Officina Stellare Riccardi-Honders Veloce RH 200 First Light

[Boren]

Aligned with my love to short focal length, this is actually a Riccardi-Honders, F/3 system, which prides itself on a very wide (42 mm) fully illuminated and corrected field, small spot size (8 microns @26 mm from axis) and solid mechanics. My colleague Tal Faibish and I grew fond of its very small dimensions (235 mm length, 285 mm physical diameter; 8.4 kg) which makes it rather portable.

The system requires strict orthogonality between the chip surface and imaging train, and for that the whole focuser system is fit on a plate which can be adjusted through 4 screws, on the 4 corners corresponding to the 4 corners of the image (and chip).

I copied some more info to my site:

http://www.pbase.com/boren/officina_stellare_riccardihonders_veloce_rh_200

On the first night out, however, we didn't figures out correctly how the SBIG ST 8300 chip is located in the camera (mistakenly assuming it is 90 degrees to how it actually is built). This caused us to spend some 6 hours desperately trying to get the thing to work. Well... Once we figured it out, at about 2 AM, it took us less than 10 min. to get the system to generate images which were of decent quality. We left the better fine tuning of the system to next time.

Our target for the night, the Rosette, was already quite low on the horizon, so all we could do was squeeze in 1 hour of Ha, which is hereby presented to you...

http://www.pbase.com/image/147972462

Hope you like it!

Cheers and Happy Holidays!

Harel

[ultranova]

very very nice indeed, the scope as well as the picture,

I think I would end up divorced if I told my other half I wanted one

very tight stars, across the picture.

being that small portability is also a bonus

I want one,,I want one maybe by next Christmas I could afford it.

Happy christmas.

Paul

[davew]

Chag sameach Harel,

Yishar koach.

Dave.

( Hope that means what I think it does )

[andyo]

Superb image that is a fast scope and it shows with 12x5mins.

[steppenwolf]

I had one of these for review recently and it was a thing of beauty - I loved it! The Mangin mirror design may have originated in a wartime spotlight but it does sterling work in this instrument too.

[Photosbykev]

I wouldn't mind one of those scopes under the Christmas tree tomorrow

[Chris]

Thats a truly beautiful bit if kit you've got there and what a fantastically deep Rosette for just an hour! happy xmas!

[ollypenrice]

This has to one seriously interesting telescope. F3 without diff spikes. (I'll never like them in widefield images.) Anything that fast is going to need a little sorting but the build quality suggests that once sorted it might well stay sorted. Steve reckoned it would hold focus, too, and that would be gleeful at F3.

And the picture? One hour?? Snap!!!

Now why don't I get one of these to review (and forget to send back... ?)

Olly

[steppenwolf]

The magazine were lucky indeed that I didn't mislay this one, Olly - I'd love to have had it for a full season. I wasn't exaggerating about the focus - it was astonishing in this regard.

Sent from my iPhone from somewhere dark .....

[Boren]

This has to one seriously interesting telescope. F3 without diff spikes. (I'll never like them in widefield images.) Anything that fast is going to need a little sorting but the build quality suggests that once sorted it might well stay sorted. Steve reckoned it would hold focus, too, and that would be gleeful at F3.

And the picture? One hour?? Snap!!!

Now why don't I get one of these to review (and forget to send back... ?)

Olly

Hi Olly,

You may just be in luck :-)

We can aim at one of the coming new moons, and I'll be glad to escort the scope for a few nights under dark Provencial skies...

If you're game - just send me an email. We're about to receive the specially-done travel trolly for it...

Cheers,

Harel

[Photosbykev]

Hi Olly,

You may just be in luck :-)

We can aim at one of the coming new moons, and I'll be glad to escort the scope for a few nights under dark Provencial skies...

If you're game - just send me an email. We're about to receive the specially-done travel trolly for it...

Cheers,

Harel

now there's an offer you don't get every day .... it must be Christmas

[ollypenrice]

The magazine were lucky indeed that I didn't mislay this one, Olly - I'd love to have had it for a full season. I wasn't exaggerating about the focus - it was astonishing in this regard.

Sent from my iPhone from somewhere dark .....

I never doubt your word, Steve, and (if I remember) you suggested that it would work well with the big Atik 11 meg. Now as luck would have it I just happen to have have one of those on its way...

Harel, PM on its way (surpize surprize!!)

Olly

[Coco]

Stunning image and what a superb scope, congratulations on both..

[laser_jock99]

Nice image and a great scope, looking forward to more images.

[Boren]

very very nice indeed, the scope as well as the picture,

I think I would end up divorced if I told my other half I wanted one

very tight stars, across the picture.

being that small portability is also a bonus

I want one,,I want one maybe by next Christmas I could afford it.

Happy christmas.

Paul

Thanks Paul!

It's true the stars are quite tight, but note that this is an Ha image, so sometimes stars are tighter than a full LUM image.

Nonetheless, I am happy with the result.

I wish you a great and full of new astronomy equipment New Year :-)

Cheers,

Harel

[Boren]

Chag sameach Harel,

Yishar koach.

Dave.

( Hope that means what I think it does )

Thanks Dave and all who commented!

Indeed, that means what you think it does, and warms the heart at these cold winter days (and nights)

Cheers,

Harel