www.baader-observatories.com
Your 2.6 m dome on my roof runs very smoothly, so that the neighbors can sleep well at night. There has already been stormy weather several times with heavy rain, yet in the observatory, as expected, not a single drop. It is very pleasant that one can go directly from the living space into the observatory. Once in the observatory, the real meditative “observatory feeling” comes over me.
By the way, no heater is attached to the stainless-steel chimney behind the dome, but a fireplace, which of course is not in operation during observations.
The company Bernd Müsel GmbH in Weselberg, which prefabricated the “two-story” round wooden tower and installed it into the roof, also did very good work.
The idea of mounting an APQ 130/1000 with Herschel wedge and an APQ 100/640 with Solar Spectrum in parallel on a 1b has proven itself completely for visual observations. The combination is also a pleasure from a design perspective for Zeiss fans like me. I deliberately wanted to do without “electrical GoTo.”
Here is my summary of the first (solar) observations:
… Today the first real sunny day. The seeing conditions were very good, probably because it was the first day of a high-pressure system. My concerns that the roof of the house in front of the dome might worsen the seeing conditions have been dispelled; the image was often very steady and clear, in contrast to a few days earlier when low pressure still prevailed and one could barely look through a gap in the clouds (water vapor).
The installation of the Hyperion focusers on the APQs was worthwhile; with the relatively heavy accessories there was no noticeable “wobbling,” and the fine reduction allows comfortable focusing.
Both a large sunspot group and several larger prominences could be seen, of course also spicules, filaments, etc.
The Solar Spectrum filter needs about 15 minutes to reach the “operating temperature” of 54 degrees. In the meantime I was able to observe the Sun in white light. In the APQ 130/1000 with the Herschel wedge, observing the sunspots, penumbrae, and faculae was a delight, and the granulation could be seen without any problems.
One small point of criticism about the Solar Spectrum: the fan of the electronics box is quite loud; in my opinion this could be improved without much effort.
With the Solar Spectrum and 4× telecentric on the APQ 100/640 I was able to increase the magnification up to about 250× before the image became too dark and undefined.
The sunspot group with the surface structures was fantastic.
I used the Hyperion Zoom 8–24 mm and the Abbe-2 eyepieces. Surprisingly, I liked the image in the Hyperion better than in the Abbes. Both had the same image sharpness, but the Hyperion had clearly better contrast, especially in the representation of the “grainy” solar surface, so that the image of the sunspot group with filaments appeared even more “three-dimensional.” No disturbing edge blur could be noticed. The Hyperion really is a very good eyepiece.
The standard setting of the filter electronics delivers excellent results and I have not yet dared to change the temperature to shift the line. I would first like to gain more experience with that.
In the meantime I have ordered an ERF filter from you for the APQ 130. The Solar Spectrum also makes it possible to use larger objective apertures with moderate additional financial expense.
Yesterday the APQ 130/1000 also had its nocturnal first light. I probably do not need to rave anymore about the quality on the Moon and planets (yesterday Jupiter), together with the Abbe-2 eyepieces. With the Abbe Barlow I was even able to increase the magnification to 400× with good results...
Dear Mr. Baader, many thanks for your service, the constructive adaptations and improvements – really very nice equipment that is simply a pleasure to use!
What you sold me was not cheap – but it was good value.
Kind regards
N.Quien
