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Atik EFW 2 Filter Wheel


adamsp123

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I recently purchased the ATik EFW2 filter wheel with 5x2 inch filter disk from FLO, it arrived next day, as usual with FLO, now I am tempted to do a tongue in cheek CN style review with packaging details and photos of the box being opened but I really cannot be bothered, suffice to say it arrived absolutely fine and undamaged.

The wheel is very well engineered, lots of screws holding the casing together, should help to stop stray light penetration.

My Atik camera screws onto the camera adaptor already fitted, the adaptor has 2 screws holding it in place, more about these later, loosing these allows you to rotate the camera, adaptor and all.

Inside there are 2 roller bearings and the "running" surfaces of the wheel are extremely well machined, very nice indeed.

The focuser adaptor is supplied and I noted that the diameter of the thread into the filter wheel housing is larger than my "standard" adaptors.

Setting up the wheel initially failed, some reason my computer refused to "see" the wheel (and for that matter my Atik camera) so I was wondering - was it going from plug and play to plug and pray? :eek: I rebooted the computer, still wouldn't see the wheel, I changed USB socket on the computer and hey presto all worked fine??:) BTW the wheel rotates twice at start up and finishes at filter one to start the session

Now the joy of the Atik software, it is so well crafted, intuitive even for an idiot like me, the same window that I know from the camera is used but now the filter wheel functions work and they a so easy, click on wheel - select filter number or use the sequencer to select camera settings and filter settings, this is very very easy to use, my Mum could probably work it OK.

Now why can't other software be designed like this??

So to my only beef with the package, such a minor detail but so so frustrating, yes! the two screws holding the camera rotator in place, it is an Allen key type, 1.5mm is too small - sort of fits, 2mm too big, the darn thing is 1/16th inch and they don't supply one with the product, ridiculous for the grief it creates and how little it would cost to supply one in the box.

Now using it for real, I finally got a clear night on the 24th :):eek:

I set the camera and wheel up to do a run at M101, sequenced for 5min Lum and 1 min binned RGB ie 1 each Lum R G B and repeat, rather than the other option of say 10x lum then 10xR etc. etc.

The wheel worked fine, clearly from the subs it was stopping at the right point each time and the bliss of being able to leave the kit to run and get some kip without the need for constantly getting up to manually change the filter wheel position was wonderful.

Running through each filter in a single shot sequence is so nice that if clouds do come and go you should have some subs of all the filters being used rather than losing a complete set.

Was it worth the money, for me, yes, I feel no post purchase remorse with this baby.

Pete

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