William Optics Zenithstar 71 ED

[hobsey]

I'm currently looking at short imaging refractors for when my Skywatcher Star Adventurer gets delivered.

At the moment, I have my heart set on the William Optics Zenithstar 71 ED with field flattener. It looks good and is the size I'm looking for.

Is there any other scopes that maybe I should be looking that? Around the same price or cheaper and focal length.

I'm not sure on how the Star Adventurer will cope with anything longer so I'm looking at the shorter fracs to be on the safe side.

Many thanks.

[Earl]

For another £50 you can get the TS 65mm Quad, no spacing issues better colour correcting larger flat area but slower F.

[PNJ]

The Quad is fine, but its a bit heavy on the adventurer mount

Paul J

[hobsey]

Do you know what the tube weight of the quad is?

Adventurer has a max payload of 5kg.

[Earl]

2.8kg with rings from th TS website

[Earl]

having owned both id be inclined to go for the quad

[Alien 13]

I think that the ZS71 might be pushing the mount for weight with a FF/FR and camera but the 330mm effective FL is nice and it is fast, an alternative that might be worth considering is the canon 200mm L lens.

Alan

[hobsey]

 worth considering is the canon 200mm L lens.

I have thought about these but it would have to be the f4.0, 2.8 is silly money.

[Alien 13]

The 200mm f2.8 and the 70-200mm f4 are both around the £500 mark even on the high street so not much more than the ZS71 combo i do like my scope though but would still fancy one of those lenses too.

Alan

[hobsey]

I guess with the lens I have the advantage of night time and day time photography and always wanted an 'L' lens so I could use this as an excuse.

EDIT* But I do already have a vintage OM 200mm Prime lens.

[Alien 13]

I guess with the lens I have the advantage of night time and day time photography and always wanted an 'L' lens so I could use this as an excuse.

EDIT* But I do already have a vintage OM 200mm Prime lens.

I have an old 200mm lens too the scope does give better image scale on most targets and Andromeda fits perfectly without that squashed in look i have found that my scope also does a reasonable job on lunar and daytime photography so its quite versatile.

Alan

[hobsey]

Oh, I dunno what to do.

[Earl]

I personally didnt like 200mm for normal photography, im a bit of a wide field person i think.

[hobsey]

im a bit of a wide field person i think.

Yeah, I got a 11-16mm ultrawide 2.8 for that.

[Alien 13]

Its allways difficult making choices but here is one reason i do realy love my scope.

Alan

[hobsey]

Yeah, I think I may have to go the scope route.

Just need to wait for one to come up on the secondhand market now, think I will be waiting a while though.