SkyWatcher Mak 90–more pictures, and using the mount in manual mode

More pictures of the SkyWatcher 90mm Backpacker Mak-Cass. Yesterday I took the multi-mount off its tabletop base and put it on my Manfrotto tripod for some digiscoping. I was using it without the power on, as a manually-aimed alt-az mount.

Another of those down-the-tube shots showing the optics. The point of this photo is different, though. Check out the knurled knob on the left that tightens the dovetail. Usually these just have a fat set-screw that goes straight onto the scope’s dovetail bar, and tightening that screw puts a tiny dent or ‘bite’ into the dovetail bar. On this mount, though, the set-screw bypasses the scope’s dovetail bar, and turning the hand knob tightens a broad metal clamp (the silver bit just underneath the hand knob in the above photo) that grips the dovetail bar along its entire length. So the scope is held more securely, and there’s no bite mark on the dovetail bar. Very nifty–I wish more mounts had this.

The big news about using the mount manually is simply that it can be used that way. You don’t want to manually aim the scope once the power is on, or you risk damaging the gears inside the mount, but as long as the power is off you can just grab the tube and point.

A close-up of the back end showing, from left to right, the Astro-Tech dielectric diagonal and 32mm Plossl I was using for birding, the six-screw  mount for the little 8×20 optical finder, and the dovetail clamp and adjacent latitude/altitude scale on the mount.

Getting lined up on a distant bird using the optical finderscope. Imagine that the mount was sitting on its tabletop base and that you were trying to find something high in the sky–eventually there is just no room to get your head behind the eyepiece of the finder. That’s why I strongly prefer RACI–right angle, correct image–finders, which orient the finder eyepiece in the same direction as the telescope eyepiece, so you can look down and in from above.

Waiting for the fall of night.

My two best shots of Jupiter with the little Mak. I could see about half a dozen distinct cloud bands at the eyepiece, and for once the photos bear that out. As usual, however, I could still see more detail at the eyepiece than the camera captured. The views are not as good as through the Apex 127–compare to the Jupiter photo here–but they’re not that far behind.

The waxing gibbous moon, again with the little Mak. This is probably the sharpest moon photo I’ve ever gotten with a 90mm Mak. This SkyWatcher scope is at least as good, optically, as the Orion Apex 90 I used to have. I don’t know yet if it’s as good as the Celestron C90, which has gotten stupid-good reviews, but I don’t think it will disappoint anyone. Last night the sky was still enough that I could run it up to 200x and the view was still razor-sharp. That’s 57x per inch of aperture, compared to the rough rule of thumb of 50x/inch in a good scope, so this little scope is punching above its weight. I haven’t tried to max out the magnification to see where it breaks down, but I think it will probably be quite a bit higher.

The fact that the meniscus is merely coated instead of multi-coated has not impaired the scope’s performance as far as I can tell. Possibly the few percent difference in light transmission will be noticeable when one can switch back and forth between this scope and one with a multi-coated meniscus; it is certainly not noticeable when using the scope on its own.

I still haven’t had time to try out the tracking function on the mount, but this afternoon I did put batteries in and slewed it around and didn’t have any problems. I’ll report back when I’ve had it out tracking under the stars.