GalaxyGael

Handsome image. Which focuser did you use to replace the stock one?

This one tried to capture the coathanger asterism, some of the clumpiness in star density and a small nebulous region up top. FRA300 at 300 mm with asi2600mc gave a nice wide field. 13h in 120s subs, captured using NINA, processed in Astropixel Processor and PS CS5.

Those early space-age Takahashi ultra mounts and Tri piers are stunning. 70s space age personified. Always liked the kruppax tubed tmb lzos classics with the far too heavy grey focusers, and the astreya quads. The 100mm f/8 is ice pure visually. Built better than tanks.

Now I remember what it was. A purchase of an 84mm single tube ring, without no ota's of that diameter at home. Utterly useless, I read the sale ad incorrectly, expecting two rings of 85 mm!!

None stick out, but I have got a few lemons and played the scope lottery of the non premium variety. But, I can think of three cases where my worst 'purchase' was indecision leading to a missed opportunity. Purchasing intent that ended with nothing, twice a grail scope opportunity. Silver linings, given what I want and what I know in my bones I will use and how I will use it, time etc., I know I avoided buyer's remorse for now. Still though, spectacular purchase fail😆

Agree there should be more of these atypical targets, or a RASA or two pointed at some random place for a season to see whats there. Almost looks like a nice star cluster with a very stable and persistent few clouds, you know the only clouds in the sky that are right over the target with the rest of the sky being completely clear I do like the hint of blue giant light reflecting off the lower ramparts of the dust though

Visual observation and many earlier images showed the outer edge of the brain structure, and resembles a crescent. There are still a bundle of decade or more images around where the crescent part shows to be dominant. Nice image too

that's a handsome view, with a great 3D rendering of 7331's volume

Good thing about cone error is that it can be fixed easily, and the vixen plate would need to be (to your eyes) wildly angled or placed with such a big lateral preference to one side of the OTA centre to see such a pronounced effect. It looks worse on brighter stars as the spikes extend further so any gap is magnified further away from the bright star core. What i used to do was use a calipers to make sure a losmandy plate was centered when attached to the rings, since some screw holes have some play in them. OTA rotation will do the same, useful to sanity check the ring tightness. Two last small things: (1) when dealing with issues, the following happened to me. I had one saddle bolt tightened when balancing, making it easy to slide the OTA and nip it up to get the right balance, then tighten the second screw. One night, I forgot to tighten the second saddle screw and had star issues as the OTa was tilted a bit in the saddle. you may not have such a simple error, but just in case...:) (2) when you installed the CNC spider vane, is it now perfectly parallel with the outer rim of the OTA? i.e. that the entire CNC unit are not tilted a little.

It sounds like the effect of cone error, and even though it never happened before, make sure your dovetail bar is attached evenely then run a test for cone error. Something near the south meridian is good and see if it centers either side of a manual flip. But, if thats not the issue and your new CNC spider is definitely collinear for each pair of vanes, the only thing I can think of is that either side of meridian you have a slight tube rotation within the rings, which will also cause double spikes. Have you check the OTA rings to ensure they have not loosened from thermal (hot, cold, hot, cold) working. I have had screws loosened due to the hot and cold over many weeks.

Thanks Mark. Glad you like it.

Thank you. Appreciate that as I like starfields the most, even in RGB nebula shots where the gas is best supporting actor!

I agree Peter. The 180ED is spendy but also large for someone who setups without a permanent pier. Collimation straightforward and bomb-proof I found on the 130D. 160ED teasing me now that it will be available in September....but the size of the 130D was a sweet spot. And some have used it very effectively with the full frame 2400MC with 6um pixels, a great widefield rig.

Another star field on full moon nights a while back with the FRA 300, 60 mm aperture, f/5. Cracking little scope, just works and sets up so quickly and easily. The coathanger and nearby nebulosity in among some dark dusty features and the classic bed of milky way stars. 393 x 120s (~13 h) Calibrated with flats and bias in APP and processed there and PS CS5. ASI2600MC at Gain 100, -10C

Like it punchy and deep with sheen. I miss my e130D, sob sob

Melotte 111 Coma Cluster (stars this time, not the galaxies) from suburbs FRA300, f/5 138 x 180 s ASI2600MC at -10C APP and PS CS5

Tried an old wide-ish (35nm) band quad band filter with the asi2600mc recently to scoop out some Ha and add it to the OSC broadband image I was doing anyway 9n NGC7822 /Ced 214 region. Rotated to show not the upper part of the question mark it forms with the little rosette neb (I think), but as a skeleton type face. Not quite phantom of the opera nebula, but the gouge clearing typical of these types of nebula makes it look like that to me. FRA300 @ 300MM F/5 ASI2600MC -10C 6h extracted Ha with 10h OSC APP / PS CS5

Also agree on the 115 FPL 51 triplet. I had the tecnosky version. Only issue I found was slightly spikey/pinched stars in the +2 --3 C temperature range that was easily fixed with 1.8th turn of the centering screws, but color correction was excellent. In my skies, using a big m68 0.79x reducer, gave 632 nm fl at f/5.5, which is a good field of view with APS-C, decent resolution that I cannot beat in my skies with 3.76 um pixels. Would happily use 4.5 and 6um pixel sensors with that scope. And it is not as heavy as the length (with all imaging kit and dew shield extended) looks, easily to mount up each night. And, it is really good value for money at ~1300-1400 EUR, probably an excellent visual scope too as it is that much more than 100, with similar 800 mm focal lengths, but not unwieldy as much as a 130 mm for instance.

Wonderful. Have the MN56 muself with the helical focuser. So, what adaption was made to add the FT focuser here? The Intes plate seems to have (I think) an M66 thread, but I'm curious how Intes owners modded the focuser, cause I'd love to take mine out for visual use.

Boy wonder is the 6 incher and Alfred is the pier.

Interesting. I like this WIFD development, very clever solution to a genuine problem with focusers. The 7 element 111mm will be their version of the TS and Tecnosky flatfield 110 mm f/4.8 scopes. The tecnosky is the 7 element design, with front collimatable cell, and same overall construction as the TS CF APO (blue and white) and the tecnosky owl series, but at >3700 EUR. WO version with the WIFD in that scope I'll bet (with WO premium costing as usual) will be north of 4300 EUR.

Did I interpret correctly, that this WIFD moves the main objective lens cell, rather than the camera in a standard scope? At least that is what i saw on the schematic move representation. Thinking about it, its a good attempt to stabilize mechanicals like a camera lens, but I wonder how the objective movement is guided to parallelism, since similar considerations were always important for drawtubes in classic focusers...

Do a search for it and you'll see some intersting photos...I found some post where Markus, owner of APM, (I believe) took it for a spin for outreach. Seems you drive around with it, don't know if it tears down easily or needs to be. Imaging trying to insure it!

In a true petzval with a 2 + 2 arrangement there is a larger gap owing to the focal length of the front doublet. Likely the WO short tube with this new central focuser wont accommodate that design, and come to think of it not the 3 + 1 designs that have the corrector fairly far into the tube like the askar phq approach. curious to know if this WO patent fundamental prevents flatfielded scope designs at all.

Yep, a good engineering attempt to remove tilt/sag in a classical focuser. But with the advent of better inbuilt corrected optics being farmed out to various suppliers (Askar, ZWO e.g.), surprised that a focuser design to address imaging isnt more fully imaging ready. Or are there triplet + fixed corrector options?