SkyWatcher Sky-Watcher BKMAK 180 OTAW optiskā caurule

FROM JULY 1, 2015, WE EXTEND THE WARRANTY FOR SKY-WATCHER AND CELESTRON TELESCOPES TO 3 YEARS!

Electronic and drive components are covered by a 2-year warranty.

The MAK180 OTAW telescope is an excellent choice for astronomy enthusiasts looking for mobile equipment for observing the Moon and Solar System planets. It is also the largest telescope of this design offered by Sky-Watcher. The telescope, like the smaller models, consists of a corrector plate – a meniscus, a primary mirror and a secondary mirror mounted on the inner part of the meniscus. These telescopes are characterized by reduced coma and exhibit only residual chromatic aberration, resulting in bright and clear images. The greatest advantage of Maksutov telescopes is their short length, compact construction and generally low weight. Due to the long focal length and small focal ratio, they are excellent for planetary observations. This type of construction works well in urban conditions, where it is difficult to observe any nebulae in a bright sky. The telescope has a 2-inch eyepiece focuser, as well as a diagonal of this size – an LE 28 mm eyepiece providing 96x magnification. The tube can be mounted on an equatorial (EQ5, HEQ5, EQ6) or azimuthal mount (sufficiently large).

Optical system

A telescope consisting of a spherical meniscus corrector (a negative meniscus lens made of crown glass), a primary mirror and a secondary mirror mounted on the inner part of the meniscus. Telescopes of this type are characterized by reduced coma, astigmatism and generally exhibit only residual chromatic aberration. They produce incredibly bright and clear images. Due to the long focal length and low light intensity, they are excellent for observing the Moon and planets. Unfortunately, such a telescope does not allow obtaining large fields of view and is not suitable for observing nebulae.
This telescope collects about 490 times more light at night than the human eye, so it can be used to observe objects with a brightness of up to nearly 13.0 (naked-eye visibility reaches up to 6th magnitude). The mirror size is also related to the optical resolution, which in this telescope allows distinguishing stars located more than 0.8 arcseconds apart from each other.

Mounting

Telescope without mount.

Extract

The telescope has a 2-inch eyepiece outlet. Focusing is adjusted with a knob located on the mirror. Focusing is adjusted by adjusting the position of the primary mirror. An eyepiece of this diameter is included.

Astronomical observations

1. Solar System

• objects on the lunar surface larger than 1 km;

• Sunspots and their structure;

• all Solar System planets;

• phases of Mercury and Venus

• the disk of Mars

• Jupiter's equatorial belts and Galilean moons

• Saturn's rings and several smaller moons of the planet

• Uranus and Neptune

• movement of asteroids against the background of stars

• observations of bright comets

2. Stars

• about 2.7 million stars across the entire sky with brightness up to approximately 13.0 magnitude

• double and multiple stars separated by an angular distance greater than 0.8 arcseconds.

• colors of the brightest stars

3. Nebular objects

• all Messier catalog objects

• hundreds of globular clusters with emerging structure

• hundreds of open clusters

• many nebulae

• hundreds of galaxies

Terrestrial observations

A telescope with this type of optics is not suitable for terrestrial observations. To invert the image, use an angled prism attachment that will flip the image to its natural (upright) position. Together with the angled attachment and a suitable bracket on which it is mounted, it can be used as a simple device for terrestrial observations.