New arrival

[happy-kat]

It came today the travel scope for night and day time use.

After much reading, searching, scratching head felt this was the scope to go for, the Celstron c70 is not what I had thought it would be the eye placement position is too critical to be enjoyable so back to the drawing board it was.

Orion shortube 80mm refractor won out.

I chose this scope over the Skywatcher for 2 main reasons.

1 - the variant I chose has a fixed dove bar with 3 tripod mounts, I never expect to use this as a guide scope so tube rings were not necassary.

2 - it is in white how cool

First impressions are it is much better made then I thought it was going to be and the dew shield is also aluminium and not plastic.

The paint job is pretty neat.

The rack and pinion focuser unit is lovely and smooth and there is no looseness.

There is a T thread on the end of the focuser unit already (though I gather a DSLR may still find this tube too short to reach focus on reading anyway but I have the supplied diagonal to extend the length).

I will make my own bag for travelling as the supplied bag is OK but bigger than it needs to be as the bits and bobs will go in hold luggage.

I wont bother fitting the finder scope as it is a sight and I would rather use a RDF but I will try it first without one at all.

Time permitting I intend to follow the great video by Astronomy Shed on how to make it the best it can be, I can already see a black marker pen needs to find it's way onto the other wide of the dove bar fixing to blacken the nut fixing.

[sbooder]

Enjoy!

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice new scope you got there

[happy-kat]

Got to have a very quick try tonight. Firstly cloud came in within an hour and second I don't have a tripod for it here

So hand held impressions.

A dream to use this focuser unit, even one handed was so slilky smooth and with no slop finding focus and easy to see straight off when reached.

In my light polluted hole I was suprised how many stars were evident when looking.

25mm eyepeice I could make out M42.

Hand held near zenith Jupiter with this eyepeice showed a slightl blue edge on one side of the tiny disc and I could make out one of the moons which I thought was a bonus.

Lastly eye position is so much more relaxed then the Celstron c70 which was really the reason I bought this was for what I hoped would be confortable viewing.

So all in very pleased and a promising start on this little scopes capabilities.

[happy-kat]

Oh and it made me realise that either the heritage suffers badly from heat off the house or I do need to collimate it as I don't see stars any where as near defined as they were in the stubby.

[crashtestdummy]

How heavy are these?

[happy-kat]

Very light, I have just (no eyepeice or diaganol) and this one weighs 1395 grams so 1.3 kilos

[paulastro]

You're scope will also make a very good camera lens if you have a DSLR, as well as a good spotting scope for wildlife etc.  Regards, Paul

[crashtestdummy]

Was just wanting to compare it to the Altair 80mm I have as a finderscope which is 1.2kg Inc eyepice and diagonal and tube rings but doubtfull it's as solidly build as yours.

[happy-kat]

Yes this is going to be used for day and night and have an 1100d and T adaptor already so will play with photos as well.

It does not replace the Heritage for me as that has a way bigger mirror.

[NGC007]

Looks rock solid, congrats.

Clem

[happy-kat]

Is the dew shield on the star travel 80mm plastic then?

In theory they are kind of identical I thought.

[happy-kat]

Tried the 10mm today ..… these just aren't nice awful tight viewing and eye position as to iq can't say as was hand holding.

Did find it real easy to locate and track aeroplanes so when the ISS comes round again will hope to try hand tracking that.

[inedible_hulk]

Is the dew shield on the star travel 80mm plastic then?

In theory they are kind of identical I thought.

Yes, on my ST80 the shield is plastic. Enjoy your new scope

[happy-kat]

Back to using the 25mm and hand holding.

Was pleased I found the Beehive cluster and it was lovely to see. Tried my maxvision 16mm and whist the view was nice with a darker back ground it made the scope too heavy to hand hold so back to the 25mm. Managed 30 minutes hand holding then came in got the camera placed it on the 1 foot high tripod and had a go at imaging it, will post the results tomorrow on my tablet and dslr thread.

