Author Archives: emmanuele-sordini

Tuning the Synta EQ6: a “Technical Nightmare!”

In fall 2004 my beefiest mount was a Losmandy GM8, which I still happily own. The most obvious upgrade would have been the G11, but back then, I simply could not afford it. The Synta EQ6 was a very cheap option, widely known for its very good price/performance ratio but also for its poor mechanical quality. I ran into a (like new) used one, which I paid about 750, or almost 1/4 of a new G11. In december 2004, I […]

Skywatcher ED80 refractor preview

It’s been quite a while (actually at least fifteen years 😉 ) since chinese-made products hit the amateur astronomy market. At the beginning, only small accessories such as adapter rings, eyepieces, prisms and finders were made in the Far East by Japanese, European and American companies to cut down on costs. Then came low-end complete telescopes such as small department-store refractors and reflectors, up to 150 mm in aperture; anyway, medium- and high-end OTAs and mounts were still largely dominated […]

3 October 2005: the Ring of Light!

This was the first time I ever watched an annular eclipse, after the total one back in 1999. I already knew, but I can now confirm, that annular eclipses are generally less spectacular than total ones, especially in cases where the Moon is known to be significantly smaller than the Sun (the so-called magnitude of the eclipse). Anyway, it’s a wonderful natural event which the serious amateur astronomer should never miss, at least once in a lifetime. Moreover, if one […]