rider
28-05-2011, 09:42 AM
OK, Skywatcher have been advertising this “upgrade” handpiece for about 6 months now, and they are available in Australia if you look hard enough.
I found one in January at Sirius Optics. Unfortunately the Australian Synta suppliers for this product didn’t bother to read the documentation, which says “connect to telescope with OPTIONAL cable”, and didn’t import these.
Anyway, thanks to the tenacious efforts of Ron at the above shop, the specific cable for my HEQ6 arrived yesterday. (Yes, it’s a different unavailable cable for each type of mount!)
This device is a little like a Vixen Skybook, or that Orion app thingy that connects this week’s version of the Ipad to drive the mount/scope.
The “Tour” has a touch screen sky display and an amazing amount of functions (importantly, it can even check your current Chinese Feng Shui luck-less-ness index)
This thing will run most Synta Goto mounts such as the usual Skywatcher, Orion, etc and some Celestron’s – there are settings for EQ’s, Alt/az and Dobs.
What I was after was to have computer-like functionality without carting all the junk around. (I have developed a deep and abiding hatred of ASCOM)
Ok.. As I’m a “Glass- half empty” kind of guy, I’ll list the bad bits first…
1/ It looks fragile, it makes the usual Synta go-to controller look like its SOLID (yes, yes, amazing, but true). There aint nothing in the construction of this device that would be approved for one of those black boxes which lay around in the vicinity of airplane disasters.
2/The plastic cover has a metallic paint-y looking top coat which is so delicate that it capable of getting scratches as you remove it from the bubble wrap.
3/ There is no separate socket for the GPS module (like the one the standard hand-piece has). So if you want to use GPS coordinates, you would need to ascertain GPS position with the GPS plugged in and then unplug it so that you can plug the telescope cable in. however, I found all of this unnecessary, due to the fact that, so far, it won’t recognize a Synta Skywatcher GPS module. (I suspect from the wording of the manual, that it may have its own specific “OPTIONAL” GPS module. (Thank you Synta)
4/ To do fine touch-screening such as clicking on stars, you can use the supplied stylus instead of your finger. – This works really well, but I will (yes, WILL) lose this tiny thing in the grass in my back yard. I’m surprised I haven’t already. (It should have a lanyard)
5/ Minimum setting of the back-lighting is close to unreadable and the next step up provides enough lumins to run all three State of Origin night matches.
Now the gooooood bits…
If the Americans look down their to-do list and realize to their embarrassment that they haven’t ignored the sovereignty of Australia lately, and immediately send a crack team of helicopter riding elite assassin’s to take out Bin-Rider’s sky-terrorist Compound… Please note: I WILL FIGHT to keep this device! It’s that good.
1/ It has its lists and tours which are much better organized than the standard handpiece, and most objects have a reasonable amount of information. (er, beware of “Chinglish” in some descriptions)
2/ When hunting for faint fuzzies, it will optionally go to the nearest bright star and get you to center it first. This makes the local sky ultra accurate. I found that this function made EVERY DSO land smack in the center of the EP at 250 magnification.
3/ One thing I found myself using a lot was that it can show pictures of most faint DSO’s. I discovered that consulting these this made me look for, and recognize more detail in the real objects back at the Eyepiece.
4/ You can type notes as you observe and drop them onto your computer. If you prefer, you can audio record them, and play them back later.
5/ In one of the modes, as you hold the hand-piece up and shift it around the sky, it will display the equivalent view. No, No, No, not like my phone app which gets stuck till I shake the phone, - this one is really seamless and smooth.
6/ One , two, or three star alignment are available, - I tried the 2 and the 1 star. Both worked a bit better than the old hand-piece, but it could be that I fluked a really good polar setup, so time will tell. One thing I really liked is that you can nominate the limiting magnitude of the selectable alignment stars to match your sky quality.
7/ A nice little menu lets you tune your mount for backlash and pitch. I had to set the backlash at zero, which surprised me, because my setup is an HEQ6 carrying a 12inch modified Newtonian, and an 80mm Stellarvue finder-scope, (all up its about 23kg) so I thought there would be more, not less backlash than the standard setting.
8/ The manual is an improvement on the usual Skywatcher documents, but there are sections which were obviously translated by Babelfish.
This gadget is WAY better than Synta’s internet advertising blurb would lead you to believe. I mean, wow Synta, which one of your advertising geniuses thought that the Feng Shui function was a good thing to highlight.
Yes, there are other options which are equivalent to this gadget, but if you’re considering a full functioned hand-piece replacement, keep the Synscan Tour hand piece in mind.
