http://www.skyandtelescope.com.au 69usually run as fully automated systems,
leaving routine focusing adjustments
and camera control to sophisticated
computer programs. While I did
install the scope (on a Software Bisque
Paramount MX) in my backyard
observatory, it was under moderately
light-polluted metropolitan skies. And
almost all of my imaging was done
the old-fashioned way with me next
to the scope focusing it manually and
operating the cameras.
I also spent a couple of evenings
using the scope visually to hunt down
a selection of double stars and brighter
deep sky targets. This is admittedly
unusual testing for an instrument
mainly designed as an astrograph, but
it was sent to me with adapters for
conventional 1¼- and 2-inch eyepieces,
so why not? While the FSQ-130ED
did deliver exquisite views through an
eyepiece, it was not an easy scope to use
visually. Because of the focuser’s limited
travel, switching eyepieces, adding a
star diagonal, or using a Barlow lens for
increased magnification often required
adding or subtracting adapters from the
setup. And because most of the adapters
thread together, this proved to beSAlthough light pollution interferes
with recording traditional RGB colour
images of faint deep sky objects from the
author’s observatory, exposures made
with narrowband filters are only mildly
affected. This 5¾-hour exposure of the
Horsehead Nebula was made through
a 7-nm hydrogen-alpha filter. The small
halos around the two brilliant stars in
Orion’s Belt are almost certainly caused by
the CCD camera and its filters rather than
by the telescope optics.challenging and time-consuming in the
dark. Despite the nearly flawless views,
I wouldn’t recommend this scope solely