It's Finally Arrived!

[AstronomyUkraine]

My Esprit 120 finally arrived yesterday. I ordered the scope back in July, and after months of delays I received a call from the PO, to come and pick it up. I was faced with a huge box, well over a metre in length, and was thinking they must have sent the wrong scope, the box looked way too big for a scope with a FL of 840mm.

Inside the box was a very sturdy black case with wheels at one end. The case was very well constructed, with a handle at either end, and one on the front of the case. It has a very good locking system, which could incorporate the use of padlocks, if one so wished. I doubt I will ever use the case again, it's not exactly a portable scope.

Now for the interesting bit, the scope. The scope inside was very secure, and held in place with an interesting design that incorporated foam balls as padding, to stop any movement in transport.

The scope comes with a selection of accessories, most of which will stay in the box. It comes with a 28mm eyepiece, which is the same one that come with my ED80. The star diagonal is also the same as the one that come with my ED80. The 9x50 finderscope will not get used, I have no need for it. It comes with an 3" to 48mm extension tube, which I wasn't expecting, whether I need this or not, will have to wait until the clouds clear, and find my focus point.

Finally, on to the scope itself. It looks a thing of beauty, the build quality is far superior to my ED80. It is a lump of a scope, probably 13kg with all my accessories attached to it. I have two 5.1kg counterweights on the counterweight shaft, and both are at the bottom of the shaft, and I still have a field flattener and my auto focuser to attach to the scope, hope I don't need another counterweight.

The focuser has a very smooth action, and has no problem lifting my filter wheel and ASI 1600, even with the micro adjuster. I'm waiting for a bracket to come so I can attach my ZWO autofocuser to the scope, the existing bracket does not fit the Esprit 120. I don't believe manual focusing will be a problem with this scope at all, it needs minimum effort to adjust focusing.

One problem I will have is with star shape, until my field flattener arrives. I was tempted to buy the new 0.77x reducer for the Esprit 120, which would have give it a respectable 646.8 Fl, and a quite fast f5.39, but with galaxy season coming up, I opted for the flattener, the reducer will be a future purchase.

Overall I am very impressed with what I have seen so far, with one exception, the retractable dew shield is poorly thought out in my opinion. There is a 3mm gap between the shield and the scope body, not exactly a snug fit. It has two screws to secure the dew shield when it is extended, but touching the dew shield causes it to pivot on those two screws. A far better option would have been to use 3 screws at 120° apart, stopping any movement of the dew shield. If it becomes a problem I will drill another two screw holes in the shield, stopping any possible movement.

When the skies finally clear, I will post another article on first light impressions.

Brian

[Carastro]

Glad to hear it has finally arrived Brian.  I have the Esprit100 and have the same comments as yourself, including what i feel is a rather flimsy dew shield when you consider the quality of the rest of the scope.  

I really think the case is overkill, like you I will not be using the accessories, so to have a case made approx 1/3 bigger than is needed for the scope, makes it unnecessarily big and heavy, especially for me as I will be taking it in my small car to Astro camp when I can eventually get there again.

Carole  

[AstronomyUkraine]

Posted by: @Carastro

I have the Esprit100 and have the same comments as yourself, including what i feel is a rather flimsy dew shield when you consider the quality of the rest of the scope.  

Thanks Carole

It surprised me too. A little afterthought and one additional screw would have eliminated any wobble. I'm glad Skywatcher brought out a dedicated reducer for the 120, this will come in useful for imaging larger nebula. So far they only have them for the 150 and 120, but the 100 could benefit from a reducer as well. A 0.77 reducer would make the scope quite fast at f4.2 and a fl of 423.5, good for wider angle images.

Brian

[Carastro]

I bought myself a reducer anyway for the Esprit 100 as one of the reasons for buying it was to have faster optics and using a flattener was not going to achieve that.  I had sussed out a couple of people who were successfully using the TS79 reducer so I bypassed the flattener and bought that.

Have only managed to do one image since getting the spacing right due to clouds and wanting to image a couple of winter widefield targets with my Samyang lens.  

Carole 

 

[AstronomyUkraine]

Posted by: @Carastro

I bought myself a reducer anyway for the Esprit 100 as one of the reasons for buying it was to have faster optics and using a flattener was not going to achieve that.  I had sussed out a couple of people who were successfully using the TS79 reducer so I bypassed the flattener and bought that.

Was looking at the TS option myself. It seems like an all in one solution for various scopes regarding fl. I just wonder whether these companies that bring out "dedicated" reducer/flatteners, are guilty of marketing BS.

,

[Carastro]

Posted by: @AstronomyUkraine

I just wonder whether these companies that bring out "dedicated" reducer/flatteners, are guilty of marketing BS.

I guess you have to get the correct curvature for the scope, but luckily for me I had 2 people who had used it successfully, so all I had to do then was get the spacing right.  I did try the Esprit out with my WO focal reducer when I first got the Esprit just to make sure I wasn't wasting my money, and the result was utterly horrible.  So I guess you do have to get the right reducer.  

TS Optics were a bit reluctant at first and tried to sell me the dedicated flattener, but as soon as I told them that their reducer had been tried and tested they were quite happy to sell it to me.  

Carole