Recently bought one second hand from IIS classified and got a couple of PMs asking questions so here's a couple of test shot with the CF triplet 90/600.
Without corrector: here and here (taken last week)
With the corrector at 105mm: here (taken tonight through a sucker hole).
All pictures are in-focus on axis. The scope will not cover a CCD the size of a QHY8 without the corrector which retails at approx $370.00 inc. shipping.
The ideal spacing is between 103mm and 109mm. Will have to play with it until I hit the sweet spot but it seems to work fine.
The scope is very sharp and easy to focus. Also keeps focus overnight which is a plus. It's not exactly light though even being CF.
It will support heavy magnification (x3/4/5/6) and still show very sharp and defined focus point.
Standard focuser is ok but not suitable for a heavy camera or long extension tubes unless it's braced with an extension plate and tube rings. (Will post later scope arrangement)
But all in one I think the scope is bang for the buck.
PS: added a couple of shots of the scope at focus. Focuser is almost all racked in which is good. The alu plate is 15mm thick. It's the plate I'm already using to balance my newt so I just added holes and tapped it to adapt it to the refractor. The original clam shell that came with the scope is the first then two WO tube rings. The dovetail is a losmandy double male. The whole setup is about 8kg I'd say.
What manufacturer is it Marc??
What are the lenses made from??
The last image is nearly hitting the money.... a little more spacing and I think you'll be there. Typical, need to test things and you keep running out in between clouds... been there a lot with testing spacings and things... can be real frustrating.
Stars look nice pin points in the centre as I can judge from your uncorrected version of the HH region.
Be nice to see how it handles colour correction.
Mmmm, a Moonlite or a Feather touch focuser I hear you thinking??
The last image is nearly hitting the money.... a little more spacing and I think you'll be there. Typical, need to test things and you keep running out in between clouds... been there a lot with testing spacings and things... can be real frustrating.
I think it's nearly there. I have a bit of tilt on the top right. I have 5mm to play with see if it improves.
I know, last night I struggled to get anything in, pointing manually into sucker holes. Then it clouded over. Packed and shot flats then it cleared around 12:00pm. Crystal clear. Typical.
Quote:
Originally Posted by richardo
Stars look nice pin points in the centre as I can judge from your uncorrected version of the HH region.
Be nice to see how it handles colour correction.
Supposedly good at colour correction. That's one problem I had with the ED80 with the blue channel always out compared to the green and red focus.
Quote:
Originally Posted by richardo
Mmmm, a Moonlite or a Feather touch focuser I hear you thinking??
Look forward to your real first light images.
Money box is too low for now. I worked it out differently for now. Looking forward to some clear skies too so I can start having fun with it.
I notice the finder scope,looks like a moded one for guiding,or is it a as purchased 'Finder guider'?
It's a stock GSO finder 8x50. You can get them anywhere. Approx. $50.00 or about. The plastic 'eyepiece' can be removed and the metal lip is very close to a M42 thread diameter, so you basically only have to thread it and that's it. The QHY5 will reach focus. It's light and you can guide anything with it and move it around from scope to scope.
Thanks Marc,I am buying a new mount very shortly,I will follow up on this
finder guider set up for my set up.It certainly looks like a niffty arrangement,
Are there many people that have a finder guider?
Have seen a lot.most seem to have the 72 mm megrez or similar for guiders,personally I can't see much point having a lot of money tied up in a guide scope.that never gets used for anything else,and the arrangement you
have weighs less.I like to have things as lean as possible on the mount.
I see one chap who had the cheapest looking guide scope,(I think it cost $150),did the same job as the fellow next to him who had a elite megrez.
Marc, I thought from the distances you quoted for the FF that you must be using one of the TS optiks units (sold also as APM). I have had one for about 18 months and it does a very good job of getting the field flat as can be seen by your third pic. Love the amount of play you get with distance to the chip as well. I have found that mine works anywhere between 105 - 110mm on my FLT98CF with no real observable difference anywhere within that range. It worked best at 103 - 105mm on my 80mm (600mm) F6 apo though.
