Australian Sky & Telescope - May 2018

68 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE May | June 2018

weighsabout30kg.Butit’stheoptical

assembly (a.k.a. ‘the tube’) that presents

the biggest challenge. Complete with

thesidecradlesattachedtotheprimary-

mirror assembly, the tube weighs almost

45 kg, and it’s quite awkward for one

person to lift and position on the base.

ButIstillfoundthiseasiertodothan

to assemble the tube beginning with

the primary-mirror assembly (by itself

a27+kgunit)placedonthebase.The

problemhereforonepersonistryingto

get the secondary-mirror cage attached

tothetopofthesixtrusspoleswhile

theyarepointing2.1metresabovethe

ground and flailing around.

As twilight receded down the

westernsky,IpointedtheStargate

tobrilliantVega.AlthoughI’mwell

over1.8metrestall,Icouldjustreach

theeyepiecewhenstandingona

22-cm-high step stool. At 196×Vega

appeared dazzlingly bright with four

razor-sharp diffraction spikes extending

across my 18-arcminute-wide field of

view. Boosting the magnification to

308 ×andrackingtheeyepiecefrom

one side of focus to the other revealed

diffraction patterns suggesting that the

optics in this scope were very good, but

Vega was really too bright for a good

star test, so I nudged the scope to the

northeast to look at Epsilon Lyrae, the

famous Double-Double.

Moving my eye from the Stargate’s

9 ×50 finder to the 308× eyepiece

provided me with a dramatic, in-your-

face example of the advantages that

a big aperture brings to many types

of observing. The tightly spaced

components of this pair of double stars

were cleanly resolved with a wide gap

of dark sky between the tight pairs.

And all four stars were surrounded

with neat sets of diffraction rings.

I’ve seen this kind of clearly resolved

separation at similar magnifications

with smaller, high-quality telescopes,

but there were added dimensions to the

view in the Stargate. Each of the four

stars vividly displayed its own delicate

hue — something that is far more subtle

with smaller apertures. And there was a

multitude of faint background stars that

go mostly unnoticed through smaller

scopes, giving a truly three-dimensional

feel to the scene. It was now obvious

that the optics were indeed very good.

With my appetite whetted for more, I

decided to engage the motor drives and

attempt the necessary star alignment

for Go To pointing and tracking even

though I hadn’t yet gone through the

manual for Sky-Watcher’s SynScan drive

system. Following instructions that

scroll across the hand control, and after

a few false starts (mainly because of

accidentally pushing the wrong buttons

on the hand control), I got the drive

working, and I grabbed a star chart to

see what interesting objects were within

my limited view of the sky. Despite my

less-than-ideal alignment, the Go To

pointing was very good and tracking

was likewise good. Thus began a very

enjoyable evening of observing.

And it gets better

If I considered that first night good,

then the second night was nothing

short of spectacular. By then I’d made

a trip to the local hardware store and

picked up a small, cheap furniture

dolly and a two-tier step ladder. With

a couple of pieces of scrap wood I

supported the assembled Stargate on

the dolly and could easily roll it in and

out of my garage. Furthermore, as the

image on the next page shows, it was an

easy matter to lift each leg on the base

about 12 mm and slide a brick under it,

putting the scope on a solid footing free

of the dolly. After levelling the base and

marking which leg belonged on which

brick, I marked the location of the

With the threat of rain in the forecast,

the author spread out the parts of the

Stargate on his garage loor before

beginning the assembly process.

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