On Friday I managed to catch a break in clouds to snick a trip to Anza.
Observing report will follow. Here I just want to review my new StellarVue
RACI finder. Here it is sitting on my 8"
SCT
You see many posts on forums questioning wisdom of paying extra for the premium astronomy equipment. I have not used it long enough to comment on whether
SV RACI delivers better views compared to Orion RACIs I have used for years. However,
SV RACI provides many obvious improvements to justify the upgrade; at least for me.
First thing first: It is about the same weight and size as Orion's 9x50 or
GSO 8x50, which is a nice surprise.
Ability to use your own 1.25" EPs. Mine
SV RACI came with 20mm 50 deg reticle
EP which delivers 10x 5 deg AFV. It also takes illuminator which I have not tried yet. I used reticle
EP to align
RACI to my 8"
SCT and then switched to BST FlatField 19mm
EP, which provided a bit higher power yet wider 6.5 deg AFV. To me this is the most important feature which gives you ability to match exit pupil, magnification and
FOV of finder to the sky conditions and type of observing.
Eye Relief . Somewhat tight ER combined with unprotected metal
EP housing on Orion
RACI proven to be disastrous for my eyeglasses. With exchangeable EPs on
SV RACI you can get as much ER as you want. Even the
EP which comes with
SV RACI has ~20mm ER and rubber eyeguard.
Helical focuser.Smooth focusing at the
EP on
SV RACI, much more convenient than front end focuser on Orion's.
Rotatable diagonal with lock - another convenience on
SV RACI.
Alignment . Alignment is faster and easier on Orion and
GSO RACIs. However, they don't hold it too well, so you have to check every time. 6 point alignment on
SV RACI takes a bit longer, but not too bad. Since
RACI is fixed in the rings with 6 screws my hope that it will hold it better between the sessions.
Field curvature. One surprise was pretty strong field curvature observed with BST FlatField. With F4 ratio you would expect some, bit that was more than some. Thinking back maybe Flat Field
EP was not the right choice and one have to match
EP curvature to the scope I will play more with it.
Overall, I really enjoyed using
SV RACI. It has addressed a couple of issues I had with Orion/
GSO RACIs and ability to use your own EPs is a great option.
