Yawning Angel

That is absolutely glorious! Pops right off the screen whilst giving an impression of boiling motion. Lovely composition too, with the right side constrained by the clouds, and the left open to the void  so your eyes fall into the centre

All the parts in my imaging train are ZWO, right up to the reducer, and it didn't all work correctly without some messing - hang in there!

Keep the OAG as close as possible to the reducer. I strongly suspect it's lightpath is currently too long. My test should help prove that

Before you sack the supplier - Do you know, or can the supplier confirm, the backfocus distance for the Scope / Reducer? Someone earlier mentioned it might be 73.5mm? My napkin maths says you're currently at maybe 91mm with the spacers after the reducer and the that ZWO adapter in place.

(My estimates - your spacers look like 16mm or so, the Prism is 9.5mm insider the OAG, The turret is 33mm, adapter is about 20mm, SX backfocus is 12.5mm = 91mm) Looking at these rough numbers, you might get away with just dropping the spacers from the reducer, if you can. Otherwise, swapping the 20mm adapter for a slim one will bring it into the ballpark.

It looks like it'll come together, in principal at least :-)

13 minutes ago, Rodd said:

There is a photo a couple of pages back.

Rodd

Aha, got it now.

The light path to both sensors needs to be the same length, as governed by the focal reducer / scope spec . Looking at the photo, the 1600 is much closer to the reducer than the SX (my blue arrows). You might be assess this roughly like so (in daylight):

Rack the focus in, as far as it will go to start

Remove (unscrew) the adaptor, marked in red

Extent the OAG prism turret down into the light path until it's basically flush with the top plate

Hand hold the SX to the top plate of the OAG

Move the focus out and see if you can get anything - it'll be hit and miss, but you should spot a roughly focused image

It that works, you can look at replacing the adapter with a slim T2 to C mount...I linked one back in the depths of this thread :-)

Rodd, before you send it back, could you snap a photo of the imaging train please? There may be something easily identifiable that is not being picked up purely off descriptions

Just now, Rodd said:

Looks similar to mine--I tried no spacer, a 16mm spacer and a 1mm spacer where you have your 13mm spacer.  Did not help.  Everything else looks the same though I can't measure the various distances like you did.

The distances are purely from the spec sheets. Can you grab a photo of the setup, please?

This should do the job, and for only 4mm TS-Optics ultra low profile T-2 to C-mount adaptor length only 4mm, T2-CS

The OAG comes with a 5mm T2 spacer, then T2 to 1.25” adapter for a nosepiece. My mistake when building it up was to include the nosepiece adapter, it adds far too much. Looks like it needs a T2 to C adapter where I’m using the 5mm T2, unless the Lodestar has something hidden for T2? 

One with the nosepiece (too long) one without (just right)

I’m running the ZWO asi1600 with both their OAG and Filter wheel, asi120mc guiding. It all stacked up correctly, although it’s a close thing on inward focus travel! For my own sake, I documented the setup, so maybe this could help. Note the back focus of the 120mc is 12.5mm