First light

Last week (Thursday 03/14/2008) to be precise, I received my Antares refractor telescope which I had purchased online through the Agena Astro-products web-site. The scope was delivered by UPS in a box that was just under 7' long. Even the UPS driver was wondering and said he rarely saw boxes like these. The scope was well packed. The optical tube was in a plastic bag and semi-circular foam cutouts were used to hold the tube in position. The scope is indeed very long and I am glad that I went for the 1300mm focal length and not for the 1500mm version. The optical tube came with the the dew shield, the finder base, the rings and the dovetail plate all assembled together. It meant that the OTA could be taken out of the box and put right on a mount. But there was another box about a foot long in the main box. This one contained the finder and the finder rings with a quick release bracket. All components --- the OTA, trhe finder had all the caps, etc.


I am not very happy with the cap that fits the focuser. First of all, the focuser is a 2" Crayford style and has an adapter for 1.25" eyepieces. I would have preferred that Antares spend a little more and gave a 2" as well as 1.25" cap. Most amateurs that I know have both eyepieces. Another cap that annoyed me was the cap that fit the dew shield i.e. lens side of the OTA. This is a press-fit style of cap and when I tried removing the cap, the rubber gasket at the end of the dew shield came off. This is another cap that Antares needs to improve. The cap here has to be one that fits from outside of the tube and not from the inside.


Next, I removed the finder, attached the quick release bracket and mounted the finder onto the OTA. So the tube assembly was complete. It took me less than 15mins from the time I opened the box to getting everything assembled. I already had my Orion Sky-view-Pro mount ready and attached the dovetail plate of the OTA to the mount. Everything fit well and there were no surprises there. Even though the tube is so long, it is not very heavy. As a result, I had to use just one counter-weight as opposed to two that are supplied with this mount. Then I attached the diagonal which I had and finally an eyepiece. A few more minutes spent on balancing the scope and I was ready to go. I pointed the scope to a distant tower. The tower was visible clearly and looked amazing. The image was crisp, clear and there was no sign of violet fringing. Next, I bumped up the magnification by switching from a 40mm to 20mm eyepiece. This ones a wide-field having 65degrees AFOV. With 65X magnification, I could easily make out details on that tower. An amateur astronomer is however not satisfied with pointing the scope to a distant tower. After all, the reason I bought the scope was to point it to astronomical objects and not to use it as a spotting scope.


So I waited for night fall and around 11:00pm that night, I was able to see the moon through one of my windows. Finally I had something of significance to look at. I pointed the scope to the moon and there it was, a magnificent work of asteroids and meteorites over millions and billions of years --- the caters, the hills, the valleys, the shadows. And it looked so wonderful. Even when pointing the scope through about 3/4" glass of my window, I was able to see things clearly. This was good news. It meant that the optics were good, really good. I was impatient for the next day (Friday) when we are going to have a star-party at the Onan observatory. Next morning, I got up, went to work and came back home running (or rather driving fast) for the star party. Coming home, I saw that the star party was canceled. What ???? Star party canceled !!! I couldn't believe it. Yes, it was canceled due to the forecasted cloudy weather. Things are usually always this way --- whenever someone buys a new piece of equipment, it guarantees that the skies will be cloudy. This is nothing bu Murphy's law at play here. Feeling sad and cursing the skies, I went out for a drive. As I went away from the city, the skies became clear. Now this was a classic example of Murphy's law at it's worst. First the party was canceled due to cloudy skies and after that the skies cleared up. Man, I was really pissed off. As the night wore on, the skies were crystal clear.


Next day (Saturday) I waited for the alternate star party (if Friday is cloudy, there is an alternate party on Saturdays). I was reading the club-forums, watching the weather, almost all day. Just couldn't wait to get out to the party and enjoy the new scope. On the forums, there was a small discussion about how yesterday's night was clear and that the star party should have been ON but all that was in the past. The weather forecast on TV, the clear-sky clock and the various websites were showing about 20-50% cloudy and I was really thinking that I should have got out yesterday night. As expected, later that day even the Saturday night's star party was canceled and I had all my hopes dashed. I was looking out of the window and the skies were looking less than 20% cloudy. This seemed a case just like the night before when the skies eventually turned out to be clear and the star-party was canceled. Dejected, I watched the idiot box (TV) for sometime while continuing to browse the Internet. Then the club web-site announced that the star-party was ON. I was completely elated and started packing. Made a quick list of things that I needed to carry, dismantled the scope and the mount and loaded up the car. I also took a star-chart and was on my way to Onan. I reached Onan around 08:00pm or so and quickly unloaded my car. Removed the mount and quickly set it up. Attached the counter-weight and then the scope. Since I was not going to do astro-photography, I did just a rough alignment of the polar (RA) axis. The axis angle was already setup to 45degrees so all I had to do was to to point it to the pole star.


After completing the setup, it was time for the "first light" and it had to be the moon. Trying to point the scope at the moon (which was almost overhead), it quickly became apparent that the eyepiece end of the tube was going very low. In fact the eyepiece was less than 2' from the ground. This was a pain. I had completely forgotten that the mount had extensible legs so out came the legs and the eyepiece was now more than 3' from the ground. This was much better. The moon now looked wonderful, amazing --- whatever adjective you want to apply to the earth's only natural satellite. There was absolutely no trace of the violet fringing around the moon's limb. I bumped up the magnification to 65X (20mm eyepiece) and thing were still better. A couple of people from the club also saw through the telescope and were surprised at the lack of color. A few even asked me if it was a semi-apochromatic and I had to tell them that the scope was a simple crown/flint cemented-doublet. Increasing the magnification to 130X (10mm Plossl) made it even better. Even though the 10mm eyepiece is not very good, the moon appeared flawless. close examination of the limb did reveal some minor violet fringing which was to be expected. I wish i had an eyepiece with a focal length in the range of 6-8mm so I could have done more testing at higher magnifications.


Next, it was time for the warlord planet Mars. Mars appeared like a small reddish disc and at low magnification (32.5X), I could barely make out it's disc. At 65X, the disc was clearly visible and so was a small whitish area which I think was the polar cap. At 130X, the polar cap was distinctly visible. However, I must admit that I was somewhat disappointed with Mars as I had expected more. Later on, I turned the scope to the Lord of the rings --- Saturn. Saturn is amazing to look even from a small telescope. With such a long focus instrument, Saturn was a beauty to watch. with the magnification at 130X, the planet was wonderful. It soon became apparent that I needed eyepieces that could deliver more power. The rings were clearly visible and so was the shadow of the rings on the planet. The Cassini division was somewhat visible and I strongly suspect that with more magnification it would be better visible.


Overall, my impressions of the instrument are really good. I left the day wishing that I had better eyepieces and a finder so that I could make more of this wonderful instrument. I am very satisfied with this scope.