My Telescope And Gear

I realized that I have not posted any pictures of my telescope and gear.

 This is my 8" Skywatcher reflector scope with an EQ5 mount.  The focal length of the tube is 1000mm and the primary mirror aperture is 200mm, making this an F/5 telescope.  I added an Orion Duel Axis controller afterwards for about $125.  Two Plossl eyepieces came with it:  a 20mm and a 7.5mm.  Also purchased separately is a 2x Orion Shorty barlow lens.





I have owned this setup for about 3 years and I thoroughly enjoy using it.  The shipping weight was somewhere around 65 lbs, which makes it fairly difficult to move around when fully assembled.  I was completely lost on how to operate the equatorial mount the first time I attempted to do so.  It doesn't have free range of motion, but moves along the declination axis and right ascension axis.  This was a little tricky for me as a beginner.

The eyepieces are decent quality Plossl style and are pictured below.  They are both 1.25" and fully coated.  Calculating the magnification that each eyepiece with deliver is pretty simple.  Just divide the focal length of the telescope(in mm) by the focal length of the eyepiece(in mm).  So for my 20mm eyepiece I divide by the focal length (1000mm):  1000mm / 20mm = 50.  My 20mm eyepiece with magnify objects 50 times bigger than the naked eye.  My other eyepiece is 7.5mm.  1000mm / 7.5mm = 133x.  This makes objects appear 133 times bigger than the naked eye.  Using my 2x Shorty barlow will double the magnification of both eyepieces.  This sounds good but a lot of light is lost at these high magnifications.  I tend tend to only use the barlow when looking at brighter objects.

7.5mm and 20mm Plossl eyepieces.



Object tracking was something I realized right away that I really wanted.  Not only is it nice to have an object stay centered in the eyepiece, but I wanted to take pictures also.  I bought this Orion Dual Axis device:

  Orion True Track Electronic Drive

Powered by 4 D size batteries or an AC to DC adapter, this unit controls the declination and right ascension motors attached to the scope via two cables.  While tracking, only the RA motor is utilized to follow an object across the sky.  The DEC motor is only used to slew the scope to the desired position.
Of course the only way to get decent tracking is to have a properly aligned and leveled mount.  Doing so will provide up to 15 to 20 seconds of tracking good enough for a little astrophotography.  If you simply want tracking good enough to share the view with friends without having to constantly adjust the scope, this works very well.






 That's my brief introduction to my telescope and gear.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment.