RodAstro

Hi Anthony I am also looking at one for EAA I have used the 8" version for several months in my observatory so have some experience. People went on about collimation on the 8" I just think it was rough handling and not that good at collimating. The one I used stayed in collimation for months in a fixed position, piggybacked to my main scope, in my observatory. The secondary was the most vulnerable because of the thin spider so the 6" should be better because of the smaller diagonal and shorter spider arms but that's what you pay for having thin spider vanes. I can see balance will be a problem depending on the camera used and I would say a small weight added to the back of the dovetail bar would be a good option, in my view better than a long springy SW/Vixen dovetail bar. Focuser was good for the money I had no problem with it. You are always going to get coma on a F4 newt even with a CC, maybe if you spent a few hundred more than the scope cost on a CC you may get rid of it. Visually you should not notice it if the objects you are looking at are interesting. Photography wise fix it in your processing. As for should you get it, well there is nothing else at f4 at this price range, (other than the same scope under a different name) double that and you may get rid of the coma totally but that's a gamble.

Hi The filter is easily removable but is not a standard fitting so I made a 2" adapter for it. The filter does have uneven illumination but with a little photo editing this is easily removed. It is very good on my SW 102 Startravel but this picture was taken with my 6" f15 smiapo where it now spends most of its time. I was unsure about the expense of the Quark and if it would work on my 6" so this seemed my best route. Problem is I now want a Daystar Quantum. I did have to do some work making a focal reducer to go before the 4x telecentric unit as f15 would have ended up at f60 and way to much for my seeing.

Well that's a brilliant shot. What camera are you using? Looks like a 0.7x reducer will get the whole sun on your chip. How was your setup, did you stop down or full 60mm, did you use a camera tilter and what processing did you have to do? Cheers Rod

Hi The focuser could be a good point if machining was good. The first scope I had it seems the objective was off centre as the sun revolved around the field as I focused. The scope I have now the sun's image only moves slightly when focusing. I didn't need an extension tube to reach focus with my Opticstar or the ASI 174

Looks like we will be getting a report tomorrow simmo39 Full day of sun for you over there Good luck with your testing and you should still be able to see the active region near the edge of the sun and maybe some nice proms. Rod

Excellent I got my best picture yet using the Scouts Quark unit on tuesday. Cheers Rod

Yep very different FireCapture, AutoStakkert 3 and ImPPG all free It is possible to use the Quark unit on other scopes, you just need to make up an adapter for it see the link, I took this today. https://solarchatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=28392 By the way 12" Revelation dobs are excellent.

Hi I hope your new scope has arrived and is working well. The ASI 120mm camera should work fine although you wont get a full image of the sun. I realise now why stopping the aperture down helps so much, a quark starts to work at f15 but not that good, it is becoming optimum at f30 and above so stopping down to 30mm brings you to f30. Stopping down to 37mm gives you f25 and is a nice compromise and a vast improvement. One of the main complaints of the scope is the image is to bright so stopping down actually helps two fold. A simple cardboard mask will do fine as a stop. It will be interesting to see your results. Rod

Hi Firstly a very good start for your first image. I'm not sure if you have used the camera for planets before but 800 frames seems rather slow for one minute, so are you using ROI this will speed your camera up no end and collect more good frames to stack. You may not need the barlow especially to begin with. Next thing is not your fault, you have started imaging Jupiter at the worst time you could, it is at its lowest it ever gets for northern observers and and will be for a few years. As you can see the atmosphere is working as a prism and splitting the colours into a rainbow. Registax can do a reasonable job of correcting this but for now the best tool and one you have mentioned is the atmospheric disperser this will bring the colours back together and give you that sharp image. A good way to see how the atmospheric disperser works is to get a 68/70 degree eyepiece or a good Huygens eyepiece ( something with field curvature), put jupiter in the middle of the field and you can see how it is split into colours due to the atmosphere. Now maneuver Jupiter away from centre of field in the direction the colours are split, one way you will see the colours split more the opposite direction you will see the colours come together and you will get a nice sharp image, the sweet spot. Flat field eyepieces are no good for northern planetary observers at the moment. The atmospheric disperser is quite an expensive item but if you are into planetary imaging you will be using it for a good few years. An IR filter will only make a small difference with a SCT, until you sort out the colour dispersion. Also colour filters are mainly useful for visual work and refractors. The last thing is collimation, collimation, collimation, every time, the better you are at it the better your images will be. I hope this is useful, after forty years planetary observing is still my favorite interest. Clear horizons and keep looking up. Cheers Rod

Hi I forgot to answer Geoff's question about the LED flicker, mine does exactly the same I guess Daystar are using a simple PWM (pulse width modulation) circuit as this is the most efficient use of battery power for the heater. The basic idea is the circuit switches the power on and off (pulse) to the heater for specific amounts of time (width) and veries the time to what is needed (modulation) via a feedback circuit. I hope that sort of explains it, also the same circuit used for dew heaters. Also Geoff your picture is exactly what I was getting with a colour camera before I stopped the scope down, a mono camera makes a vast difference on the sun, I started with a Opticstar PL131-M cool air nice and cheap starter. Rod

Hi Chris A nice scope you have ordered. I also have one as my finder scope and a grab and go scope. My recommendation after trying many filters is, use a light yellow staked with a polarizing filter this gives the most natural colour, for me anyway. These two filters are cheap and also useful in your kit for ever anyway. Don't use them on widefield views as all a filter does is remove light and that is counter to that sort of viewing, I just use them for planets and the moon. My other thing to say is all scopes have their problems no matter how much you spend, I feel to many people spend most of their time looking at the telescope and not the object and seem to have little interest in astronomy but more in optics, much easier to fulfill that in the daytime with cameras, but then your other half might see what you have spent all your money on🤪🤣 Cheers Rod

Hi I have watched this thread since it started and bought myself one of these scopes shortly after. I haven't used the scope as is much until a couple of weeks ago, but used the Quark alone but that's another story. What I found when I got the scope was it showed more detail than a PST but the image was not contrasty because it was two bright and I could never get a good focus. The brightness issue was made a little better by the use of a binocular head but further use of filters ie cross polars did not help any. As I say I have used the Quark unit alone on other scopes and It works really well so I knew it was not down to that part of the scope. The telescope itself has languished on a shelf occasionally trying it put back together again but putting it back on the shelf again. I decided the problem was the lens, a rather large fast f3.8 lens is never going to give you a good image, you put rubbish in, you are going to get rubbish out, as the saying goes. With this in mind I decided to stop down the objective and see what happend, after all I had to much light anyway. So I got my set of filter adapters, screwed them together, taped them to the front of the scope and set off outside with a 37mm scope and a bino head. Wow is all I could say, I have a new solar scope. Even though there is very little activity on the sun, I can see loads of chromosphere detail contrasty and I can see the proms better than before, sky is also blacker that helps. If I want to see the proms better I just use a single eyepiece. This probably all sounds counterintuitive to all of you night time observers, as it did me, but I see it working more like a camera lens, where using a larger f number increases depth of field and sharpness, obviously depth of field is not an issue here but it does help with focusing. I have also done some initial imaging with it and although nothing much to see on the sun at the moment it looks very promising. I hope this is helpful and any questions please ask. Cheers Rod