Ok, just received the Stellarvue AT1010 Nighthawk from Wira today. It's a 80mm f/6 achromat refractor. Mine was a black tube, didn't come with red dot finder nor a finder scope. There were 2 tube rings supplied with the scope.
The dew cap of the scope is long, much longer than any of the refractors i have ever seen. The ota is slighty heavier than the Megrez80 and Borg76Ed, but lighter than the pronto.
Focuser knob is oversized, which makes it quite a pleasure to rack the focuser in and out. The focuser have alot of back focus, in fact, u wouldn't need a diagonal to come to focus on this scope. There is a screw to adjust the tension of the focuser, but mine did not seem to do a good job, tightening the screw causes the focuser to be grainy and not smooth. Loosening it a little and i could feel the smoothness of the focuser, maybe not as smooth as the megrez but good enough for normal use.
We mounted this scope on a vixen GP-D, which is kind of overkill for this tiny little scope. Skies wasn't that great tonite, the only object me and charlie could find is mars. Starting off with a 32mm eyepiece and a william optics 2 inch diagonal, we had a quick glance at the mars. With only 480mm of focal length, all we saw is a small red dot. Trying on a 12.5mm antares ortho, we could not come to focus, there was not enough infocus with the 2inch diagonal in place. Taking off the diagonal we were able to see mars thru this 12.5mm ortho. Polar caps were visible, but image was still too small.
Next we move on to a 9mm MA eyepiece. Image got a little bigger, but the same problem exist, there is not enought infocus to use the 2inch diagonal therefore we are still stuck with an akward position, as mars is at zenith. False colour was non-existent, as we did not push magnification.
This time i played with the focuser, racking the eyepiece in and out, i could see the mars slowly defocus. The image slowly turn from a sharp red ball into a fan shape, the optics were out of alignment >.< Not sure if the previous owners are aware of the problem. Maybe someone can help me with the alignment one of these days.
~MooEy~
Brief impression of Stellarvue Nighthawk AT1010
Re: Brief impression of Stellarvue Nighthawk AT1010
I owned this scope before....and it's highly unlikely that the optics are out of alignment. I remembered that this scope gave me very good views.MooEy wrote:sh magnification.
This time i played with the focuser, racking the eyepiece in and out, i could see the mars slowly defocus. The image slowly turn from a sharp red ball into a fan shape, the optics were out of alignment >.< Not sure if the previous owners are aware of the problem. Maybe someone can help me with the alignment one of these days.
~MooEy~
Did you do a star test? Got check collimation?
ok, 2nd day with the scope. went over to wira's place and after that went out to ob a little. started off trying to collimate the scope by adjusting the 3 screws holding the focuser. after 2 hours of trying, we finally gave up.
Went over the charlie's house, i decided to dismantle the entire scope and see what is causing the problem. Taking off the 3 screws of the focuser, i discovered one of them is shorter than the other two, and the shorter screw was on the right side. I screw back everything, with the shorter screw at the bottom.
3rd attempt to use the scope. I put in a 13mm nagler and pointed at mars. first thing i noticed is that the collimation problem was gone, initially we thought it was the nagler eyepiece doing the magic. But then later we switched over to other eyepiece and the image was still perfect, no sign of miscollimation.
I proceed to look at Rigel, putting in a 12.5mm ortho and a 1.25inch 45 degree diagonal, i started to rack the focuser in and out, the diffraction rings were perfect, chromatic abberation exist, but did not bother me much.
Next target, a star slighty below rigel, sirrus. this time we could see the purple fringing quite obvious. Beside my nighthawk was charlie's flt110. both scope show roughly the same diffraction rings, virtually perfect, which i thought was good for this achromat.
After playing around with the brighter stars, i tried hunting for objects. M42 was easily located, but was a little small and dim. looking thru the flt i could see so much more of the nebulae.
The clouds started to come in, we decided to call it a day and started packing up. It seems that taking apart my set up was alot faster than the flt, just a manfrotto tripod, eyepieces and the scope.
Before going back to charlie's house, we decided to see one last object, and that is the moon. Putting in the 13mm nagler and the WO 2inch diagonal, we could see the moon clearly. It was extremely sharp and contrasty, but image size is a little small, but that didn't bother much. no false colour is observed on the moon.
After the collimation problem was fixed, i had quite a good time with this scope. the manfrotto tripod with the fluid head which wira lend me was a perfect combination for this scope, just have to balance it properly.
False colour exist on brighter stars like rigel and sirrus but shouldn't matter much considering the kind of price u pay for.
Conclusion, a cheapo achromat that shows u what a premium refractor is capable of, sharp and contrasty images.
~MooEy~
Went over the charlie's house, i decided to dismantle the entire scope and see what is causing the problem. Taking off the 3 screws of the focuser, i discovered one of them is shorter than the other two, and the shorter screw was on the right side. I screw back everything, with the shorter screw at the bottom.
3rd attempt to use the scope. I put in a 13mm nagler and pointed at mars. first thing i noticed is that the collimation problem was gone, initially we thought it was the nagler eyepiece doing the magic. But then later we switched over to other eyepiece and the image was still perfect, no sign of miscollimation.
I proceed to look at Rigel, putting in a 12.5mm ortho and a 1.25inch 45 degree diagonal, i started to rack the focuser in and out, the diffraction rings were perfect, chromatic abberation exist, but did not bother me much.
Next target, a star slighty below rigel, sirrus. this time we could see the purple fringing quite obvious. Beside my nighthawk was charlie's flt110. both scope show roughly the same diffraction rings, virtually perfect, which i thought was good for this achromat.
After playing around with the brighter stars, i tried hunting for objects. M42 was easily located, but was a little small and dim. looking thru the flt i could see so much more of the nebulae.
The clouds started to come in, we decided to call it a day and started packing up. It seems that taking apart my set up was alot faster than the flt, just a manfrotto tripod, eyepieces and the scope.
Before going back to charlie's house, we decided to see one last object, and that is the moon. Putting in the 13mm nagler and the WO 2inch diagonal, we could see the moon clearly. It was extremely sharp and contrasty, but image size is a little small, but that didn't bother much. no false colour is observed on the moon.
After the collimation problem was fixed, i had quite a good time with this scope. the manfrotto tripod with the fluid head which wira lend me was a perfect combination for this scope, just have to balance it properly.
False colour exist on brighter stars like rigel and sirrus but shouldn't matter much considering the kind of price u pay for.
Conclusion, a cheapo achromat that shows u what a premium refractor is capable of, sharp and contrasty images.
~MooEy~
