13" Odyssey 1 Dobson I won in the SVAS raffle last month
North of Chico CA, my front yard
Faintest star seen naked eye mag 6.4 in Ursa Minor
seeing was poor (5/10)
Following contains descriptions of objects with interjected comments about the equipment used. Hey, I got a new scope so I'm entitled!
Set the scope out at 9:15. Installed mirror and collimated while still twilight. Let scope cool.
Began observing just before 10pm.
| M27 - Dumbbell Nebula |
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| I really like having this new 13"! It shows considerably more than my 10" The dumbbell looks the same apparent size, but there is considerable detail in the tendrils internal to the hourglass structure. It looks great in the finder at 15x too. The OIII filter brings out more details in the structure, quite nice at low to medium power. |
| M57 - Ring Nebula |
| An old favorite; I always visit it while I'm dark adapting... seldom return later in the evening. It's scary, my 80mm finder is as big as my first scope, looking at it through the finder brought back some memories (is that M57, or a defocused star?). Nice compact ring, hint of structure in the thickness at 143x (10.5mm TeleVue plossl). Comparison with the 12mm Brandon and the 10.5mm TeleVue, the Brandon wins by a hair. Unfair comparison due to differing focal lengths, but the Brandon does seem sharper. |
| NGC 6992 -- Veil nebula |
| Gorgeous with OIII, naked eye it is faint and smudgy. With the OIII and 32mm Plossl (47x) it is absolutely stunning! I can see twice the detail compared to the 10" I increased the mag to 88x (17mm TeleVue) and began scanning around the Arc. The Eastern section is gorgeously set to a bright star with a thick defined tendril. The Western most arc is large, thick with many coves and textures. Like milk poured over a black velvet cloth. |
| NGC5067 -- Pelican nebula |
| An old favorite... I can hardly find it without the OIII filter... with the OIII and 32mm TeleVue, it has similar surface brightness/contrast to the OIII without the filter. It's there, two main segments about 1.2 degrees across total. |
| NGC7000 -- North American Nebula |
| Similar to Pelican (and right next door, both 1 degree West-NW of Deneb in Cygnus). Without the OIII filter it blends into the milky way, with OIII it stands out and N.American shape is very apparent. It fills two eyepiece fields of the 32mm (1.07 degree field) making the nebula roughly 2degrees by 1.5 degrees. If you center on the Midwest region of US (grin) the nebulosity fills my entire field of view and seems fairly uniform (where did the nebula go?) until you slew away and find a border in some direction. |
| Beta Cygnus -- Albireo |
| Gorgeous as always. A summer jewel in the center of the triangle, just at the beak of Cygnus the swan. Thought to be a miss translation of the three syllabic Arabic work for "Hen's Beak," this apparent binary dazzles all who look with wonderfully contrasting blue and yellow colors. For some reason the colors appear even more striking with smaller aperture, but perhaps I just had better seeing when I had my old Criterion 6" Newt. :) |
| M81/M82 in The back of the bear |
| These two galaxies barely fit into the same field of the 13" with 32mm televue plossl, just about a degree apart. They are gorgeous and striking. One edge on irregular galaxy set next to a large bright elliptical smudge of a galaxy. I adore having them easily fit within the field of a 26mm on my 10" (the sacrifices one must make with increased aperture). I don't really notice a lot more detail than I remember seeing with the 10", but they are low on the horizon. |
| M51 -- Whirlpool galaxy |
| Incredible. The spiral structure just jumps out at 13" aperture. With the 10" it is there on good seeing nights, the old 6" showed definite spiral structure only on the best of nights. I could usually convince myself I could see the spiral shape any night with the 6", but it normally it wouldn't just "be there for all to see" Of course I have a highly developed averted imagination, which has helped my observing log greatly over the years :) Seemed best at 58x with the 26mm plossl. Typically, I can only see a bright core with "nebulosity" going out to the core of the companion. Tonight the "nebulosity" is several clearly defined spiral arms with alternating dark and light regions, truly breathtaking. |
| M13 -- God of Globbies in Herc |
