First Light Report--Apertura AD10

[Ragilmer]

Wednesday, 9/14/2022, 9-10 PM: First Light Report

I got my AD10 on Wednesday and was able to get it out for a short test run. Assembly was pretty straightforward up until I started trying to use the laser collimator for the first time. Then I’m pretty sure I accidentally made it very out of alignment messing around with it (probably should have watched a Youtube video on laser collimators…). I eventually got out my old eyepiece collimator and used that to get it back in line, then confirmed it with the laser once I better understood what I was doing with it.

Our forecast looked perfect (copied below from this morning, but Wednesday looked the same), but of a blanket of clouds moved in over my house that evening. I was also kind of beat from some work stuff and thought about just trying the next night, but I decided to take it out and see if I could try it out between the clouds. At first it was mostly clouded over, but after about 15 minutes they parted and I was able to get in a quick session to try it out.

First targets, Cassiopeia and Cygnus: At first I just wandered around in Cassiopeia and Cygnus trying to get a feel for the scope and figure out what I was doing. I picked these mainly based on what the clouds would give me at first. In Cassiopeia I stumbled across what I think must have been the Sailboat Cluster, NGC 225. It appeared almost like a somewhat diffuse globular cluster. It didn’t have a distinct core, but had lots of tiny stars clustered together that very clearly popped out in the eyepiece. Once the clouds overhead parted I wandered around Cygnus for a bit and came across the Cygnus Star Cloud.

By that point the clouds had moved out completely and I was just limited by the house and tall trees around my backyard. After looking at some of the Sagittarius globulars Tuesday night I wanted to check out Hercules with the new scope.

M13, Great Hercules Cluster: One major upgrade with this scope was that it came with an 8x50 RACI finderscope instead of the cheap red dot finder I’ve been fiddling with for years. The red dot on mine was constantly going out, so I’d always have to tap it to come on (and then awkwardly bend down to try and line it up). With the finderscope I was able to point it near the right location in Hercules and then voila—I could see the cluster in the finderscope!

M13 of course didn’t disappoint. I started with the 2” 30mm that came with the scope and then worked my way down with the 15mm Luminos and the 9mm Expanse. It stayed bright and crisp through all with each increase in magnification allowing for more stars to be resolved. Every time I changed eyepieces I could just look in the finderscope and immediately get it lined up again. I know that may seem silly, but that really was a revelation!

Saturn: I didn’t want to be out too late, but I also didn’t want to go back in without trying out the new scope on a planet. Jupiter was still too low in the sky (due to my trees), but I was able to get a pretty decent view of Saturn. It wasn’t quite as crisp as the previous night at high magnification, but all the details were still much easier to see. The Cassini Division was just there, rather than something I had to glimpse hints of. The banding stayed very obvious and there seemed to be a bit more differentiation in the colors on the planet as well (I’m colorblind, so who knows which colors, but there were more of them than with the XT6!).

After that I packed it in since I had to get up early the next day for work. I wasn’t able to take it out last night, but I did receive an upgraded finderscope. I’d initially ordered one for my XT6, which got delayed for a couple of weeks and in the meantime I’d decided to just go ahead and get the AD10 too. That original order got cancelled after it never came through (via Amazon), so when I ordered the AD10 I also ordered a Apertura 10x50 illuminated RACI finderscope. Now I can switch the stock 8x50 to the XT6 and I’ll have the 10x50 on the AD10.

Saturday evening I’m planning on taking it down to Congaree National Park for a couple of hours to try it out at a dark(er) sky site. Andromeda was behind the trees Wednesday night, but I can’t wait to see the difference in galactic views in the new scope!

[kt4hx]

Nicely done Rob. Good to go out with just the idea of getting a feel for a new scope. You may find that having some sort of unity finder in combination with the RACI can be a good I utilize a Rigel Quikfinder and RACI. I use the Rigel to aim the scope at my starting point star, then switch to the RACI for magnified star hopping. You just have to align both to the main scope so your pointing is accurate. Some folks prefer the Telrad over the Rigel, but I've always been partial to the Rigel. Either way, I find using both a unity and optical finder works very, very well.

[Ylem]

Nice Rob!

I had (and miss) a 10" Dob, perfect size!

Some darker skies at Congaree will really really open things up!

I also second what Alan said, a unity type finder really helps with a RACI, a Telrad or Rigel Quick Finder will help out.

[davesellars]

+3 on using the RACI with a Rigel Quik-Finder. Problem I find with the Telrad is that it's relatively heavy, so it makes balance issues even worse. I sold mine to replace it with the Quik-Finder (which weights naff all).

Great first light report though! It will be a heck of an improvement over the 6" for DSOs especially in a darker site.

[Makuser]

Hi Rob. A very nice first light report with your new AD10 Dob scope. A nice view of M13 and Saturn on the first night out is a great start. Thanks for your well written first light report Rob and the best of wishes on your trip to Congaree National Park.

[Ragilmer]

Thanks y'all! I had read that a lot of people use both something like a Rigel/Telrad along with a finderscope and I can see why. I definitely think the finderscope was a big improvement over just a red dot finder, but without an obvious target it's a little hard to be sure that you have it pointed in the right ballpark. That was part of my issue with Cassiopeia and and Cygnus at first was that I wasn't 100% confident that I was even starting with the correct bright star. With M13 and Saturn it was great--plus it's just like having an extra wide-angle EP

[kt4hx]

+3 on using the RACI with a Rigel Quik-Finder. Problem I find with the Telrad is that it's relatively heavy, so it makes balance issues even worse. I sold mine to replace it with the Quik-Finder (which weights naff all).

Precisely Dave. The Telrad weighs in at about 10.1 oz while the Rigel QF is about 4.8 oz. Though they are vertically about the same height, the QF takes up much less space on the OTA of the scope. Some folks prefer the Telrad because it has three concentric rings in its illuminated reticle while the QF has only two. But for me personally I do not star hop with the QF, rather it is only used to put my scope on the star where I wish to begin my star hopping process and it works great for that. Then the RACI does the bulk of the work. Lastly, the pulsing reticle option (for those that like that) is standard on the QF, but is an over $20 add-on for the Telrad.

Anyway, lots of folks like the Telrad and I've tried it before. However, I found I much prefered the QF and I use one on all my scopes, 80mm up to 17.5 inch, and have three of them in fact.

[Bigzmey]

Congrats on the first light Rob! Now that you have a light bucket it is time to start hunting galaxies.

As for the finders for me the best combo is red dot + RACI. I tried more sophisticated reflex finders but at the end the very basic red dot works the best for me. I use it for rough navigation and then switch to RACI to zero down on the target.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/184603427465?h ... R_id39XpYA

[John Baars]

Nice first light report! Thanks!

[Razz]

Thanks for this report. I have an AD10 on the way, should be here next week, and your report gave me a little insight on the scope.

[Lady Fraktor]

Congratulations on your first session with the new telescope.