I'd say a few do yeah. It's very light and convenient. I've even guide the C11 at F/10 with it when I have the AO running. It works fine. Anything at 1200mm FL or under, no sweat. I guide with this setup always when using the hyperstar as well because my images scale is 3asp and guiding through the finder will give me +/- 2 arcsec on average so that covers my newt, ED80 and any refactor around 600/700mm.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hotspur
Have seen a lot.most seem to have the 72 mm megrez or similar for guiders,personally I can't see much point having a lot of money tied up in a guide scope.that never gets used for anything else,and the arrangement you
have weighs less.I like to have things as lean as possible on the mount.
Weight was the issue for me. With my 5" newt I always guided with the ED80 piggy backed on top or vice versa. When I got the C11 I thought I'd try the guider rather than mounting again the ED80 on top. It worked so well I thought why not try it on the newt, then the ED80 itself. I haven't guided through anything else since.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hotspur
I see one chap who had the cheapest looking guide scope,(I think it cost $150),did the same job as the fellow next to him who had a elite megrez.
And there was no difference in the images.
Thanks for the information Marc,
Cheeers Chris
PHD will guide fine. Calibrate at 3000ms calibration steps, then 0.15 pixel min deviation. You'll obviously have no problem finding a guide star. Ever.
Quote:
Originally Posted by marki
Marc, I thought from the distances you quoted for the FF that you must be using one of the TS optiks units (sold also as APM). I have had one for about 18 months and it does a very good job of getting the field flat as can be seen by your third pic. Love the amount of play you get with distance to the chip as well. I have found that mine works anywhere between 105 - 110mm on my FLT98CF with no real observable difference anywhere within that range. It worked best at 103 - 105mm on my 80mm (600mm) F6 apo though.
Mark
Thanks for the info Mark. I'll probably try again tonight as it looks like we might get some clear skies until 12:00pm tonight in Sydney.
yeah, I found my Orion ED80 did have a bit of focus difference from Red, to Green and blue.
I always had halos around the blue stars as well as blue bloat.
While a great little scope for the money, it had its down falls as to be expected.
yeah, I found my Orion ED80 did have a bit of focus difference from Red, to Green and blue.I always had halos around the blue stars as well as blue bloat.While a great little scope for the money, it had its down falls as to be expected.
The ED80 is one great scope - no doubt. But as you progress in the hobby you soon hit a wall. The problem I had with it was with the blue channel being slightly blurrier than the red and green. As a result after even the slightest deconvolution and color balance/saturation I ended up with some of the star cores having real funky colors in the RGB. Looking at the blue channel they were punched out in the middle (black dot). I could work around it once aware of it by selecting all the cores and applying a slight blur but it can be a lot of work when you image around the milkyway. Other than that I never had any issue with it. It's a good all rounder. This new APO though is in another class. It was very obvious to me straight away when I started playing with it.
I managed to get some photons on saturday night from Crago observatory on bowen mountain. Took my Dad who was visiting from France up there for the night. He could not believe the sky and the magelanic clouds especially. He had a ball (and loves the aeroguard too). I had the APO with me and so took a couple of shots (unguided 30s-60s exposures - forgot the QHY5 on the C11) so he could see how much more details a CCD can pick up compared to what he could see visually in the 16" dobs in the dome.
I took advantage of the relaxed night to fix up the corrector spacing and I kept some of the shots I did here if anyone is interested on how these little scopes perform. I reckon they do quite well for the price.
All shots are 5x30s or 5x60s unguided. Prime focus with the corrector/flattener at 105mm.
The frames are uncropped but they are reduced from 3000px wide down to 2000px. File size is still a bit big though. No calibration, deconvolution, color balance. Just aligned, data rejection and mean stacked. Have a look anyway. That'll give you a good idea of the field and optics. Focus was done accurately with a bathinov mask and the mount was polar aligned within 3-5" both sides... I know that was a first for me
M78 [3.27MB] -10x60s (car headlights leaving field ) NGC3372 [4.41MB] 5x60s Another field around Eta (not sure where) [3.53MB] 1x60s NGC104 [ 3.89MB] 5x30s NGC 2070 [3.76MB] 5x60s
Excellent Marc, nice stars and a great FOV, very refractor like
Bet your dad had a ball, wait till he sees the new Aeroguard advert on TV , love the guy wearing the red budgey smugglers ...while cooking sausages, ouch
on the C11) so he could see how much more details a CCD can pick up compared to what he could see visually in the 16" dobs in the dome.
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