| This big fellow always impresses. It's at the zenith, right in Dobson's hole. I almost broke my neck looking through the 80mm straight through finder. OUCH... I need to buy a Telrad for this thing PRONTO. I love the 80mm and M13 was a treat in that at 15x, but MAN, straight though wasn't meant to be. If I bought it separately, I would have gotten the right angle model and amici 90 degree diagonal. Perhaps I can cut 2" off the tube and add the diagonal later? Anyway, back to M13. Gorgeous at low power as always, with the 10.5mm TeleVue (143x) it was "resolved to the core" Again, that damned Brandon 12mm was a tad shaper than the TeleVue Plossl. I hate that, I can't afford to buy $200 eyepieces... I was lucky enough to get this one with a used telescope! |
| Mars -- God of boiling atmospheres |
| That's not mars, that's a red ball of goo! Darned atmosphere. Hey, the disc is smaller than last week... how'd that happen? Too bad I just see orange. Finder test. 10.5mm in 300mm fl finder for 30x: Mars isn't supposed to have a green corona, is it? Gotta love cheap 80mm f/3.8 optics. Great at low power, but chromatic aberrations abound past 20x. I was wondering why anyone in his or her right mind would buy this from Lumicon for $200 when you can get an Orion ST80 for less. But I put it on my new scale and it read 31.6oz, about half the weight of the ST80. No wonder. Less than 2lbs for an 80mm finder. Geez. Star fields are gorgeous in it. At the Milky Way I don't even want to look in the 13" anymore. Wish I had bought one long ago! I can see every deep sky object in this review with the finder (ok I was using my OIII on the pelican... cheater cheater!) but it has a 1.25" helical focuser, so I just put my regular eyepieces in it. I use a 20mm MA wide field eyepiece normally for 15x and 4.3 degree field. |
| Sagittarius star cloud |
| God this is wonderful. The energy crisis has halved (or better) Chico's light dome to the South! I spent 10 minutes with the finder alone here. Gorgeous star clouds, about 2 dozen readily visible nebulas and clusters in the 80mm finder. I panned all the way up to Suctum and back down. Below are the highlights. |
| M17 - Swan nebula |
| My favorite overall target. Absolutely breathtaking. With the OIII it has so much more detail; incredible. The UHC does a fair job, but this is one of the 6 or so nebulas that just scream for an OIII (Swan, Veil, Dumbbell, Helix, N.American/Pelican, Lagoon). Though, the UHC produces bluish stars, which is much more natural than the violet color stars the Lumicon OIII Produces. Still, the nebulosity begs for viewing. Amazing at all powers up to 143x. Nice. Nice. Nice. Again, my 13" raffle prize is really welcome in my yard. Can't wait for my 16" project to get underway! The swan always looks JUST like its namesake with the OIII, a graceful swan swimming on a lake of reflected stars (sometimes almost upside down and to the left, but hey, it works). I can easily see the swan shape in my finder with no filter at 15x!!!! |
| M8 Lagoon/M21 Trifid nebulas |
| Two neat nebulas. There are 4 clusters within a degree as well. The lagoon is gorgeous with or without a filter. The OIII nearly doubles the visible nebulosity (perhaps more dramatic for me than most as Sag. is still near Chico's light dome). The Trifid plainly shows its 3 folds (and hence name) with the OIII, without the OIII It is difficult to resolve one of the dividers (dust lanes?). |
| M24 |
| Neato! Just South of the Swan. Easily visible cluster with some nebulosity. |
| M16 -- eagle nebula |
| Didn't spend much time here hey it is no Hubble picture (the infamous backdrop for many a battle in the Babylon 5 TV show). |
| M11 -- Wild duck open cluster (in Scutum) |
| Quack, Quack! I had fun with this one. Looked almost like a nebulous object in the finder, at 47x in the 13" it was really resolved nicely. |
| M28 - gorgeous globular |
| Oh my God! How gorgeous! This cluster snapped into focus and almost knocked me off my feet (really with the squat needed on these old Odyssey 1's). I think this is more gorgeous than M13. Better than any photo I've ever seen of a cluster. Some things naked eyes have an advantage. Your brain is terribly good at filtering out saturation, your eye moves automatically and the view is gorgeous and stunning. Film saturates and drowns out the stars in a wash of glow, CCDs seldom have pinpoint fields across an entire globular, your eye and a good scope just nail it. WOW! The mirror on this 13" is amazing. |
Ok that's it for now. I found about two dozen other faint fuzzies by scanning. But I didn't bring my atlas with me tonight, purely a sky tour from memory and for fun. The moon is coming up as I write this (12:40am). Going outside to look at the moon.
