First Light from the All Reflecting Refractor

[RobF (Rob)]

Gosh that's beautiful. It just "feels" right - and no sharpening. What an OTA.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by dvj

Yah! Looking for something completely off the beaten path in Orion maybe. Funny photo Mike.

j

Pleeeease don't resign this beautiful beast to the ho hum been there done that over and over again corridors of more boring B&W Halpha ...spread it's wings and fly it through the colours of the universe John, let this be thy awakening...for us ALL

Mike
You have produced amazing Ha work...just sayin

[Peter.M]

What a magnificent first light.

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Here is a link to a "roll-over" pair of images to illustrate the point.

I don't really agree with your comparison as all things are not equal, seeing guiding mount ect. What I don't really understand is people arguing about the telescopes design not being optimal when the real world results are staring them in the face and then pointing to the cost of the scope as a fall back.

eg "50% obstruction, diffraction rings blah blah blah"

"But look at the image its amazing"

"Yea but that's because it costs a fortune!"

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by Peter.M

What a magnificent first light.


I don't really agree with your comparison as all things are not equal, ....

Absolutely! ...it was hardly an apples vs apples.

As for the cost....hey, if you are seriously looking at the latest, say, Ferrari 458 speciale....price is irrelevant

[dvj (John)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Pleeeease don't resign this beautiful beast to the ho hum been there done that over and over again corridors of more boring B&W Halpha ...spread it's wings and fly it through the colours of the universe John, let this be thy awakening...for us ALL

Mike
You have produced amazing Ha work...just sayin

You're killing me Mike!

If you want to see what this scope can do in color, here is a tri-color shot that Roland did with this instrument as part of his pre-shipment testing.

http://www.qsimaging.com/gallery/NGC...ten-QSI683.jpg

He shared the original with me at the AIC which blew me out of my chair. Too bad the 8300 array has such shallow well depth and poor QE. I'm actually thinking a 6303 camera to match the instruments light gathering capabilities on very obscure narrowband targets.

jg

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by dvj

I'm actually thinking a 6303 camera to match the instruments light gathering capabilities on very obscure narrowband targets.

jg

Sniff sniff...I smell B&W Ha agaaain

Hmmm?...O-K, I guess I'll allow that ... but only if they are in tricolour NB or RGB hey just about anyone can get sharp wide field images with a 3nm Ha filter

[Satchmo]

Originally Posted by Peter.M

eg "50% obstruction, diffraction rings blah blah blah"

"But look at the image its amazing"

"Yea but that's because it costs a fortune!"

My post was actually in response to exclamation at how sharp the images were.

I wasn't arguing . I'm pointing out that a good telescope with an EER of 50% does very nicely for imaging and this is some kind of benchmark - something we couldn't seam to establish in the other thread. It is not about the optics beeing 1/20 wave rather than 1/4 wave although I'm sure every bit helps..

Still wondering how much one of these costs to the front door .

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by Satchmo

.....

Still wondering how much one of these costs to the front door .

About $23.5K ....and probably headed north of that, with the $A headed south at present.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

that's a lovely image John - top shelf.

[Poita (Peter)]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

About $23.5K ....and probably headed north of that, with the $A headed south at present.

24 grand? (Choke). I would hope it would outperform a run-of-the-mill 'ED Refractor' then, seeing as it costs 24x as much

I would love to see a compare image between it and a quality refractor.

It is a beautiful image.

[dvj (John)]

Originally Posted by Poita

24 grand? (Choke). I would hope it would outperform a run-of-the-mill 'ED Refractor' then, seeing as it costs 24x as much

I would love to see a compare image between it and a quality refractor.

It is a beautiful image.

$24K? Maybe in Australia dollars it costs that much, but not in the US. Not even close. No argument from me that there are better value instruments out there.

I've seen the comparison images from this scope and Roland's amazing 175 F/8 refractor. Nearly identical, although I would probably give the F/8 refractor a slight edge in star sharpness. The 175mm refractor is actually several thousand US dollars more expensive.

[bratislav (Bratislav)]

Re tiny stars.
It is the fast f-ratio (as well as superb field correction, AND an uber narrow H-alpha filter) that makes stars so small. At f/3.8, even including several rings of Airy disc pattern ('cause of 50% obstruction), they will still fit into STL11K's single pixel, more or less.

Spectacular first light BTW. Those tiny Bok globules are so well resolved it beggars belief the shot was taken at only 1160mm focal length!

Bratislav

[Larryp (Laurie)]

Originally Posted by dvj

$24K? Maybe in Australia dollars it costs that much, but not in the US. Not even close. No argument from me that there are better value instruments out there.

I've seen the comparison images from this scope and Roland's amazing 175 F/8 refractor. Nearly identical, although I would probably give the F/8 refractor a slight edge in star sharpness. The 175mm refractor is actually several thousand US dollars more expensive.

Sigh! A 175mm f8 Starfire-one can only dream!

[dvj (John)]

2nd light from the RHA 305

This is a crop from the full res STL 11000M format.


IC 1805
9 x 1800s
RHA 305 f/3.8
STL 11000M
3nm AstroDon Ha filter
1200 mount.


Because I am currently manually focusing, I was off a tad during the last 4 exposures. But happy with the result. Even at 9um pixels, the resolution is fine enough to perform a crop on this interesting portion of the nebula complex, representing about 30% of the original STL11000 image.


http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/5350/cyp4.jpg


Cheers,


jg

[LightningNZ (Cam)]

Jesus, it's beautiful.
-Cam

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by dvj

2nd light from the RHA 305

This is a crop from the full res STL 11000M format.


IC 1805
9 x 1800s
RHA 305 f/3.8
STL 11000M
3nm AstroDon Ha filter
1200 mount.


Because I am currently manually focusing, I was off a tad during the last 4 exposures. But happy with the result. Even at 9um pixels, the resolution is fine enough to perform a crop on this interesting portion of the nebula complex, representing about 30% of the original STL11000 image.


http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/5350/cyp4.jpg


Cheers,


jg

Neb looks good but the stars are flat and hard edged so booo lift your game Gleason...or pass that scope on to someone to do real imaging with it



Nice work

Mike

[dvj (John)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Neb looks good but the stars are flat and hard edged so booo lift your game Gleason...or pass that scope on to someone to do real imaging with it



Nice work

Mike

No worries Mike. I've already taken the scope down and packed away into the vault. Back to the FSQ for me.

[gregbradley]

Such an impressive instrument. Are the hard stars a characteristic of the scope or too much deconvolution?

Greg.

[iceman (Mike)]

Stunning image, John.

It's now IOTW.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by dvj

No worries Mike. I've already taken the scope down and packed away into the vault.

Yeh, funny how some people actually do that with AP scopes, buy them and then store them, they aren't really scopes but rather collector items to some

Back to the FSQ for me.

Oh well, fair'nuff completely understand at least you will be able to move that around more easily

Ok how about an M42 next, that's pretty obscure haaaaave to do that in colour though