Riccardi-Honders first light

[Peter Ward]

Not expecting any clear weather, I was surprised by the lack of clouds this evening, hence bolted a CCD to my new scope.

As murphy's law would have it, there was insufficient back-focus using standard adapters to accept the STX & filterwheel.:rolleyes:

Removing the filter wheel provided a temporary fix.(a suitable adapter will not arrive for a couple of weeks)

There was no doubting the focus...just a gentle tweak of the 10:1 saw peak values jump 20% with another tweak showing a similar drop.

I have to say the edge stars did not look too shabby at all....can't wait to do some deep NB with this puppy! :)

Anyway, below is the "first light" image (OK...chose a standard candle: Eta Carina ) No filter. exposure was just 5 minutes.

The image is uncropped but was re-sized at 50% to be web friendly

The link is here (http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery129.html)

[Mighty_oz]

Great pic there, almost as good as mine :P
They'll be a wonder to behold when u get that adapter and get some color into it. Pretty deep for 5 mins too :)

[Tandum]

Wow, what a huge chunk of sky. You'll have fun with that one.

[gregbradley]

Woohoo - lookie dat!

Beautiful.

That bodes well.

Greg.

[multiweb]

That was expected from an AP. Flawless. :thumbsup:

[alpal]

Hi Peter,
That is a perfect photo.
I love the ultra wide flat field & I can't wait to see
a full colour processed version when you get
a filter wheel connected.

[TrevorW]

5 min total now that is going to be impressive with more and the stars appear as tight as a fishes ....

Noice

[JohnG]

Nice Peter, you gotta be happy with that :thumbsup:.

Cheers

[Paul Haese]

Nice Peter, but when are you going to set up all this gear at a dark site and do remote imaging? Seems a waste really to have three fine telescopes in Sydney that could be doing deep work.

[Peter Ward]

Thanks mate. Yep looks like it will be another AP classic



Watertight :lol:



Thanks, maybe not perfect :thanx:, but wide and flat for sure.



Thanks Marc. AP seem to do it consistently well. 5 micron stars across the field :thumbsup:



Ta Greg. The field is vignetted a tad (I used a 2.7" fitting). Precise parts are making a 3" adapter that will allow use of the filter-wheel and open things up a bit.



Boys and their toys! :)



Thanks. That's the plan. :)....I wonder what the weather will do..:question:

[multiweb]

Is focus tricky on this thing? How big is the CFZ?

[Peter Ward]

Attached are a couple of CCDinspector plots of the RHA's performance over a 50mm diagonal (KAF16803) field.

Interesting result, looks like there is a teeny bit of tilt that may need shimming out. FWHM's look to be seeing limited to around 2 pixels or 3 arc sec.

[Octane]

Wow. Can't wait to see what this baby can do in full colour!

Marc, at f/3.8, the CFZ on this puppy is just 31.8 microns. The FSQ-106N is 55 microns. So, very, very finicky!

H

[atalas]

Great things to come....congrats on the new scope!

[Garyh]

What a wonderful new toy Peter. I drooled over your other post when you got your hands on it
Stars look great to the edge!
You have to drag that to a dark sky site!

[Peter Ward]

Thanks to H for doing the math...:thumbsup:

Yep about 30 microns. That said I found focus with the 10:1 feathertouch was easy.

[Peter Ward]

Thanks. Indeed, the stars are remarkably tight across to the edge of the sensor...

As I mentioned you can see slight evidence of (camera tilt) at full-res, but that's easily fixed so I'm very happy with the results so far... but don't see myself hauling it to a dark site just yet :)



Thanks... Hopefully I'll be able to do it justice over the next few months.



Ta H :thumbsup:..saved me looking up the formula. I'm thinking narrow band results should be splendid

[richardo]

Wow Pete, pretty darn smick all the way out to the very edges that's for sure.
I cranked your 'Web' friendly version(not really friendly in any other terms:))... way up on my 24" mon checking for any star discrepancies around the edge......
Ahh, not a sign.
Beautifully consistent the whole field over.
The slight elongation could be as mentioned slight camera tilt, and at these extremes you are dealing with, more likely the prob.
But that is on the verge of nit picking I'd say.

I won't ask the price tag (that's rude ;)...)... well how much:D
But looks like you have yourself one hell of an express photon grabber:eyepop:

Can't wait to see the first serious image from this hunk of imaging magic:thumbsup:

All the best
Rich

[Bassnut]

Mmm, so what happens to the RCOS then, in a box?

[Peter Ward]

Ta Rich !

Smick is a good description :lol:.

Roland Christien is a without doubt an optical wizard so I don't expect any surprises when the imaging sessions begin in earnest.

