My first Magazine Sky & Telescope - 02.2019

u The SynScan single or multi-star alignment routines are simple. Point the mount north, select a bright star, the Moon, or a bright planet, and slew to it. Then manu- ally center the target. Click the check mark, then do the same for your second align- ment object. At 32×, Jupiter was just grand again. Although a bit small, any observer would still be able to spot the main equatorial belts, moons, and even the Great Red Spot, which in recent years has appeared a deep orange hue. Positioning the bright planet in the middle of the ﬁ eld exhibited no color fringing that I could discern. When the planet was placed near the edge of the ﬁ eld, it sported a distinct green fringe on the edge. Step- ping up the magniﬁ cation to 84× with a 5-mm Tele Vue Nagler, Jupiter was a good bit larger, still glorious and crisp. Finally, I decided to put the 72-mm scope really to the test with a 2.5-mm Nagler that produced a magniﬁ cation of 168×. Focusing was surprisingly easy on such a light mount, with vibrations damping out within a second or two. I honestly did not expect much from this combination, and while Jupiter was a bit soft, I was really quite surprised by how usable this combination actually was. The Great Red Spot was well deﬁ ned, and the edges of the equatorial belts as well as some of the narrower bands were dissolving into a wavy pattern of clouds, the details of which were tan- talizingly just out of reach but still per- ceptible. There’s something to be said for a small scope that cools off quickly and doesn’t need to be collimated. Vibrations caused by bumping the tripod took less than two seconds to dampen out. Some of this is due to the tripod mechanics, some to the fact that it’s a small scope on top; case in point, the two work well together. I moved on to Saturn, and found the butterscotch-toned ringed planet looked a good bit better than Jupiter at all magniﬁca- tions I tried. I attribute this to the fact that Saturn isn't as bright, and it was also a little higher in the sky. Even at the edge of the ﬁeld, Saturn did not exhibit the green fringe that Jupiter had. The Cassini Division was visible at all magniﬁcations as well, and I could easily identify the planet’s largest moon, Titan. My next target was the Moon, which exhib- ited the green fringe when placed off center in the ﬁ eld much like Jupiter, but only on the bright limb. Along the cratered terminator I could not see anything but sharp, clear lunar craters. I moved the bright limb to the center of the ﬁ eld of view, and there was a faint purple edge that I could not see at all on Jupiter or Saturn. At 168×, the Moon held up quite a bit better than the planets. Along the terminator, there was no discern- ible coloring, and I felt I was simply in orbit, ﬂ ying over the Moon in my own personal spaceship. Later at my dark-sky site, I had the opportunity to try this combination out visually on some fainter targets. This time I performed a two-star alignment using Mars and Vega. Vega in the center of the ﬁ eld was a brilliant, sparkling diamond. Out at the edges of the ﬁ eld, I could clearly see the star being pulled apart and ﬂ aring into a triangle-shaped pattern of green, blue, and red light. Testing the Go To performance of the alignment, I then slewed to the Double Cluster. The pair was well-centered and well resolved at 32× with both clus- ters comfortably ﬁ tting in the ﬁ eld of view. The stars were tiny pinpricks of light surrounded by inky black sky, and when I slewed around I didn’t see any color changes at the edges, or even any change of shape for the stars. The color and ﬂ aring are really only noticeable on the brightest targets. Imaging Performance The AZ-GTi mount isn’t intended as a deep-sky imaging platform, so to test the Evostar 72 doublet’s suitability for astrophotography, I put the scope on my Paramount MYT and tried it from my own backyard, not too far from Orlando, Florida. While the human eye can be very accommodating to ﬁ eld curvature, any doublet refractor will need a ﬁ eld ﬂ attener to produce round stars across most cameras these days. I used Sky- Watcher’s own 0.85× ﬂ attener/reducer ($249), plus I needed an additional q The AZ-GTi’s collapsible aluminum tripod extends to a maximum height of 43 1 / 3 inches. The extension pier is recommended for use with long OTAs. sk yandtele scope.com • FE B RUA RY 2 019 61

My first Magazine Sky & Telescope - 02.2019 | Page 63