Time for a Review - Scope for later years.

[glend]

One thing that I have learned through this opposition season is that my one good eye is not as good as it used to be. I have macular degeneration in my right eye, which yields a blurred grey distorted spot in my central vision, and it will not get better. This leaves me with my left eye for all things Astro, and it seems to be letting me down abit lately. It has floaters, and this can be distracting when looking through an EP. I find especially higher powered EPs a problem, I need long eye relief now.
So among my collection (which used to be much larger) I have been using my iStar 127mm f12 R30 refractor much more than my 8" Cassegrain, and 8" Newt; and I cannot really put my finger on why I prefer the iStar, maybe it's just easier (no collimation, no coma) and no stool required as with the Newt.. I should point out, I am visual only now, image processing is too hard with two eyes of different focal lengths (yeah, macular degeneration alters focal length).
I plan to reduce / revamp the collection to scopes that are easy to use, (no SCTs or other floppy mirror systems), do not require exotic collimation rituals, and are reasonably light to carry. I am giving up on long focal length, because it requires good eyes imho, and it usually means reduced brightness I find. I hate the idea of giving up the iStar, mostly because I built it around the very nice objective provided by Ales before they moved to the US. But the iStar is probably too long, for the years ahead. A nice f7 or f8 refractor might be a good compromise, maybe a Doublet (to keep the weight down) but with good apeture (150mm?).
Any suggestions or advice regarding re-equipping? Have you done this sort of thing?
PS, I work out of my observatory, so leaving something setup is no problem.

[jahnpahwa]

Glen, I've not gone through this process, but I'm dead keen for someone on here to buy this:

https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/cottesloe/miscellaneous-goods/takahashi-fs-152sv-f8-apo-refractor/1249505561

and it sounds like it ticks some of your boxes (f8, 6", doublet)? Its been on gumtree for ages.

[gregbradley]

I have had several largish high end APOs. Including the Tak FS152SV F8 that's linked for sale on Gumtree. Also a TEC180 Fluorite oiled triplet and an AP 140 F7.5.

The most memorable visual experiences were with the FS152 and a 22mm Nagler type 4 eyepiece. That really set the standard.

Its a light scope as well. The TEC180 was close to the limit weight wise. The AP140 was very sharp but I preferred the views from the Tak.

I think the Tak cools down more quickly as well.

Greg.

[LewisM]

Just buy a Tak and be settled :lol:


You know, you HAVE to, just once...

[glend]

I will not be buying a TAK. The purchase price of the used one being pushed on me, exceeds the combined value of my current collection by more than 3X. I should have added that I do not want to spend more than I can realise through selling my other gear; well maybe a little more. I do not, and have never aspired to own a TAK

[jahnpahwa]

Sorry if that seemed like I was pushing it, Glen! Just a match up of specs that crossed my mind :) How much do you reckon your istar would net you?

[Rainmaker]

JP, that FS152 was a scope I wanted for a long time, but nobody was selling one :shrug: then Lothar posted his ad on Gumtree on the same day that I had transferred a bucket load of money to Chris for the TMB-LZOS 152....

I think I would find it difficult to part with my current "Retirement Trio of Scopes"

[glend]

You guys need t realise that my problem is my vision. I could not spot the difference in views between a Skywatcher ED150 and a TAK 152. Thinking further on my limitations, perhaps a EAA style camera stacking and streaming to a wall mounted TV in the Observatory would be a solution that meets my future needs. I already have a suitable TV panel, and I guess longer term I could stream it back to house via wifi (the way I used to control SGP in my imaging days).
This is within budget I think, but I know nothing of the EAA world at this point.

[multiweb]

I was about to suggest that. Or live stacking is also pretty cool. Either way you can get a cheap planetary cam and a monitor. If that's the way you're going you don't need refractors or mounted telescope. A largish DOB will work a treat.

[glend]

Yeah Marc, but I already have a pier mounted CGX in my observatory, and I want to retain that level of convenience. The CGX can be laptop controlled through the Celestron Planewave software, so remote control is feasible for it.

[Camelopardalis]

From what I’ve seen, the SW150ED f/8 works out pretty well.

With a nice sensitive camera like one of the new APS-C cooled cameras, I reckon it could be interesting.

And do you still have your TS reducer Glen?

[glend]

Thanks Dunk, I sold the TS Reducer to Alex when he bought my TS115 probably over a year ago now, he wanted it as part of the deal -sorry..
The SW150ED is an option I guess, in this scenario. But if I go to full blown EAA straight away then I could just keep the 8" f5 imaging newt, at least for the time being, as I would not be worrying about steps to look through the focuser, it would still be a nice solution. Importantly I want simplicity.

[Camelopardalis]

True!

You’ve got the manageable scopes pretty well covered :thumbsup:

[Tinderboxsky]

I agree with Dunk. In the absence of a compelling reason, I would be reluctant to sell any of these scopes. As you have alluded to, you do not have significant capital tied up in these scopes, so keeping all for the foreseeable future would not be a financial extravagance.

