Orion 130 EQ Reflector Review

[Kes]

I have an Orion 130 EQ reflector, and according to the description provided, I should see stunning nubulae, beautiful galaxies, and inspiring planet images. Although it works very well with the moon, jupiter, and Venus, I was dissapointed when I looked at the Orion Nebula. I could see some ghost of a shape, and as far as color, nothing but a bluish-grey haze. Why am I not seeing any color or detail Could there be something wrong with the scope itself, or do I just need some better eyepieces Not to say it was not fun to look up and see satellites and the Moons of Jupiter, I was just dissapointed in the images I got.

[admin]

One problem with telescopes, you wont see those those 'stunning color' images you see in magazines unless you are taking long astrophotos with your camera

[philip d]

Photos on the smaller telescope boxes give false information on what to expect to see, a gimmick to make the sale... Sky condtions do also play a key role, crisp winter skys will show more, Orion is Majestic even in the small ETX90, XT8 8 inch gives hint of green and wisps of extended Nebula, more details with exceptional skys.. Rich colors only picked up via photos, not direct viewing...

[admin]

I am rather surprized that you would find this in an Orion description of their product, they are usually the very ones to tell you that scopes do not produce images that are found on packing boxes.

Even their catalogs will show some pictures that they explain were made with their equipment, but with advanced optional gear and stacked digital images.

Don't give up on your scope just yet. Explore it's uses, and options to get more detailed views. There is a world of eyepieces, and other items that greatly enhance that scopes capability.

I must admit, that the catalog does contain some romantic descriptions of what you can see, sure you can, if you have a very trained eye, a trained spotting technique and know the sky fairly well but no color, and not the size of some of those pictures without photography.

And that is a very good scope for the price.

[rocket]

actually i think orion is pretty high on the propaganda level myself BTWi used to have a 130mm (skywatcher model though)you get that to a dark site its not to bad a scope

[stagdgreat]

Aside from carbon stars, which can be deep red, and a few of the colorful doubles, you won't see a lot of color at the eyepiece, even with a lot of aperture. With my 12" reflector the Orion Nebula has a pale greenish cast to it on the very darkest nights. Some of the planetaries are slightly blue-green. But that's about it.

On my website I have a page with a few Photoshop images that give you a pretty fair idea of what you might expect to see at the eyepiece with a scope in the 8 to 10 inch range.

[Registered users can see links. ]

[doriscrisp]

Hey Conus, the images look pretty nice, but the colour in the planetary images, and the detail in the nebulae images looks a little too good for anything I have seen visually through a 10" scope. As for the hint of green colour in the Orion Nebula you described with the 12" Orion reflector, a friend said the same thing about his Meade 12.5" Starfinder.

By the way, I checked out the rest of your website and I was impressed. Nice design and layout, and your planetary photos are awesome.

[stagdgreat]

I think you're right about the nebula images. I'll have to tone them down a little.

Thanks. I'm satisfied with the Saturn images, but I'll need to work on Jupiter. The problem is that I made a big mistake last year and sold the C9.25. I'm replacing it as soon as possible. I already bought another CG5 mount but still need the OTA. In the meantime I only have the reflector. I'm not sure, but I may end up getting one of those Roundtable platforms and try imaging with the Orion. Those Synta mirrors are pretty dcent and I'm beginning to suspect that they would do a pretty good job at planetary imaging.

Do you think that EQ6 is going to track well enough for longer exposures once you get a good alignment I've considered getting one to learn on and using it with maybe two refractors-an ED 80mm to image with and another cheaper one to use as a guidescope.

[admin]

Hey Conus, I've only tried the DSI once, and prior to that I wasn't really too picky about my polar alignment during observing sessions, so I am not sure how good the tracking will be once I get it dialed in for imaging. I won't know until I actually try it again.

My EQ6 has the hand controller with 3 speeds for slewing on both the right ascention and declination axis, but has no computer database or periodic correction (I bought it before the Sky Scan option was available). It is a solid mount and easily holds my 10" Newtonian or my 6" Refractor. The only minor complaint I have about it is that it has no manual slo-motion adjustment, which won't really be a problem unless one of the motors blows (let's hope not). This mount is now available with a computer database Go-To, but I'm not sure if it has periodic correction or not.

Hopefully the weather will cooperate in a couple of weeks when there is no Moon to interfere with deep sky imaging. If so, I'll definitely have some new photos, and a better idea of what the mount is capable of.

You might want to consider buying a dovetail and a set of OTA rings for your Orion to try it on your CG5. My 10" came on a Dobsonian mount and I bought rings and a dovetail for it. The trunions on the side of the tube limit how much you can rotate the tube to reposition the focussing mount for convenience during viewing, as they hit the dovetail. I won't take them off though, as it's so convenient to just drop the tube in the Dob base when I feel like some quick viewing. The dovetail gets in the way when you use the scope on the Dob base, but it's no big deal to take the dovetail and rings on and off to switch between mounts.

[Xlovacus]

I wish I could, but my Orion is the 12" XT. There's no way a CG5 could handle it. I'm considering getting one of those Roundtable platforms, which would enable me to use it for planetary and lunar stuff. The bigger one is a little over $600.00 U.S. That's not really much, considering that it would work with dobs up to 15 or 16 inches, if I ever decide to get more aperture.