Moon is gorgeous! 1:55am, just above the haze. Oh My GOD the finder view is amazing. Oh my, oh my. 15x and RAZOR sharp with no hint of any aberrations, chromatic or otherwise. SWEET. Pop in an eyepiece, 17mm TeleVue plossl for 88x: EUUUU yuck, boiling, jumping, swirling, bad seeing. Ok, it's not terrible but I'm picky. The third time I've used this 13" and the first time it wasn't side by side with my old faithful 10" Dob, I swear I can tell the extra turbulence with the 13" It picks up more than my 10" and I could plainly see in side by side that the 10" picked up more than the 6" I had. Some day I'll get another 6" f/8 for lunar/planetary. Not as good as aperture on a clear night but there are only 5 nights a year I can use 300x-600x with my 10" and see more detail. I suspect there will be only one or two nights like that for the 13" But, due to the average size of turbulence cells being between 8" and 6" there are many many nights when 300x on Saturn looked wonderful with the old 6" (those elusive moments where you wait out the turbulence cells, they line up and VOILA, 3 or 4 minutes of celestial bliss). I should count my self EXTREMELY lucky. All 3 of my reflectors have had excellent mirror with near perfect airy dics the 6" and 10" would show Cassini on the worst on nights, easily. We'll see if the 13" stacks up. So far star testing it looks perfect. No astigmatism. Perfectly identical concentric circles inside and outside of focus. All circles are evenly spaced. No turned edge, no zones, and only a hint of roughness! Man, I'm a lucky bum! Heck, even the diffraction spikes on in focus bright spars have bars (I've never seen those on my 10")!!!! Amazingly clear optics.
Pros for the 13" Coulter Odyssey:
Cons:
All in all, I'll probably sell the 13" to finance my 16" Dob project but I'm tempted to remake it into a Truss Tube for fun. It has a wonderful Pyrex Mirror that has been in a box covered in lens tissue since 1984 when it was bought new. The coatings look brand new, with only my thumb print (DOH!) on one small edge of the mirror. I had more dust fall on the mirror last night observing than there was when I won it, and the SVAS guys said they never cleaned it. Still, it is the cleanest mirror I've ever owned. But the Odyssey tube needs to be replaced at the very minimum. Getting a regular sonotube, ditching the box and tail gate setup for a light weight 15" ID sonotube, Novak cell and spider, downsize the secondary from 3.1" to 2.6" and get a 2" Crayford focuser which puts the focus point at 1.75" from the tube would help this beast a lot! The other amazing thing is that the tube looks brand new! The paint still looks fresh. It is in the best condition of any Odyssey I've ever seen. The powder blue paint looks like it was applied yesterday. I'm always nostalgic and hate to part with or change such things. The previous owner bought it new, never used it, and then sold it to SVAS as a grand prize in their Star-B-Q- raffle. Lucky me, I was the winning ticket. I also won a 32mm TeleVue, 21mm TeleVue, 10.5mm TeleVue Plossls, Lumicon 1.25" UHC and a 2.5x TeleVue Barlow in the package to boot! Not to mention the 80mm Lumicon finder and brackets. Add this to spending every penny I own to buy the 16" Meade DS-16 for $600 the previous weekend, I think I'm about the luckiest astronomer on the block!