In October 2014, the Sky-Watcher BK705 came to me (diameter 70mm, focus 500mm). The set included mounting rings – which I safely screwed to the dove-tail type.
The first thing I did was to remove the native Red Dot finder, unscrew the focuser, drill the pipe a little and screw the good hot shoe under the quick-change finders (in this case, 6×30), which I advise you to do. The hot shoe is inexpensive – for example .
The telescope is quite light and compact. Almost a third of the length is taken by the dew shield, but it can be turned around – then the tube will be 48 cm long. The actual length of the dew shield is 13 cm.
I was surprised by a very long focusing tube. This is redundant and will only be needed for terrestrial observations. There were suspicions about the cutting of the aperture. When focusing on infinity with a diagonal of 1.25 “and an eyepiece ES 24\68, the aperture is cut to about 60mm. In general, it is necessary to cut the focuser’s tube, which was done after a while. Now the aperture is not cut off.
The Sky-Watcher BK705 feels pretty confident on the EQ1 mount. On Vixen Porta II it is very stable, like a glove – no shaking, no vibrations.
UPDATE ON NOVEMBER 25, 2015. I asked a few owners of BK705 about the tube of the focuser, they checked – there is no aperture cutting. I also personally managed to test another instance of the Sky-Watcher BK705AZ2 tube – the focus tube is shorter. Apparently, I was so “lucky” with my telescope, or the focuser was replaced by the previous owner. So the charges from the telescope are removed. Moreover, I decided to make a small surprise for this mini-telescope – a single-speed 2-inch Crayford focuser from russian telescope TAL-75R. For connecting with the telescope, I needed a special adapter ring, which I kindly printed out by my neighbor-astronomer Maxim, for which he thanks a lot. Yesterday in the evening I checked on the moon the work of the telescope with a 2 2 inch diagonal mirri and an eyepiece Explore Scientific 30 mm 82° – there are no problems with focusing, the field is wide (about 4.8°). There is also no aperture cutting – the telescope’s lens is fully visible.
Today I drilled holes in the tube for finder hot shoe. I also tried to connect the BK705 tube with the chromospheric telescope Coronado PST H-alpha – the docking was successful, a bunch of telescopes without any problems is focused on the Sun.
In general, I am now very pleased with tuber Sky-Watcher BK705 – light, compact and very versatile, with an excellent metal focuser. Native focuser sent to the shelf – where he belongs. How I will continue to use the telescope – I do not know yet, it is possible that he will make friends with Coronado PST H-alpha for a long time. It’s unlikely to make a quick-release design, but I will try to think of something 🙂
Uptate from 23\01\2019.
Alas, the tube still did not make friends with the Coronado due to the inconvenience of removing and installing the focuser, and even the heavy Coronado body introduces a noticeable imbalance in the design. As a result, I use Coronado in several modes – independently (for shooting the entire solar disk) and in conjunction with Celestron 102\660 for capturing individual prominences and chromospheric objects.