Still very pleased with this ST80 and tomorrow we'll see how to use it with the camera so see where the focusing point is and whether I need to use the diagonal or not. If I do I might get an extension tube instead of the diagonal to keep maximum light. Will also see if it can focus with my barlow easier to test in the day time.

[happy-kat]

Camera testing today in daylight using Canon 1100d with T ring and eyepeice nose cone.

camera > ST80 = Focus, with just under an inch to spare of BACK focus available

camera > x1.6 barlow > ST80 = Not focused, not enough BACK focus available

camera > diagonal > ST80 = Not focused, not enough IN focus available

camera> x1.6 barlow > diagonal> ST80 = Not focused, not enough IN focus available

The images on the tablet looked to have far less CA then the actual photo taken. Though if there were no super strong contrast edges in the image taken the photo had no CA.

I have all packed away now and stupidly I should have tried to work out how much longer a tube I needed to reach focus by hand with the barlow as the diagonal is obviously too long a light path as with that I run out of IN focus travel.

Might see what I could fashion up to give a 1-2 inch extension tube as I think that would also help on the heritage so I could use the barlow there too. Orion have a 2 inch extension available on Amazon but it is unclear if it is an adjustable length barrel.

Or have I got the terminology the wrong way round.

When I wrote not enough IN focus I meant I could not wind the focus tube in any further and I still had not reached focus but I could see it was heading in the right direction. So does this mean that I only need an extension tube for use with the barlow as that was lacking in enough BACK focus travel as I had run out of focus tube coming out of the telescope but still had not reached focus but it was going in the right direction.

Suggests to me that the diagonal had too long an extra focal distance so it is between that and say 1 inch that I need, best I work out how long the diagonal is. But then the focus tube could take up any slack as it was fairly long way out.

[happy-kat]

Been and set it all up again, to reach focus with the barlow the very tip last 1/8 inch is just inside the fully extended focus tube.

The barlow is 3/4 inch long, the T ring nose cone is about 1 inch long, so I guess the 2 inch extension tube is going to give me enough travel and purchase in the focus tube just.

[happy-kat]

Finally got a tripod to use with this courtesy of the FLo clearance.

tonight was the first time I have used the Orion on a tripod and it is a darling to use.

The more I use this little scope the more I like it.

So purpose of tonight was a quick session (clouds) and to compare with a Mercury on a different thread.

So this report is about the CA I was expecting but didn't really get.

On Jupiter with 32mm there was no CA nor was there any with my 16mm that I recall as I type this. I then put in the WO 6mm and there was just a small amount which was often just a hint to also being none at all. Whether this very little CA is down to my modificaitons I wont know as I was umable to do a before on Jupiter.

[happy-kat]

Today's prep for holiday later this summer where the AZ3 is kept was make a counter weight bar as when using the dslr on the back the weight is too heavy to hold balance.

I do not want to tighten the bolts so needed a better solution and on a good old google found other ideas on counter balancing this tripod.

I could have bought the new SW Adventurer counter weight bar from FLO here but I had already started to order parts before I found that.

One M10 200mm threaded rod

2 wing nuts

1 nylock M10 bolt

1 M10 bolt and washer

3 weights totall just over 1 kilo together

The weights I bought from Astroboot and they are perfect as give flexibility of how much to use. I also bought a ball head for my barn door tracker which is nicely made and very inexpensive.

The wing nuts give a means to reposition the weights as needed.

I will use a small plate at the top fixed on the underside the mount using one of the bolts holding the camera mounting block on, there will be a hole drilled in the end bit, the end of the plate will be bent upwards and the bar will suspend in the hole at about a 45 degreee angle.

Cost was £14.30 all in (I alreay had the nylock and short plate).

[happy-kat]

Have fitted the bar to the AltAz3 tripod, only one of the three weights currently attached I suspect I will need at least two to counter balance the Canon 1100d.

Not used this in earnest yet to confirm that the angle of the bar is right.