Sky-Watcher GreatStart 130N-EQ2 Newtonian Reflector Telescope
by Celestron
Our Price: $199.00
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Category: Digital Camera
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: CelestronModel: 130N-EQ2
Product features:
- Solid equatorial mount and aluminum tripod
- Planetarium software included
- Dimensions: 35" long x 36" wide x 55" high
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Sky-Watcher GreatStart 130N-EQ2 Newtonian Reflector Telescope
Customer Review: A fine first telescope for the serious beginner
Summary: 4 Stars
I've been observing for about three years and have used scopes of all types, including reflectors, refractors, and catadioptrics. My favorite scopes are manually-driven Dobsonian-mounted reflectors. I got this scope because I was looking for a mid-sized scope that would have more aperture than my 3.5" Maksutov and be more portable than my 10" Dobsonian.
Here are some thoughts on the scope, mount, and accessories:
- This is a handsome scope. With the black tube and white trim, it looks very sharp. The pictures I've seen, here and elsewhere, show a scope whose spider and secondary holder are white, at least on the front side. I am happy to report that that was not the case with mine. The outside of the front tube ring is white, but the inside of the tube ring, the secondary mirror support, and the inside of the tube are painted a nice flat black. There are a few exposed bolts on the inside of the tube that are not painted, but that's a five-minute fix if it bothers you (use a brush, and cover the mirrors first!).
- As always, the scope is bigger in real life than you think it will be from the pictures. Between the striking colors and the size, if it's in a room, it will visually dominate the space. With the tripod legs spread but not extended, you can carry it in one piece through a doorway (which is nice if you want to leave the accessory tray attached), but you'll want to be careful not to bang either the scope or the tripod going through. It weighs about 30 pounds assembled, but you can pick up the complete setup by the mount and tube and move it without bending over so it is pretty easy on the back.
- The eyepieces are advertised as being multi-coated but not fully multi-coated, and that's what their boxes say. They look identical to Orion's Sirius Plossls, which are also MC but not FMC. I didn't notice any differences in performance vis-a-vis my Sirius Plossls, which is a big win at this price point. In other words, you get nice clean, crisp views across a 52-degree apparent field.
- The Barlow is dodgy. The body is plastic, except for a metal ring, probably aluminum, that is screwed on to bring the otherwise skinny Barlow up to 1.25" in diameter. More seriously, the optics are not coated at all. When I look in or through my Orion 2x Shorty Barlow, I see small green reflections of nearby light sources. In the SW, the reflections are big, bright, and white. You don't need the Barlow with the 25mm EP, because then it would be functioning like a 12.5mm EP and the scope already comes with a 12mm. Using the Barlow with the 12mm EP would get you to 150x, which the scope ought to support, but at that point the weaknesses of the Barlow--mainly light loss and, irritatingly enough, chromatic aberration--really start to become noticeable. So don't let the Barlow influence your choice. It comes in the box and technically it does double your magnification, but it's also the first (or maybe second) thing you'll want to replace.
- I had a couple of fairly minor hiccups putting the mount together. The hole through the counterweight was partly blocked by some kind of flaky brown gunge. I've talked to one other person who bought this scope and found this stuff, which is apparently leftover primer and not a big deal. I knocked it out easily enough, and the counterweight itself is fine. Also, the bolts that hold the tube rings onto the mount come with lock washers, which believe me you will want. One of my lock washers was cut incorrectly--the ring made more than a complete circle so that the ends overlapped by 2-3mm and it could not lock. I tried replacing it with a thumbscrew, because I figured I could just keep an eye on the tension and tighten it up as needed, but it kept working loose almost immediately. So I cut off the excess from the lock washer using a Dremel, and now it works fine. These were both minor problems, and another acquaintance who bought this scope had no problems at all.
- The scope arrived slightly out of collimation (i.e., the mirrors were not quite in alignment, which degrades the quality of the images). I already had collimation tools, but people who don't may want to search online for instructions on how to make and use a film can collimator. Or you could make a homebrewed collimation cap by center-punching a hole in the dust cap for the Barlow lens.
