2-minute exposures with a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens at 200mm.  There is a bit of RA drift, and a much smaller DEC drift.  The RA drift is a combination of periodic error  and polar misalignment in altitude (as I only used the polar scope for alignment, this was in Lancashire in the UK).

Notice the nasty diffraction spikes on the bright star. A nifty trick I learned is to use a lens filter step-down ring to stop down the aperture (for tighter stars) while retaining nice round stars. If you use Canon L lenses, most of them have 77mm filter rings, so a 77mm to 67mm (or similar) step-down ring would be appropriate.

On returning to Singapore, I decided to load up the Stellarvue SV80ED, and a Meade DSI.  Widescreen hasn't received their shipment of counterweight shafts and counterweights yet, so the mount was severely unbalanced (no counterweights).

Using PHD2 I was able to measure a bit less than 2" RMS error in RA, after guiding.  The Star Adventurer has a standard ST4 guide port, but only can guide in RA, since the DEC is not motorized.

Unguided performance shows about 23" peak-to-peak periodic error, and there is no PEC.  The worm period is 10 minutes (144 teeth).  This implies that peak periodic error over a 2-minute period would be approximately 9" - so unguided exposures at 200mm and of 90-second duration should be possible at zero declination (the duration would be longer at higher declinations).

Guided performance should be acceptable at around 2" to 3" pixel scale, limited only by declination drift.  So a scope like the SV80ED would be a good choice if guided.  However, the mount is close to its limits with such a payload. A 200mm range camera lens or small refractor like a Takahashi FS60 is probably a better choice.

In summary, this mount is a far cry from my Mach1.  Although it looks better-built than other Chinese mounts, and some of the parts are CNC machined and not cast, the illusion of quality falls apart under close scrutiny.  That said, if you want something supremely portable for up to perhaps 300mm focal length, this mount will do very well.  It says something that the entire mount weighs not much more than a Mach1 Eagle half-pier (and also doesn't cost a lot more than said half-pier).

If I ever travel to Gran Canaria,  I will certainly not be able to bring the Mach1 along, but this mount will fit perfectly in check-in luggage.

I did manage to get about 30 minutes of the area around Deneb with the Star Adventurer from Lancashire, but I missed the Pelican Nebula by a small amount.  The wispy nebulosity next to Deneb that I thought was a DSO, turned out to be dirt on the DSLR sensor. D'oh!  image scale with the 200mm lens was about 6" per pixel.

ED Doublet Versus FPL-53 Triplet

I just received my (used, $350) Stellarvue SV80ED doublet refractor.  I'd sold off a bunch of off-axis guider stuff and my ST80 to buy it.  My main goal was to have a decent guide scope, but also a portable imaging telescope because the Astro-Tech AT90EDT is too heavy and bulky for air trips.  The hope is that the SV80ED plus the Vixen Polaris that I am refurbishing would make a decent portable astrophotography rig.

I had thought of buying a Takahashi FS-60C to serve as a posh guide scope and portable imaging rig, but the FS-60C is quite expensive and the accessories and adapters to actually make it usable add even more to the cost.  So I went for the used SV80ED even though I knew it would not have perfect color correction.

So how bad, exactly, is an f/7 ED (probably FPL-51) doublet?  to answer this question, I piggybacked the SV80ED on my AT90EDT, and transferred my DSLR (a Canon EOS 40D) from one tube to the other.  In both cases I used the Altair Astro Lightwave 0.6X reducer/flattener.

First off: Sirius.  Admittedly a tough test for an ED doublet.  SV80ED:

and here is the AT90EDT. 10-second exposure.

Second: M44, the Beehive Cluster.  This image is from the SV80ED:

and this image from the AT90EDT. Also a 10-second exposure. Because the AT90EDT is only f/6.7 the focal length of the two scopes are very similar (540mm and 600mm).

I was unable to see any violet fringing on the Moon at prime focus on the SV80ED, however. It was very instructive to do fine-focusing with the DSLR Live View at maximum magnification.  On the FPL-53 triplet the star remained pure white with beautiful diffraction rings inside or outside focus; while with the ED doublet I immediately saw color aberrations once out of focus.

So the quick answer: even a non-critical imager will quickly find fault in the SV80ED, namely the blue halo around bright stars.  For visual, or for deep space objects, I expect the ED doublet would perform perfectly adequately.