Sunday 25 March 2018

A Trifecta of Full Disks on the First Day of Spring - 25th March

Sunday 25th March marked the start of British Summer Time, with the clocks going forward an hour and the lighter evenings now with us.  For once the weather forecast was promising and I was keen to put the new Tecnosky ED60 through it's paces.  This little scope has a focal length of 360mm and with a an ED fpl-53 doublet promised to be a nice scope.  I tried one visually for the eclipse in America in august and was very pleased so when one was available I picked one up with the intention of it being a quick grab and go full disk scope.  Today allowed testing, and while 60mm is too small to show granulation on the sun it certainly presented a mottling that hinted at it.  Views were also impressive in CaK wavelengths.  Using a double stacked Quark both visually and photographically things were impressive encompassing a full disk in the eyepiece.  Overall I am very pleased with the scope, it is light, compact and performs very well, with the 60mm aperture meaning it is very suitable to poor seeing conditions and also for travel being light weight.  Be sure to click on the image for a full size view to see the finer details.