During my week at Duckadang I spent most of my imaging time trying out the
WO Flattener/Reducer 0.8x reducer/ff v. II and my
WO 1:10 retrofit for WO Synta & Newton Crayford Focusers .
I have had the focuser for a while now and love it. It makes critical focusing so much easier than the standard ED80 focuser.
The Focal Reducer is a new addition. I have used the ED80 without a reducer and with the Meade 6.3 SCT reducer. While on it's own the refractor does an acceptable job of imaging with not too much distortion in the corners, but at f/7.5 it is a bit slow. Adding the Meade 6.3 speeds the scope up to f/4.7, but introduces objectionable distortion in the corners.
After seeing the WO reducer advertised at a very reasonable price I though I would give it a try and see what happens. Well I was very pleasantly surprise. The 0.8X reducer and flattener does a very good job of not just reducing the f ration to an acceptable f/6, but the image is quite sharp with minimal distortion right out to the edges and corners.
The attached image shows in the left pane the effects in the corners of the Meade 6.3 reducer and no fine focuser. The stars are drawn out into triangles from the outer 2/3 - 3/4 of the image. The center of the image (not shown) is acceptable.
The center pane shows the standard ED80 without reducer and without fine focuser. While the stars are not sharply focused the distortion is not excessive, but it is still obvious. The center of the image when focused sharply is fine.
The right pane shows the effects of using a WO focal reducer and the fine focuser. There is just no comparison. The effects on star quality is obvious. I am very happy with the results.
Please remember that this is not a objective assessment. I have only picked the corners of three seperate images taken over a period of time. They are not even of the same area of the sky or processed similarly. The only similarities are that they were all taken on an Orion ED80 using a Canon 300D mounted and autoguided on a Losmandy G11 and focused using DSLR Focus. I may at some time do a more rigourous tests but it hardly seems worth it considering these results.
BTW, I have looked at other less expensive 10:1 focusers and they are not in the same league as the WO. The three I did look at had unacceptable free movement in the fine focuser, while the WO fine focuser was direct with not flexure or delay in action. I noticed a considerable difference in their actions.