Australian Sky & Telescope - May 2018

70 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE May | June 2018

thetelescopefromits

four large shipping

boxestherewasa

prominentslipof

paperwiththebold

headline ‘Attention’.

It directed me to the

Sky-Watcher website

to download the latest

versionoftheSynScan

firmwareandinstallit

usinginstructionsinthe

manual.

This is rather

common for today’s

computerised scopes,

but I was dismayed

to see that the latest

version of the firmware

was dated more than

sixmonthsbeforethe

Stargate was shipped to

meforreview,andthe

versionoffirmwareinmyhandcontrol

wasevenolder.Anupdatewasclearly

needed to keep the review accurate,

butIcertainlywasn’tlookingforward

to another round of step-by-step

instructions in the manual.

Buthere’sthepunchline:Thewhole

procedure went precisely as described

intheSynScanmanualandtookabout

assembly, there are

misidentified parts

mentionedinthe

text that make the

assembly procedure

confusing. But

even worse are the

diagrams, many of

which are riddled

with errors. There are

mislabelled diagrams;

diagrams with missing

labels; and diagrams

mentionedinthe

text that simply don’t

exist. The worst of

these errors involved

the novel cable

system used for the

altitude drive, so the

manual will be less of

aproblemforpeople

who don’t purchase a

Stargate model with drives. But I found

theGoTopointingandtrackingto

be so valuable that I would strongly

recommendpeopleconsidergettingthe

scopes with motor drives.

Afterworkingthroughthescope’s

frustratingassemblyprocedure,I

worriedthatthingsweregoingtoget

even worse. When I initially unpacked

10minutes!Theonlyhurdlewasthe

required serial connection between the

computer and hand control to do the

update.Sincethehandcontrolneedsto

bepluggedintothescopeandpowered

on for the update, that meant bringing

acomputertothescope,andit’sbeen

yearssinceanyofmylaptopcomputers

has included a serial connection. I had

touseaUSB-to-serialadapter,which

wasnobigdeal.

Memories of the bumpy road

travelledtogetfromopeningthe

telescope’s shipping boxes to first light

with the Stargate 18-inch SynScan

instantly faded into the background

when I had that first look at the

Double Double mentioned earlier. And

were it not for writing this review,

itwouldhaveprobablystayedthat

way.TheStargateturnedouttobea

wonderfulinstrumenttouse.Aswith

any big telescope, there are special

considerations that go with storing,

moving,settingupandtakingdown

theStargate.Butifyou’repreparedfor

them,thenIcanstronglyrecommend

this telescope. It really is that good.

■DENNIS DI CICCOhas been writing

about astronomical equipment for more

than 40 years.

SThe SynScan hand control has

illuminated buttons and is typical

of many of today’s Go To systems.

Theauthorfounditeasytomaster.

S Left: The altitude drive for the Stargate SynScan models uses a wire-cable system visible in this view of the telescope base. It worked very well

but had to be disconnected from the telescope tube in order for the tube assembly to be removed from the base. Right: Electrical connections

for the SynScan drives are straightforward and well-marked. Furthermore, the cable connectors for the azimuth motor and encoder are slightly

different, making it impossible to attach them incorrectly, even in the dark.

S&T TEST REPORT