- The mount and tripod are serviceable. I deliberately bumped the scope and vibrations died out in 2-3 seconds, which is not phenomenal but acceptable. All of the movements are smooth and the slow motion controls work well.
- I've looked through two of these scopes now, my own and a friend's, and both perform quite well. Saturn is gorgeous. At 75x with the 12mm eyepiece you can see the rings, the shadow of the rings on the planet, and several moons. The Ring Nebula, M57, looks very crisp with lots of pinpoint stars in the background, even from light-polluted suburban skies. The globular cluster M5 showed some tantalizing hints of detail at 36x and it was fairly grainy at 75x. And so on. This scope isn't going to seriously compete with an 8 or 10 inch scope, but it's a darn sight better than the skinny long-tube refractors on rickety tripods that serve as first telescopes for a lot of unfortunate stargazers.
If you get this scope and you have to deal with much light pollution, getting a magnifying finder will probably be your top priority. The red dot finder is fine for getting the scope pointed at stuff you can see with the naked eye (moon, planets, bright double stars) but star-hopping to stuff you can't see (galaxies, nebulae, most star clusters) is tricky. Eventually you'll also want a better Barlow or some decent eyepieces in focal lengths shorter than 10mm to reach higher powers. That said, everything is perfectly usable out of the box and this setup will probably keep you happy for a long time. In my opinion, this may be about the best deal ever offered on a telescope of reasonable quality. If you are even remotely interested, get one before they're gone.
Description of Sky-Watcher GreatStart 130N-EQ2 Newtonian Reflector Telescope
The Sky-Watcher GreatStart 130N-EQ2 is a Newtonian reflector telescope packaged with a sturdy equatorial mount, two plossl eyepieces, a 2X barlow lens, and planetarium software for your PC. Invented by Sir Isaac Newton, reflector telescopes provide more light gathering power per dollar than any other telescope design. With 130mm (5.1 inches) of aperture, the Sky-Watcher 130N produces images that are twice as bright as 90mm telescopes and more than four times brighter than 60mm beginner scopes.The Sky-Watcher GreatStart 130N-EQ2, with its plossl eyepieces and barlow lens serves up bright, clear images of the Moon, the planets, and even deep space objects like star clusters and galaxies. The 25mm Super Plossl eyepiece magnifies the image by 36 times; when I look at the Pleiades or Seven Sisters cluster at 36X the Sky-Watcher 130N shows me a bright open cluster with dozens of point-like stars filling the field of view. When I use the 12mm Plossl eyepiece (75X magnification) the lunar disk fills the field of view and the rings of Saturn are plainly resolved. And when I use the 2X barlow with the 12mm Plossl for 150X magnification I can see the cloud bands of Jupiter and pick out individual stars in bright globular clusters like M13.
The EQ2 equatorial mount included with the Sky-Watcher GreatStart 130N-EQ2 comes partially assembled, but it shouldn?t take long to set up. The direction booklet is fairly generic, with instruction for several different models, the instructions for the EQ2 mount start on page 8. The trick to using an equatorial mount is to point the polar axis at Polaris, the North Star. Once the mount is aligned and balanced, the telescope tracks stars and planets at high power with just a turn of one slow motion knob. You can even add an optional motor drive for hands free tracking.
The Sky-Watcher GreatStart 130N-EQ2 Newtonian Reflector Telescope is a simply a great value. The Plossl eyepieces and 2X barlow deliver bright sharp images of the Moon, the planets and the stars, and the EQ2 mount can be motorized for hands free tracking. --Jeff Phillips
Pros:
- More than 4 times brighter than 60mm scopes
- Includes two very good plossl eyepieces and a 2X barlow lens
- Solid equatorial mount and aluminum tripod
- Planetarium software included
- Terrestrial images appear upside-down
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