The price is on AP's website....call it $A, add about 20% for shipping and GST to get one to the land of Oz. ;)

Ditto on wanting to get it cranked up with filters etc.:thumbsup:





Sold it in a garage sale for $20. :)

(actually it's inside... mirrors to be pulled and re-coated real soon now..a pity the mount can't hold both )

[Peter Ward]

Sorry Paul, I missed this. The short answer is no.

I intend to use the RHA for narrow band, so the point is moot, as you can shoot NB under a full moon with virtually no ill-effects.

Similarly with the RC14, on a non-full Moon night, the sky flux per arc sec when using around 3.0 metres FL even from my not-too-good location simply means I have to use, decidedly longer exposures than a dark site, .....but it is possible to get there ;)

[DavidU]

Impressive sharp wide field there Peter.:thumbsup:

[Nicola]

:jawdrop:

Excellent first light, can't wait to see what you can get with your puppy.

[RobF]

There's certainly some game-changing hardware coming to life in Aus lately. Thanks for sharing first light with us Peter.

[Peter Ward]

No problemo. :)



I'll probably have to say "Sit" & "Stay!" a few times :D





It's an interesting beastie for sure. I think the RCOS-14 does better in resolution & faint fuzzies, but for extended objects I can see a case for aperture and a fast F-ratio.

By the way, as a visual scope...nup..tried it out of curiosity with a 20mm Nagler..

..the 50% central obstruction is a bit like a Gorilla in the room..a little hard to miss! :)

[Mighty_oz]

At that price u could buy Mike's scope with a bit of change.
Wonder how this will compare to Mike's new scope ? Do i smell a shoot-out coming? Hey that would be great :)

[Peter Ward]

Hey, if you want to make an omelette, you gotta break some (golden ) eggs.

Mike's new scope is producing some good results.

While they are both indeed 12" F3.8 telescopes, they are also very different beasties...eg, no spider vane diffraction patterns, smaller physical size, flatter field, but more complex optics in the RHA... but this doesn't come for free! :)

That said, both scopes are pushing seeing limits, so a "shoot out" would most likely reflect seeing on the night...rather than any limitation of either instrument.

I'm simply looking forward to getting my system up and running with a filter wheel in place, and imaging our southern-sky gems.:thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

No offense to Mike but a shoot out is likely to be a one sided affair.

AP RHA is bound to be a collectors item once Roland retires and that can't be too many years from now.

RHA has the advantage of no diffraction spikes (and we know how Roland feels about those - what does he call them - deer eyes or truck headlights through a screen door! - I don't mind them but I prefer none).

It also has the advantage of rigid type construction so flex is not so likely.

RHA is not the same as a 12 inch APO but not far away from it and definitely infinitely more practical and compact.

A desirable scope for sure and the modern epitome of scope development.

You're a lucky man.

Greg.

[Paul Haese]

Yes good point.

[marc4darkskies]

Hmmm ... looks like you might have a keeper there Peter! Those stars look pretty round and tight! Almost, dare I say, Tak sharp? But ... can you show us a 400% crop of each of the corners please! :P

Cheers, Marcus

[strongmanmike]

It is a no brainer that the AP RH is a beautiful scope.

But in the end, any "shoot out" :rolleyes: would be lagely semantics :)

We all know Astro Physics and their level of perfection but to be fair, apart from the comparative delivery times that are likely, for the price of one AP RH you could get yourself one AG12 and one beautiful AP1200 mount.

Horses for courses as they say :thumbsup:

Mike

[Stevec35]

To add to all the positive comments, that's an excellent first light! there are obviously going to be great things coming from this scope if the La Nina ever goes away.

Cheers

Steve

[clive milne]

My sense of sentimentality would insist I cheered for the underdog if there were a challenge of pixels at dawn.



You could almost get an AP3600 mount (with a GSO newtonian ota) for that amount of cash as well.

Air freight might be a little pricey though.

[Hagar]

Very impressive Peter.

[Ross G]

An amazing telescope Peter.

I didn't know it existed.

I am looking forward to amazing photos from it.

Ross.

[Peter Ward]

Little hard to do right now. North of the equator again :)

[Peter Ward]

Can't argue with that....and sure there more affordable solutions.

Neither scope will be doing much until this dammed weather improves!

[Martin Pugh]

Congrats on the new scope Peter...very jealous. That is an awesome piece of kit. I was admiring it at AIC 2009.

cheers
Martin

[Peter Ward]

Thanks Martin. I suspect Roland might need to be canonised in the optical world !

You haven't missed much south of the equator....unless you are into SCUBA diving..you can do that pretty much anywhere on the east coast these days :)