HiloDon

Thanks, Stash. One of the things I have noticed in this hobby is the lack of beta testing by the seller before the product is marketed. Seems to be a common thing, especially with new cameras for EAA. I enjoy the testing part of new astronomy equipment. I try to be objective and identify the value and usefulness of a product, so others don't waste their money. There have been some ideas generated about Freestar that could make it work. Nytecam has suggested an aperture mask that should, in theory reduce the SA significantly. It's an easy thing to make, so I will try that next. It won't be as fast, but it will have the wider FOV. I'll report back. Don

I do my focusing at five seconds. It was just as bad. The overly large stars are due to out of focus light from spherical aberration. Exposure won't change that.

I think this article explains things in simple terms. The problem as stated by some earlier is an uncorrected spherical mirror. It will cause spherical aberration equally across the entire field, even center stars. That's why the Hyperstar lens is needed. https://starizona.com/acb/basics/equip_optics101_spherical.aspx

Had some clear skies last night and did a comparison of the Freestar and Hyperstar on my Evo 6 and Lodestar X2c. All settings were the same. M8 was the target. If I tried to get better focus on the bright stars, the smaller dim stars would go out of focus. I'm hoping someone can explain what's going on optically, but it's not good without Hyperstar. First one is Freestar, then Hyperstar.

I tried to get some comparison last night with the C6. Skies looked pretty good, so I aligned and set up the Freestar with the Lodestar. Went to the Rosette Nebula. Tried to get focused, but some of the brighter star were showing severe aberrations. Kept playing with the focus and the inevitable happened. Clouds moved in and it started to rain. Gave up at about 11:00pm. The initial view was not promising. Much of what some of you said seems to be true. I will try again, hopefully this week some time. Don

Stash, As someone pointed out on CN, the Celestron C6 is Fastar compatible, and the secondary threads are SCT. I had a Scope Stuff SCT to T thread adapter, so I connected my Baader twist lock eyepiece holder to the secondary. It worked and I was able to come to focus in daylight. When I get a chance I'll test the Lodestar and do a comparison. The guy on CN was able to use his Celestron 1.25" visual back by installing a washer in the SCT connection. The threads on the visual back are apparently too deep to seat the back. He calls his idea Freestar. As Nytecam pointed out, the use of the primary without some correction may induce some spherical aberration, but it might be ok for EAA use. I'll report back as soon as I have something. Don