Review by Milton Esquinaldo Cloudy Nights

The MK-66 Deluxe is a Maksutov telescope made in Moscow, Russia. The MK-66 is a Maksutov-Cassigrain. Below is a description and review.

Basic description - MK-66

The MK-66 is a 6" (152mm) f/12 unit (1800mm). The focusing on the MK-66 is the "moving mirror" SCT type of focuser. The MK-66 uses both a 10X50 finder and Telrad unit. The finder is of so-so quality - edge correction leaves much to be desired, and eye relief is short. But hey, it matches the scope's color! The MK-66 has a handy carrying handle. It also has an integral dew shield. The MK-66 utilizes a very long central baffle - a bit different than other telescopes of this type. The dew shield is felt lined. The interior is blackened very well. The secondary is a seperately mounted adjustable mirror - not an aluminized spot. The secondary is attached to the center of the menscus lens. The MK-66 is very easy to collimate. Both the primary and secondary can be collimated. I have only collimated the scope once, it holds collimation extremely well.

The MK-66 has many good qualities. The scope has world class optics. Images of the planets and moon are excellent! Detail on Jupiter, Saturn and Mars can be clearly seen. Contrast is excellent comparable to unobstructed scopes. Deep sky objects show up as bright or brighter than most 8" SCT's - with better image quality and contrast. Stars appear as pinpoints against a pitch black sky. The scope can also take stupid high powers as well - the Double Double in Lyra split as clean as I have ever seen at 450x! Focusing with the MK-66 is easy and enjoyable - there is no image shift and no problems with backfocus (unlike the MK-67 - the crayford focuser design of the same scope). The scope is extremely easy to handle. It weighs about 16 pounds so lifting it is very easy.

The dovetail mounting of the GM-8 mount makes it very easy to attach the telescope to the mount. The MK-66 does not have many bad qualities. The finderscope could be a bit more functional - I will be replacing mine sometime in the near future. This scope has virtually no image problems - the scope is in the 1/8 wave to 1/10 wave range. The only bad quality I consistently hear is from big dob owners - 6" of aperture is too small for them.) The MK-66 is about 1 year old. It was purchased brand new from Earth and Sky Adventures (Joeseph Sunseri). I highly recommend Joseph as a dealer for Maksutov telescopes. My MK-66 is stored in its original carry bag.

Optical Performance - MK-66

My MK-66 has been compared to many telescopes - mainly SCT's and expensive refractors. Image quality is much better than most 8" SCT's that I have compared it to. It is equal to most 5" apo refractors that I have seen. In fact, there is only one 8" SCT that shows brighter images than my MK-66 - a Celestron Ultima. I must say that although images are brighter, it is only slightly more bright (and only on globular clusters), and contrast and image quality are not as good as on my Mak.

Many refractor owners - mainly AstroPhysics and Takahashi owners - love my scope. One AstroPhysics owners was so impressed, that he began questioning why he is putting so much money and effort into his refractor! The scope specs out at the 1/8 - 1/10 wave range - excellent optics. All objects from the moon to faint nebula - appear with plenty of detail and contrast. The lowest useful magnitude for the scope is stated at about 13th magnitude, but for practical viewing I would have to say anything less than 11th magnitude is very dim. Planets Jupiter and Saturn are beautiful in this scope.

Mars also shows plenty of surface detail. The scope easily can hold its own against larger apo refractors. In fact, 4" refractors show less detail. 5" refractors show a slightly brighter planet, but no more detail. The scope shows absolutely no color on any of these objects.

Deep Sky

The scope does an excellent job with galaxies up to about 11th magnitude. M81 and M82 are beautiful in this scope. M104 shows an obvious dust lane. Centaurus A shows a VERY obvious dust lane - more so than even a 16" dob! More aperture would be nice, but to have a noticeable image that is brighter you must jump up to a 12" telescope. Globular Clusters are probably the most difficult objects to show off with this scope. The only reason for this is that globulars are aperture hogs. M13 and Omega Centarui resolve beautifully at dark sites. Smaller globulars will not fully resolve, but will still look very good. Nebula look excellent in this scope. M42 looks better in my scope than in aperture up to about 10" - I guess it is due to more contrast than commercial scopes.

All in all it is a world class instrument that can only be outdone with MUCH larger aperture AND excellent optics. I have yet to see any other telescope in its size class to outdo it.
 

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