Campster

I recently acquired a used TS Photoline 115 APO and flattener for $1,500 Canadian (about £880).  The sample I picked up came with the TSFLAT25Del 1x flattener.  It was well used with a few signs of wear and tear but the optics are clean and dust free.  Functionally it's in excellent shape, although there were a few quirks introduced by previous owners that had to be addressed.  I am pleased with the optical performance. as it gives great contrast. The field is flat from corner to corner with the flattener in place using a Canon 5D4.  I adapted mine by adding a pair of Vixen shoes on either side to allow for an optical finder and guide scope. 

This scope is permanently housed in my observatory and replaces a Celestron C6R as my primary instrument.  The reduction in tube length is most welcome as I'm now less prone to head-butting the tube while moving around the inside of the SkyShed POD.   The other benefit of the shorter tube length is that it is less prone to knocking against the tripod as it approaches the meridian.  The reduced weight is also welcomed as it gives me a better payload ratio for the 55 lb capacity of the CGEM-DX mount.  The only other factor to be considered is the hole spacing for the tube rings is metric.  I'm planning to get a pair of 11 inch D style universal plates to replace the 15 inch imperial scaled plates that were cannibalized from the C6R rig.

After using it now for a couple of months I'm very satisfied with it and it's become my main imaging scope.  The only "weak" feature is the screen printed logo on the dew hood.  After I got it home I cleaned the exterior surfaces with soapy water and the printed logo began to come off.  I'm not too concerned about it because it does not affect the performance.  I would recommend this scope for anyone looking to move up (or down) to a 115mm class APO.

On 28/08/2020 at 06:40, Craig a said:

So do these newer cmos sensors still require darks if the images are dithered? Also are dark flats required or can you just get away with normal flats be enough? Being new to these cameras I’m not at all clued up on the calibration required, on my canon I just used a bad pixel map and plain old flats 

I'm also using the ASI533MC Pro and it's always a good practice to take Darks, Bias & Flats to help attenuate noise in your image.  Dark Flats don't seem to be a regular practice with most amateurs though.

Glad to see the discussion about Offset here.  Being a recent convert from DSLR photography I've been trying to get a handle on the baseline settings.  The recommendations of 20-70 help me get a feel for where I should be setting that value in APT.  I think I'm going to be using 40 or 50 and see where that takes me.  

Regards, David