wouterdhoye

now that's a nice detailed shot of a magnificent target.

Nicely done!

That's a very pleasing image! Thanks for sharing.

Nice, You should do this more often 😀

I tend to underexpose my captures. Usually keep histogram below 80%. during processing I also keep an eye on the histogram and bring highlights down between processing steps if necessary. Wouter.

Hello, below some images taken with my new gear. For a first light report check the thread in the telescope forum. For all images : telescope: Omegon ProCC 154/184! camera: QHY 5-III-462C filter: QHY IR_pass 850 this first image is one of my favorite regions. Especially with the sun high enough over the lunar surface. A wealth of detail is visible all around. We see here the prominent crater trio Ptolemaeus, Alphonsus & Arzachel. Rupes recta, the best known cliff on the moon, shown here as a dark pencil streak. Many other features are in this image. Too many to name them all. The above image shows the huge crater Clavius famous for it's crater arc on the floor. Tycho shows intricate details in it's walls and near the bottom Moretus with its many terrases and prominent central peak is a wonderful sight. Last but not least a long mosaic covering the Alps and Apennine mountains and on top of that the mighty Copernicus crater. Other fine features, Plato, Alpine valley, Archimedes, Cassini, Aristillus, Autolycus, Erathostenes,... Clear skies, Wouter.

Second light served to optimize the telescope. I corrected collimation. During the day I used a takahashi collimation scope to correct the secondary positioning. At night I collimated the primary on a star. the out of focus images look a lot better now. Allowing the scope ample time to cool down helped a lot too. this image was taken about 2,5 hours after taking the scope outside. the results are a lot better too. despite less seeing than yesterday and rather annoying wind the results are noticeably better. I leave it to this on reviewing this telescope on an imagers perspective. And hope many other prospective buyers of these GSO made classical cassegrain telescope will find it a useful reference. Clear skies, Wouter D'hoye

Hi, No less than 2 nights after receiving my new telescope I was able to give it first light. Quite a miracle as usually you get three months of clouds after receiving new gear. or maybe there is a correlation with the cost. this one was fairly inexpensive. anyway. Conditions were not quite ideal. Seeing was only so so and transparency was quite bad with a creamy haze. The setup: The Omegon Pro CC 154/1800 was installed on my 20year old Vixen GP with Boxdoerfer controller (this is becoming sorta vintage gear 🙂 ) on the back of the telescope is a baader flip mirror, ZWO filter wheel and QHY5-III-462C camera. Eyepiece at the flip mirror is a baader Zoom 8-24mm. The RDF on the scope is a baader Sky Surfer V. It took some fiddling to get everything parfocal but all worked out quite fine and was very solid. Also the focuser on the telescope which by no means is a feathertouch (which costs way more than this scope) worked flawlessly with no play shifting sagging or the like. Focuser movement was sufficiently smooth and manual focusing was no problem. Cooldown: open tube systems do suffer from air current as long as the scope is not cooled down. below image clearly shows the heat plume. 15 minute later 5the scope would have been outside then somewhere between 30 and 45minutes. it looks like below. I think this kind of acclimatization is normal and acceptable considering the scope was indoors in a heated room. Storing in a cool place would reduce this effect considerably. The collimation is not perfect, but I, at this moment did not bother tweaking it. I did tweak secondary collimation indoors with a Tak collimation scope. There only a slight adjustment was required. And from the above only a minor tweak of the primary will be required to get a nice concentric pattern. I'm not much of a visual observer so will not comment too much on that. For me, besides the bad seeing the images was quite pleasing. Imaging was was a joy. The scope is easy to focus, and the resulting, processed images are the result. Notice however that these were shot under not quite ideal conditions. So I guess there is a lot more potential to this scope as what is shown below. Conclusion, There is a lot of potential to this scope for lunar imaging. Resolved detail is excellent and would give the novice (and even the more experienced selenographer) an impressive value for money. This scope only costs €400,- brand new. Compare that to €7000,- for my 12"CFF. I'm sure this little gem will give me loads of fun. The entire setup is light enough to take out in one go. Highly recommended for lunar imagers on the go! Clear skies. Wouter.

Sweet image. Lovely colors

The new scope arrived today. Mine is the Omegon version. And about 30minutes after delivery clouds rolled in. Fit and finish seem surprisingly good (I never had a Taiwanese scope) The focuser is smooth without play/wobble. The optics are pristine. Only thing i noticed was that the finder shoe is a bit too tight for my baader rdf. Also collimation seems to be a bit off but that is to be expected . More after first light. First impressions are good though. Clear skies, Wouter.

Very nicely done. And even if it was the 1000th time, I’d still enjoy the view. Thanks for sharing.

The 224 is also a very good camera and I believe still is for many planetary imagers. I own one too and am very happy with it. I however use it more for planetary imaging than for lunar work. below an example of what the 224 can do on the moon, using a big telescope https://astrob.in/full/396334/0/ and with a tiny one https://astrob.in/full/xtzc8h/0/ Kind regards, Wouter.

this one is made with my QHY 462 and IR850 filter https://astrob.in/full/hqls91/0/ Clear skies Wouter.

You for sure got a good catch Wouter.

Hi, from the cameras you have the asi120 mini is quite suitable, but due it iff course has a small sensor, and is relatively slow, as it is only USB2. if i'd have to recommend something for higher res work I'd look at the ASI290 or ASI178. (or their counterpart from QHY) The new AS462 is also very good, and in some ways the successor to the 290, but only available in a color version. both camera's are relatively small but this will allow for high framerates and still manageable SER files. ASI also has larger sensor camera's, performance is similar, as is the resolution, but frame rate will be slower, and file size significantly larger. But these cameras might be able to show the full lunar disc in one go, or at least require less panels for mosaics. Kind regards, Wouter.

Lovely photograph!

Great work, thanks for sharing! Impressively detailed shot especially for a 140mm aperture.

Pretty image. Ir-pass filters do wonders for daylight imaging.

Lovely images!

Lovely images. 👍

The whole purpose is to take lunar shots. 😀 It’s supposed to be an alternative to use until my big CFF cassegrain is recomissioned.

Thanks everybody for you comments and impressions of these cassegrain telescopes. Based on your and the opinions on other platforms I decided to order mine. It was even in stock. So probaly somehere after the weekend I should receive my new gear. Apologies for any clouds the next few weeks 😉 Wouter

Sweet image. Excellently processed too! wouter

Hi, congrats on a fine first image. For a single shot and using an achromatic telescope this is for sure a very fine image. for getting best results taking many many images and stacking is the best solution. For what i's worth, you can get autostakkert to work on a mac using crossover (an emulator) and that works fairly good, (it does lock up once in a while) Kind regards, Wouter.

Thanks for the comments.. appreciated. So it seems that it is a good scope. Now if someone just had some high res lunar images with it 😉 Clear skies, Wouter.