About a year ago I started to think about getting a telescope, and I have finally acquired one. After considering alternatives and consulting with the dealer, I ended up with a SkyWatcher Explorer 150PDS. It is a 150 mm aperture and 750 mm focal length Newtonian reflector instead of an achromatic refractor that I had in mind initially. Along with the optical tube, I also ordered an 8-24 mm zoom ocular, a 2x Barlow lens, a moon filter and a collimation laser. Along with the included 28 mm LET ocular these give me magnifications between 26,8x and 187,5x.
I ordered the telescope from Teleskop Spezialisten because they proof and collimate the telescopes they sell. Indeed, it arrived perfectly collimated, I have not yet tried the collimation process myself. I had placed the order for the smaller 130 mm version, but due to delivery issues, I got the bigger tube at the same price.
While it feels a bit bulky, it is still fast to set up, and I can store easily it in the apartment. The only downside is that the weight is on the upper limit of the N-EQ3-2 mount. Unfortunately, the bigger EQ5 was beyond my budget.
Of course, the skies have been mostly overcast since I got the telescope, but there have been a couple of clear evenings on which I have been able to make the first observations.
Planets
I was able to observe Mars and Venus only during poor visibility. Mars was just a small blip, but Venus’ phase was clearly visible. In both cases, the vibrations were fairly annoying even with low magnification. It will be a while before Mars is again in opposition, but I hope to have better luck with Jupiter and Saturn when they are back in the field of view.
Deep Sky
Of the deep sky objects, I have only had luck with the Orion Nebula. On the first two observations, only the brightest part of the nebula was visible due to the Moon being in the sky. On the third time, the Moon was yet to rise and could see the curved regions extending from the centre. Everything was still pretty faint compared to the background sky, and I am probably going get a light pollution filter. The vibrations were not a problem up to 93,8x magnification. Which I also found to be to most comfortable magnification since the visible nebula filled most of the field of view. Unfortunately, I was not able to try out deep sky photography since I am yet to acquire tracking motors.
The Moon
From the observations so far the Moon has been to most satisfying. Even if not strictly necessary the moon filter made viewing a bit more comfortable. It found it easier to see details when the moon surface was not massively bright and removed the chromatic aberration of the Barlow lens. The filter is adjustable, and it was easy to find a good level of filtering.
With the Moon, I did not find the vibrations too annoying even with the maximum 187,5x magnification. I also took a couple of quick videos with my smartphone and the resulting processed images can be seen below. Both images were centred and cropped with PIPP, stacked with AutoStakkert! and edited with Polarr.
Overall I am satisfied with the telescope. The biggest issue so far is that using the finderscope is not very ergonomic. Also, the field of view from my balcony places some limits on the possible targets. For example, while Orion was well positioned; the Plajades were too high. Hopefully, enough interesting targets pass the through the view during the year.
