Altair Astro Wave Series - 80mm Triplot Apochromat Refractor

[badgers]

Here's a mini-review of the Altair Astro Wave Series - 80mm Triplet Apochromat Refractor.

Please bear in mind that this is my first refractor, so it's hard for me to compare it directly with cheaper options and very expensive kit.

I was in the market for a small refractor for wide field astrophotography to complement my Newtonian f/5 150mm scope.

I wanted an 80mm ideally to start off with as it would be portable and nice and wide. I also wanted something at f/7 or faster.

Given the money I've spent on CCDs and other equipment, I've decided not to scrimp on optics and to try and get the best optics I could for under a grand.

The scope was £699 and I opted for their flattener for £80.

After a lot of helpful comments on this site and some good reviews of their larger refractors, i decided to talk to Altair Astro about their 80mm Triplet Apo Refractor.

The guys at Altair were really very helpful over the phone and gave me a lot of confidence for a good customer interaction.

I liked the scope as it seemed well made, had a very hefty 3" focuser and came with FPL53 japanese optics. As part of the Kelling heath starparty a free optics test was thrown in.

I turned up at their shop to pick up the scope and Ian and Nick there spent a good hour with me, walking me through the scope and advising me on how to make my imaging equipment work with it.

Unboxing

The scope comes with a travel case for shipping and it's pretty light and tough:

The first thing that struck me when I took out the scope was how heavy it was. People had told me that these kind of triplets can be surprisingly heavy.

The finish is very simple and elegant, gloss white and black. Everything about the scope feels extremely solid, even the objective cap is metal and screws

very firmly over the dew shield.

The dew shield can retract back if the tube rings are removed, making this even easier to transport.

The finder shoe that comes with the scope fitted my Skywatcher 9x50 finderscope perfectly and saved me some money over buying the altair stock finderscope.

Focuser

The 3" crayford focuser seems to be of the type that Teleskop Express sell.

I've been warned off crayfords but to be fair the moonlite on my newtonian hasn't let me down, this feels every bit as well made.

The focuser has a rotation ring which is very useful for astrophotography and dual speed controls which are very smooth.

One thing which bothered me is the lack of any kind of locking screw. In the shop they tested and tightened the focuser but I was worried about it slipping during imaging.

Although after 8 hours imaging so far on the scope, I didn't observe any focus slip with my CCD and OAG installed.

I see there is a screw-hole where a locking screw could be added, but I don't think I'll do this as locking screws can move focus and I've not had issues.

The 2"/1.25" eyepiece adapter unscrews to reveal an M68 thread for adding imaging equipment such as flatteners and reducers allowing you to set up a fully threaded imaging train.

Flattener

I opted for the Altair Planostar field flattener but may go and get the 0.75 reducer in the future.

The biggest issue with the Altair planostar flattener is that it requires 51.5mm of spacing, so you'll struggle with an OAG and a filter wheel.

The best I've managed so far is 53mm but the flattening (although not perfect) is pretty close. I can probably change some adapters and get a bit closer to the ideal distance.

Another gripe I have is that I can find nowhere to install a 2" M48 Light Pollution filter on the flattener. Currently I have it held inside the flattener with blu-tack.....

Not the ideal solution.

There is a thread above the flattener optics (telescope side) that is slightly larger than M48 which Altair are trying to identify for me which I could adapt for this.

Anyway, my first impressions of the scope were very good, everything was in spotless condition and the optics had passed their in-house tests with flying colours

I'm no expert in interferograms, but this does look good compared to the ones I've seen online.

First Light

It was a real pleasure to set up the scope coming from a medium size newtonian. Balancing was fairly straightforward and it's certainly not pushing my mount in any way. I'm not not an expert visual astronomer but I looked at a few star clusters and it delivered extremely contrasty and sharp views compared to my Newtonian.

I'll be taking this out with some of my visual astronomer buddies soon for a proper comparison to some cheaper doublets and more expensive (and larger) refractors.

I polar aligned and then attached the imaging train to the flattener and screwed the whole lot into the focuser.

The focuser fully loaded with an Atik CCD, a manual filter wheel and an OAG seemed extremely secure. Focusing was not an issue at all with a Bahtinov.

