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OK , got to Star test Strickers new scopes last night .
Both the Orion ED80 and the C11.
Won't go into the C11 much because in all fairness it never really cooled down enough to do a serious evaluation on the optics.The only thing able to really be seen was it was very slightly out of collimation , but again I would like to do it again on a night of better seeing and a cooled scope.
Now onto the Orion ED80 with reference to the Megrez 80 problems and the Celestron ED80 I have used as a bench mark.
The Orion ED 80 tests for all purposes showed the same star test pattern as the C80. (see Review onC80)
Not very surprising as the optics are reportedly of the same origin , just in different packages.
The only thing to note was a slight bit of over correction in the out focus star test, seen as a slightly brighter second outer ring than it should have been.
The inner focus was spot on and collimation was also very good with round well defined rings.
All tests including the focused bright stars showed very little blue surrounding them, about the same as the C80 , but less than the Megrez.
Heat was not a problem and test patterns showed very little heat aberrations.
Hands on viewing proved the optics to be good and we pushed the scope up to over 180x on Jupiter with reasonable results considering the night was not perfect with some high wispy clouds about.
Any way the moral to the story is, never assume your optics are good just because of a name , always do a star test so you know that your getting what you paid for.
Bad one do slip through even premium brands.
One comforting thing is , it sounds like Williams are looking after Dan .
Mark
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