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Old 04-03-2020, 10:07 AM
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Ant0nio (Tony)
Quid Clarius Astris

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Sharp Star 76EDPH First Impressions

I chose this telescope & the dedicated reducer/flattener primarily for use as a wide field instrument for imaging. My hope was that it would be a viable grab & go for visual observation also and my first impressions suggest the 76EDPH is very capable on both fronts.
I purchased the scope/FRFF online from https://www.testar.com.au/ in Sydney & it landed on my doorstep in regional Qld 3 days later, included was a bench test report confirming collimation was spot on, a nice reassurance to have with a new purchase.
It came triple boxed, (third box was courtesy of the retailer) & visual inspection revealed a nicely turned out instrument with a quality fit & finish. The reducer/flattener splits in two so you can install a 2" filter internally and when attached to the focuser about
half of the FR/FF is concealed within the drawtube keeping it all nice & compact & well balanced, thread quality was very good & all components screwed together smoothly & precisely.
The tube is flocked as standard which was a nice touch I thought & a pleasant surprise as it is not a feature which is advertised. The R&P focuser is very solid & operates smoothly with no detectable image shift.
I chose to test it visually the first night, I had clear skies & the seeing was a 9 on Skippys' scale. I have to say I was very impressed. At the end of the alignment procedure I slewed back to A Crux, With a 4mm Delite giving 104x, it was an easy split as were Alpha Centauri & Hadar.
Sirius showed no spurious colour in focus, defocusing did show a slight amount but also very tight & uniform diffraction rings in & out of focus. This telescope gives a very positive snap into focus also.
Omega Centauri was nicely resolved with the 4mm Delite & more so with the Vixen HR3.4mm, a decent feat for the 76mm aperture I thought. The wide field views of The Milky Way & larger DSO's were very pleasing, the entire "sword of Orion" fits comfortably in the FOV with a 7mm Nagler.
With a 17mm Nagler (the lowest mag you would want to go) Eta Carinae was an awesome sight & stars were sharp as a tack out to about 95% of FOV.
The following night promised similar conditions so with the FR/FF & my SBIG 8300c attached I elected Omega Centauri as a target to check the corner stars for roundness & adjust back focus if needed, it turned out the 40mm of spacers + the ~17mm back focus of the camera was almost spot on.
I was only able to capture 5x2 min exposures in total before clouds chased me over to M42 for another 5x2 mins before it was clouded out & all over for the night.
After processing the minimal amount of data on these two objects, the results showed pleasing star shape & good colour correction to my untrained eye. I was surprised with amount of detail revealed from only 10 minutes of data.
Overall I would have to say I am mightily impressed so far & looking forward to getting the best out of this capable little telescope. For more Astro images, keep an eye out on the beginners forum & If you've made it this far, thanks for reading & clear skies,
Tony
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Old 04-03-2020, 12:09 PM
RugbyRene (Rene)
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Good review. Looking forward to see how it performs. I'm looking to get the 61EDPH which I assume is very similar in build quality & performance to the 76.

Rene
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Old 04-03-2020, 12:22 PM
casstony
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Looks like a nice little scope Tony
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Old 04-03-2020, 01:43 PM
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gregbradley
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Good review Tony.

It looks like a good scope.

The 121mm looks to be great value. The FSQ130 is no longer made but at todays exchange rate it would be AUD$22,000! I know the FSQ would be hard to beat but still.

Greg.
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Old 04-03-2020, 04:49 PM
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skysurfer
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I think so as well. I now am happy with my 110 ED travel scope which weighs only 4kg tube only.


But the FSQ 130 is even more expensive and heavier than the Canon 400mm f/2.8 LIII plus 2x extender which should have equal performance. Then you have a 140mm f/5.6 APO which weighs only 3.5kg.
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Old 04-03-2020, 10:31 PM
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Ant0nio (Tony)
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Thanks for giving this a read gents, I appreciate the feedback. It's certainly not in the same league as an FSQ but I think it's hard to beat at this price point.
Cheers,
Tony
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Old 05-03-2020, 04:51 PM
ab1963 (Andrew)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ant0nio View Post
Thanks for giving this a read gents, I appreciate the feedback. It's certainly not in the same league as an FSQ but I think it's hard to beat at this price point.
Cheers,
Tony

Don't understand where a FSQ 130 would come into a post about a 76 triplet? Anyway looks a lovely little scope Tony i have the Sharpstar 65 ED Quad but only use it for visual and must say the build quality is exceptional, The R&P focuser smooth and solid with excellent views at the eyepiece, Small refractors are not everyone's thing but for those that do like them i think the little sharpstar scopes are hard to beat, There's plenty to see with a 76mm triplet......
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Old 06-03-2020, 11:19 AM
N1 (Mirko)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by skysurfer View Post
But the FSQ 130 is even more expensive and heavier than the Canon 400mm f/2.8 LIII plus 2x extender which should have equal performance. Then you have a 140mm f/5.6 APO which weighs only 3.5kg.
A shootout between this arrangement and an astro dedicated 140 would be interesting.
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Old 11-03-2020, 10:32 AM
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gregbradley
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Originally Posted by N1 View Post
A shootout between this arrangement and an astro dedicated 140 would be interesting.
Wishful thinking the Canon would even remotely come close. How many lenses in the lens - 19 or so?

Greg.
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