My newtonian at f/5 and 150mm is a bit faster and a much larger aperture than the Altair so I was wondering what kind of images I'd pick up.

I was imaging the veil nebula all night in LRGB.

Here is a calibrated single image (10 minutes, Luminance) without any processing except a stretch

The field isn't quite flat, probably because I'm not quite at the required 51-52mm distance, but it seems good.

There is a little bit of tilt evident, but nothing like the nightmares I get with my Newtonian.

One possible issue is the blu-tacked into place LP filter in the flattener, I image in heavy LP so it's a basic necessity for me. But the LP filter may not be sitting perfectly flat

and throwing up some issues. I'll be investigating a proper solution to this soon.

The focuser has tilt-adjusters and I'll be attempting to reduce the little bit of tilt in the system in the next few weeks.

I imaged through the night in R,G,B and L as it got gradually colder, I've not had my first taste of Dew yet, something else to look forward to with a refractor.

I refocused a few times to check how the focuser was holding up. Checking with a Bahtinov showed that focus hadn't shifted noticeably over 3 hours for Luminance.

Final Results - First Light

Very happy with the final result of my first imaging session...

2 hours Luminance, 3 hours R,G and B, 3 hours H-alpha all unbinned.

[ollypenrice]

You're getting lovely results there. I'd call that field flatness excellent and the delicacy in the Veil is top notch.

Funnily enough I have just come inside in a bit of a temper because, despite having (I think) respected the chip distance, I'm not getting a flat field or good corner stars. Yours is great so I'll try again with the chip distance. Where did you measure from for your 53mm? Presumably I've just got it wrong.

Anyway, well done, that's going very sweetly.

Olly

[badgers]

Hi and thanks Olly,

I queried this with Altair and they dug up the plans. It's 51.5mm with this flattener from the top of the flange, right before the thread.

With my glass, I'd push it to 52.5 ideal spacing so I think I'm just off 2mm out.

Hope you get it sorted

Plans attached:

[Black Knight]

Looks excellent so far, and if Olly's impressed by the flat field, then so am I!

[brantuk]

Smashing review and fabulous results Anton. Very nice scope you have there.

[ollypenrice]

Hi and thanks Olly,

I queried this with Altair and they dug up the plans. It's 51.5mm with this flattener from the top of the flange, right before the thread.

With my glass, I'd push it to 52.5 ideal spacing so I think I'm just off 2mm out.

Hope you get it sorted

Plans attached:

Thanks Anton, I 'll get the calipers out again! I spent a long time imaging the Soul with the wrong flattener. Erm, soul destroying?

Getting me coat...

Olly

[laser_jock99]

Looks like a nice scope. I got the cheap semi-apo doublet version and it's okay but your image seems to justify the triplet price. Mine did come with a large focus lock knob though?

[badgers]

The doublet looked nice too... Interesting about the focus lock on it, although it does seem to have a very different focuser type.

I've done another 3 hours tonight on the North American Nebula and didn't see any focus slippage again tonight, so I'm happy.

The results on the North American Nebula look fantastic, seeing wasn't bad here after the rain today and it seems to have hoovered up the photons.

Work in progress, I look forward to finishing the RGB on this!

[ollypenrice]

Also superb. Very crisp and tight.

You should have a focus lock knob. I guess it has dropped out sometime! Trouble is, you cant reach it if the scope is balanced for imaging, unless you invert the focuser to put the knob on the top and then you lose the finder. It needs more distance between scope and saddle plate. Tak put the lock knob on top for this reason.

I realise I had the chip disance too short so look forward to trying again. Your results are inspiring! This does look a promising scope.

Olly

[badgers]

Looking forward to your results Olly!

Is the star bloat in the last image normal ? An effect of the gas in the region, the seeing conditions or the optics or something with my filters ?

I'm not enough of a refractor person to know if it's bad or not, although I've been told the high-end refractors have less of an issue with bloat.

[Earl]

Really good images

Wish I could get all the adapters I need still......

[ollypenrice]

Looking forward to your results Olly!

Is the star bloat in the last image normal ? An effect of the gas in the region, the seeing conditions or the optics or something with my filters ?

I'm not enough of a refractor person to know if it's bad or not, although I've been told the high-end refractors have less of an issue with bloat.

