by Phil Chambers
My Mak saw first light last night and I am still thoroughly impressed. The double double was showing airy disks and first diffraction rings at 250x. (6mm vixen lanth). It would cleanly split at 166 or so. At 250 you could walk between the pairs.
The defocused star images showed good diffraction rings and collimation that was right on. I glanced at the moon and the atmosphere was making me seasick ....
My intent was to do a side by side of the N5 and the Orion Mak but laziness and the business of a public star party prevented that.
One thing I noted was that the field is much flatter than the N5 OTA. Stars off center in the ep still had good collimated out-of-focus diff rings.
The diff rings were slightly different outside and inside of focus but I will wait to have better seeing and suiters book alongside before trying to analyze the thing.
The fov is very small but this is a -nice- scope. Everyone that tried it was impressed with the feel of the focuser. It took 250x with no trouble (50x per inch) and I am sure could go higher but better seeing will have to be available. At 250 the background was pretty dark but it will be interesting to see what this thing will do on Jupiter and Saturn. I have yet to be up that late or early to see them this season. Maybe next month at Calstar.
I got a kick out of lighting up the impromptu parking lot teen party that was developing in the darkened lot when I left. A few hundred watts of driving lights got their attention.