Well to summarize. In the end, I used it to check my Feng Shui, my Bagua and my personal Kua and found that, Yes, I was lucky to buy this gadget.
I found one in January at Sirius Optics. Unfortunately the Australian Synta suppliers for this product didn’t bother to read the documentation, which says “connect to telescope with OPTIONAL cable”, and didn’t import these.
Anyway, thanks to the tenacious efforts of Ron at the above shop, the specific cable for my HEQ6 arrived yesterday. (Yes, it’s a different unavailable cable for each type of mount!)
This device is a little like a Vixen Skybook, or that Orion app thingy that connects this week’s version of the Ipad to drive the mount/scope.
The “Tour” has a touch screen sky display and an amazing amount of functions (importantly, it can even check your current Chinese Feng Shui luck-less-ness index)
This thing will run most Synta Goto mounts such as the usual Skywatcher, Orion, etc and some Celestron’s – there are settings for EQ’s, Alt/az and Dobs.
What I was after was to have computer-like functionality without carting all the junk around. (I have developed a deep and abiding hatred of ASCOM)
Ok.. As I’m a “Glass- half empty” kind of guy, I’ll list the bad bits first…
1/ It looks fragile, it makes the usual Synta go-to controller look like its SOLID (yes, yes, amazing, but true). There aint nothing in the construction of this device that would be approved for one of those black boxes which lay around in the vicinity of airplane disasters.
2/The plastic cover has a metallic paint-y looking top coat which is so delicate that it capable of getting scratches as you remove it from the bubble wrap.
3/ There is no separate socket for the GPS module (like the one the standard hand-piece has). So if you want to use GPS coordinates, you would need to ascertain GPS position with the GPS plugged in and then unplug it so that you can plug the telescope cable in. however, I found all of this unnecessary, due to the fact that, so far, it won’t recognize a Synta Skywatcher GPS module. (I suspect from the wording of the manual, that it may have its own specific “OPTIONAL” GPS module. (Thank you Synta)
4/ To do fine touch-screening such as clicking on stars, you can use the supplied stylus instead of your finger. – This works really well, but I will (yes, WILL) lose this tiny thing in the grass in my back yard. I’m surprised I haven’t already. (It should have a lanyard)
5/ Minimum setting of the back-lighting is close to unreadable and the next step up provides enough lumins to run all three State of Origin night matches.
Now the gooooood bits…
If the Americans look down their to-do list and realize to their embarrassment that they haven’t ignored the sovereignty of Australia lately, and immediately send a crack team of helicopter riding elite assassin’s to take out Bin-Rider’s sky-terrorist Compound… Please note: I WILL FIGHT to keep this device! It’s that good.
1/ It has its lists and tours which are much better organized than the standard handpiece, and most objects have a reasonable amount of information. (er, beware of “Chinglish” in some descriptions)
2/ When hunting for faint fuzzies, it will optionally go to the nearest bright star and get you to center it first. This makes the local sky ultra accurate. I found that this function made EVERY DSO land smack in the center of the EP at 250 magnification.
3/ One thing I found myself using a lot was that it can show pictures of most faint DSO’s. I discovered that consulting these this made me look for, and recognize more detail in the real objects back at the Eyepiece.
4/ You can type notes as you observe and drop them onto your computer. If you prefer, you can audio record them, and play them back later.
5/ In one of the modes, as you hold the hand-piece up and shift it around the sky, it will display the equivalent view. No, No, No, not like my phone app which gets stuck till I shake the phone, - this one is really seamless and smooth.
6/ One , two, or three star alignment are available, - I tried the 2 and the 1 star. Both worked a bit better than the old hand-piece, but it could be that I fluked a really good polar setup, so time will tell. One thing I really liked is that you can nominate the limiting magnitude of the selectable alignment stars to match your sky quality.
7/ A nice little menu lets you tune your mount for backlash and pitch. I had to set the backlash at zero, which surprised me, because my setup is an HEQ6 carrying a 12inch modified Newtonian, and an 80mm Stellarvue finder-scope, (all up its about 23kg) so I thought there would be more, not less backlash than the standard setting.
8/ The manual is an improvement on the usual Skywatcher documents, but there are sections which were obviously translated by Babelfish.
This gadget is WAY better than Synta’s internet advertising blurb would lead you to believe. I mean, wow Synta, which one of your advertising geniuses thought that the Feng Shui function was a good thing to highlight.
Yes, there are other options which are equivalent to this gadget, but if you’re considering a full functioned hand-piece replacement, keep the Synscan Tour hand piece in mind.
Well to summarize. In the end, I used it to check my Feng Shui, my Bagua and my personal Kua and found that, Yes, I was lucky to buy this gadget.