Do you mean in the Ha? Looks OK to me. I think the small stars show some sharpening artefacts, though. They have a hint of the dark halo effect, maybe. Hard to say at this size.

In the colour image there are some slightly oversize red stars but that is unlikely to be optics. You'd expect blue bloat from that so it's more likely to be focus or seeing. It isn't bad anyway and could be processed out.

I"m not sure the red channel is perfectly aligned but if the stars are a tad soft in the red the software wull struggle.

Whatever, you have a good system there so far as I can see.

Olly

[Gasman]

Some lovely images there Anton!. I`m off to the Peak star party on saturday and hope to check out the Altair 80 and 115mm scopes. I understand Altair Astro will be attending?.

Steve

[badgers]

I'm not sure, but they were definitely at Kelling with a stand and a long line of scopes : )

Good luck with the star party, hope you get clear skies... It's a reasonable drive for me to get up to the peak star party, I must pencil it in for next year.

[kirkster501]

I love that NA nebula Anton. Incredible detail!

[badgers]

Thanks kirkster,

I've the scope on the balcony now.... crying out for the cloud to clear....

All I want is 3 hours of clear skies to finish out the RGB, been waiting for days

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

That looks very nice indeed, both the scope and the images. I think it may be the same optics as my APM 80mm F/6 (which came with a 2" focuser and TS flattener), and which so far has been used only for widefield observing (Olly had a peek through it when I visited him). Your images really encourage me to get that imaging rig together (better mount and camera needed). It will take quite a lot of time to get anything near as good as you are getting. Great stuff!

[ollypenrice]

I'm nearly there with mine. I have just one corner not giving round stars, still, but the rest look great and the star colour and freedom from haloes look good. I need a final tweak to the chip distance, I suppose.

Olly

[badgers]

Good to hear Olly, looking forward to seeing the results.

Given the weather here, I'm not sure I'll be doing any astronomy before February.

I've got to make a pilgrimage to les granges next year......

I've got a work trip to Grenoble booked, it can't be too far from there.

Anton

[Epicyclus Dave]

Good review Anton ,i enjoyed reading that , i have my eye on the Altair 115 triplet but upgrading my focusser on the SW 80ED is first on the list .

In April this year i had my heart set on the starwave 110 doublet but the feedback from the forum nudged me to start out with the 80ED to use with my canon 500D.

great results from your new triplet,

Dave.

[ollypenrice]

Good to hear Olly, looking forward to seeing the results.

Given the weather here, I'm not sure I'll be doing any astronomy before February.

I've got to make a pilgrimage to les granges next year......

I've got a work trip to Grenoble booked, it can't be too far from there.

Anton

Not too far at all. It would be good to meet you.

Olly

[cantharis]

These Altair Astro Wave scopes remind me very much of my Stellarvue 102ED and their matching finderscopes are a dead ringer for my 50 mm SV finder. They started appearing soon after Altair Astro stopped selling the Stellarvue brand. I wonder if there is a link.

[kirkster501]

Thus looks like a great scope and I have some bonus money due shortly.... ;-)

How would this compare with my ED80 - image quality wise?

Anton, did the scope come supplied with a Vixen dovetail or did you have to add this to the rings yourself?

I think I need to spend some money to get auto-guiding first.

[badgers]

Hi Kirkster,

The scope came with the dovetail and the rings but without a finderscope, I had a standard skywatcher 9x50 on the skywatcher bracket which fitted just fine.

The only extras I paid for were the flattener and a little mounting bracket for the finderscope.

Comparison to an ED80 is hard for me to do not having owned an ED80 or even a refractor before. I think it's hard to beat the price/performance of the skywatcher ED80, but you'd be comparing a doublet to a triplet which isn't a fair contest.

I think it's comparing very favourably against other 80mm triplet scopes out there at the moment and optically it sounds like it's outperforming some more expensive scopes.

My only niggle is the 52mm spacing requirement for the flattener, but I've now managed to reach the optimal distance and I've got to say the field flattening is superb.

Thanks,

Anton

[kirkster501]

Hi Anton, thanks for your comments, most interesting.

Question though if I may? Why does a scope with such a superb image need a field flattener?

And why a reducer - to give a wider field?

Rgds, Steve