I have been exploring the same issue for a year or so. In doing so, I have been exploring and building my skills in EAA observing. The aim has been to see if I can get my EAA observing to a quality level that I am comfortable with and that would allow me to step back from direct visual observing. I am 69 and fortunately, still have excellent vision. So, this project is partly academic, but there are some emerging practical and comfort factors that are driving me in this direction.

My EAA trial is with an existing scope (Vixen ED103S refractor with focal reducer) on an old but very smooth and accurate Vixen GPD mount. Nice and simple - I have simply replaced the eyepiece with a second hand Imaging Source DBK42 colour camera hooked up to my laptop. No guiding and other complications.

I use SharpCap Pro for all image acquisition and "on the fly" image processing and stacking. I am keeping a snapshot of the image as seen on the screen for my observing logs and then moving onto my next target. I am not interested in any form of processing after the observation.

You might like to browse the SharpCap forums to see what others are doing in this space: https://forums.sharpcap.co.uk/index.php

As Marc said you could simply add a small planetary cam and give it a go. In my experience, these cams are too small for satisfying EAA beyond the Solar System. My next step is to buy a modern more sensitive cam with a slightly larger chip than the DBK41 to deliver a more useful FOV when exploring beyond the Solar System. The small planetary cams are inexpensive and definitely the way to trial EAA.

Good luck with your deliberations.

[glend]

Steve, thanks for sharing your experiences. I have been researching EAA setups and found this very nice article " A Beginner's Guide to Choosing Equipment for EAA", which is posted on the Agena Astro website:

https://agenaastro.com/articles/guides/agena-beginners-guide-to-choosing-equipment-for-deep-sky-eaa.html

I will likely, now, hold onto my existing scopes for the near future, and put a camera on the Newt for experimentation. The f5 Newt seems to be a good platform for EAA, and the collimation hardly ever needs to be touched.

Camera wise, the 294 seems well regarded, but it is pretty costly and in short supply. If I went with a camera that did not have cooling there are plenty of choices at reasonable cost. I will need to find out how important cooling is in frame stacking.

The ASI Air system looks interesting, as it includes stacking in the app, and can interface to my Android tablet, but I seem to recall threads suggesting it was problematic.

[Tinderboxsky]

That is certainly a good beginners guide, Glen. Thanks for the heads up.

Whilst not having first hand experience, from what I have read, the ASI Air software is not as well developed and robust as SharpCap.

A friend down here has produced some fabulous results though a 100mm refractor using an Atik camera and their dedicated EAA software. However, the Atik cameras are far too expensive IMO. I am getting pretty close with my Vixen, the DBK41 and SharpCap. I just need more clear nights to keep practicing!

[multiweb]

Excellent. :thumbsup: Well, you're all set then. All you need is one if those little ASI and a good monitor.

[Camelopardalis]

Glen, if you’re live stacking the noise isn’t so important as the exposures are generally short. It’s a blurry line between EAA and imaging with some of the later sensors.

It all really depends what you want to see, but your f/5 newt would be pretty versatile with a m4/3 or APS-C sensor.

And if you’re connecting to the obsy over wifi anyway, there’s no reason not to VNC/RDP to a Windows machine connected to the camera. It’s just a question of what you have already and what would satiate the urge, be it buying a new piece of kit or not ;)

[The_bluester]

I was wondering how the 294 might do, I have always used mine for deep sky AP but fairly quickly found it's limitations in that regard. With eventual plans to build an observatory I have wondered about retiring it to EAA type use on my son's dob so we could do some quasi-visual from the warm room on the reall cold nights.

[N1]

Slight tangent from this interesting thread but what did you find most limiting about the 294 Paul?

[JimsShed]

Glen I'm a young 60yo with my best eye that's now sometimes dicky and floaters galore. No macular degen though (touch wood). I've an ED80, Esprit 120, and c9.25. I flip flop between EAA and visual and for 80% of the time it's all through the Esprit. I love it's sharp image and ease of ownership. My EAA is via Sharpcap and an ASI 294 MC pro. and I'm very satisfied with that mix.

[glend]

Thanks Jim for that information. I already have Sharpcap, so that will be a given in my solution.

[The_bluester]

Finicky flat fielding would be my call. On very dark backgrounds they can to produce a coloured halo in the shape of what I believe is the cooler block, neither flats nor darks get rid of it. You usually have to stretch the data really hard to find it but once you are there, that is that.

Also on flats, you really need a flat panel, the timing circuitry changes between short and longer exposures which changes the noise profile, so you need flats of a consistent time and to use dark flats of matching time as the changing in noise profile at short exposures mean bias frames are no good with them. I use 5 second flats with that camera and matching 5 second dark flats at the same temperature.

[dannat]

NV monocular?