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Altair Astro 115 triplet review in AN.

ollypenrice

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Hi all,

My review of the Altair Astro 115mm triplet apo is in the current (July 2011) issue of Astronomy Now.

Although the word count is limited I've tried to respond to the kind of things people have said they wanted in a test.

Olly

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John

John

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Olly might not get invited to write for them again if he gives his articles away for nothing :)

Congratulations Olly - I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts on the scope :)

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MjrTom

MjrTom

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Olly might not get invited to write for them again if he gives his articles away for nothing B)

Congratulations Olly - I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts on the scope :)

Ah very true!

Just people like me who do not have a subscription have to wait until the magazine hits the shelves. :)

Edit: its on sale from the 16th June, I best get down the shop then!

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Nice work Olly :-)

I dont suppose you have a .pdf of this article for us who have not got a copy of AN yet :) If I am not being cheeky lol

Keith Cooper would have my guts for garters!

Worth a try though. You're a cheeky lot in St Helens. I'm from not far away myself...icon10.gif

Olly

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MjrTom

MjrTom

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Keith Cooper would have my guts for garters!

Worth a try though. You're a cheeky lot in St Helens. I'm from not far away myself...icon10.gif

Olly

Haha worth a try I suppose :)

Just being lazy, best head off to Asda in a bit :)

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FLO

FLO

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it looks a good scope, shame altairs customer service is so dire... are they available elsewhere?

Yes, Altair do distribute them to other dealers but we are going to wait a bit to see whether the off-the-shelf models are consistent with the one sent to Olly for review. If they are then we shall stock them.

To be fair to Altair, they are moving away from retail and towards becoming an importer/distributor which might explain why you have been disappointed with their service.

HTH

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AWR

AWR

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Hi Olly,

Great review! (I recognised your garden from the pictures before I read your name).

Did you test the scope on the ieq45 or on one of your own mounts?

Thanks,

Andrew

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Hi Andrew, I did the testing on the EM200 so as to keep to a mount I knew well from an autoguiding POV. I didn't want any extraneous variables.

Stuart, yes, more space would be good. What I would really like to do, but can't because I don't have one, is an optical bench test. The trouble is, the kit to do it is expensive and not many people have it. However, the star test is very exacting and having Ralf staying at the time was a bonus.

If you feel there are things I could have added, let me know for another time.

Olly

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Excellent review Olly, really enjoyed the read. Looks good value for money and sounds like you were tempted not to send it back. :)

I haven't set it back yet....icon14.gif Actually I've been given permission to do some more imaging with it. It's a hard life.

Olly

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tonyjh2

tonyjh2

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Hi Olly,

The timing of this review is very helpful and follows up on the very useful comments you made generally about this scope the other week. Am still weighing up against the Meade 5000 127, but customer service is just as important as the product itself and I want to be sure that the supplier is reliable and is there if/when they are most needed. With that in mind, I'm almost praying that FLO take this on and take that concern away!

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Well, you can't beat FLO for reliability. Another top retailer, also highly regarded, is Ian King. He handles Altair Astro products and might be aiming to take this scope.

I hope to get some more pictures from it soon. Depending on what the guests would like to do, it would be interesting to take the same object in both the TEC 140 and the AA115. We could then compare the data sets and combine them for a super deep stack. I love doing that!

Olly

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FLO

FLO

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Well, you can't beat FLO for reliability. Another top retailer, also highly regarded, is Ian King. He handles Altair Astro products and might be aiming to take this scope.

If I know Ian (and I do) he'll probably want to wait and see too.

The Altair model also clashes with the William Optics FLT-110, which Ian and I hold in high regard.

These are interesting times :)

Steve

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Rossco72

Rossco72

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Olly,

The Flattener pictured in your review looked remarkably like the TMB FLAT68 used by William Optics on the FLT range. I don't suppose you know much about its origin? Is it the same design or even the same flattener?

Cheers

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FLO

FLO

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The WO needs a flattener, though, so the price difference is not insignificant. Lots of good scopes out there, for sure.

Olly

Quality costs Olly and someone spending this much on a refractor is not going to baulk at the cost of a TMB-designed flattener. You don't have to look far here on SGL to see how difficult it can be to source an affordable high quality triplet.

Your review has shown us how good they can be, if the off-the-shelf models deliver the same performance consistently then we shall stock them for sure :)

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Olly,

The Flattener pictured in your review looked remarkably like the TMB FLAT68 used by William Optics on the FLT range. I don't suppose you know much about its origin? Is it the same design or even the same flattener?

Cheers

I'm afraid I don't know, Stuart, and have never seen an FLT in the flesh. It's a big thing, quite a chunk of glass, so if the 68 refers to the lens diameter it might well be that. It works well on my chip but if someone wants to send me an Atik 11000 I can see how it handles that format...:)

Olly

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