Skywatcher Esprit PRO Triplet Refractors

[Tim]

Thought some might be interested in some of the pics I have had from the Esprit 150ED.

This Leo Triplet image is just stretched, and a little high pass filter, nothing else.

Cheers

Tim

[Sp@ce_d]

Thought some might be interested in some of the pics I have had from the Esprit 150ED.

This Leo Triplet image is just stretched, and a little high pass filter, nothing else.

Cheers

Tim

Looking nice.. is that a full frame from the QHY8 Tim.. or slightly cropped?

[Sp@ce_d]

Just having a play with CCD Calc. I reckon the Esprit 80ED with the 314L+ chip will have a similar FOV.. tempting.. very tempting

[Tim]

Looking nice.. is that a full frame from the QHY8 Tim.. or slightly cropped?

It's cropped, I get funny noise/lines issues with the old qhy8 so I rotated the camera 90° and took two sets of data.

Incidentally, the 150ED has a really natty feature, whereby you can rotate the focuser and lock it in place, comes in really handy and saves having to rotate the camera in the focuser. I'm not sure of the other scopes in the range have the same ability?

[ollypenrice]

This is the case with many refractor focusers these days, Tim. How well they work varies. TEC (ie Feathertouch) get 10/10. Others I've tried are less convincing.

Olly

[Tim]

It's reasonably easy to use, and makes rotating the camera to frame a target more effectively an absolute doddle. An improvement would be a scale or index marks to make the positions repeatable. The tightening ring has lathe turned knobs on it that make it look like a ships steering wheel, very nice to look at

[laser_jock99]

Great picture Tim- it is way sharper than my attempt on this same target Saturday night. The tracking looks good too- I presume that was GM1000? For comparison here is my best single sub (complete with egg shaped stars!). I still don't think I have nailed the CCD-to-corrector spacing yet...

[Tim]

Here's another result from the Esprit 150ED, the start of Markarians Chain in Virgo.

[FLO]

Just as I`m getting interested in checking out an Espirit 120mm I hear of a new SW 120mm Quantum and wondering if anyone knows anything about them please? Are they a rebranded Espirit, ED, or a new model?

Just spoke with Skywatcher's UK importer/distributer. Apparantly they are rebadged US versions of the Esprit, but with carbon-fibre tubes. Here in the UK we had the option of carbon-fibre but chose metal because, whilst CF is undeniably more glamorous, the general opinion is CNC machined metal is the better material for refractors of this type.

HTH

[Tim]

If it helps, the Steel tubed 150mm required very slight refocusing during the course of each night last week, when the temperature was varying by around 8° from start of session to end of session. I should think that even with a CF tube, the metal focuser and draw tube make up a good percentage of the length of the tube and will still be subject to contraction/expansion anyway, thus requiring a periodic check of focus too.

Cheers

Tim

[Tim]

And M13 with the 150ED:

[Tim]

I have been doing some Ha pictures with the Esprit 150. For some time now I have been wondering what the key is to getting sharp crisp edges on nebulae as you see in many top class images. Well now I know, great optics! I want to add some more data to the whole, but will post some narrowband results soon if we get a couple more clear nights.

[Stu_2011]

ETA for us Brits is June so if you Canadians would be kind enough to iron out any wrinkles we'll be ever so grateful

June is getting nearer for the Esprit 80 release, any updates / delays / news??

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[Fogboundturtle]

June is getting nearer for the Esprit 80 release, any updates / delays / news??

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It still hasn't arrived on the NA short. I haven't heard anything from my contact by "soon"

[Stu_2011]

It still hasn't arrived on the NA short. I haven't heard anything from my contact by "soon"

Ok thanks, its hard to be patient when you have money in the bank waiting to be spent......

Please keep us all informed with any further dates as they come.

Stu

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[Tim]

I thought this might be of interest, the latest image from the Skywatcher Esprit 150 that I have on loan.

It's IC1396 in narrowband, using a 460ex mono and Baader filters.

I can say that the Esprit has provided some very crisp sharp images of the nebula, and I am pleased with the result. This is just a shrunken preview, slightly murdered by the forums compression, i'll upload the full size to astrobin later on.

Tim.

[Matthew]

Tim......thats a awe inspiring image,simply stunning.

[Tim]

Thanks Matthew, full size here:

[Matthew]

Thats gorgeous .

[melsky]

That's absolutely marvellous Tim, an incredible image.

Mel

[Gasman]

Superb image Tim, I`m going for a 120 tomorrow wahayyy!!! I apologise now for the inevitable month of cloud

Steve

[Gina]

I think I might just about be able to afford an Esprit 80 by around June/July if the aforementioned price turns out to be somewhere near Of course the Tak FSQ85 is what I'd really like but I can't see me ever being able to afford that much. The Esprit 80 at 400mm FL and f5 looks rather nice I have to say

[Tim]

Crikey Gina, at this rate you'll have as many telescopes as me

[Gina]

I'm heading towards a dual imaging rig for focal lengths around 400-500mm and wide field with a second 314L+. I was thinking of a second Evostar 80 ED Pro but with the advent of the Esprit 80 it makes sense to use this plan to up my main imaging. I could use the Esprit for Luminance and ED80 for RGB for instance. Anyway, it's all in the planning stage ATM - insufficient funds as yet.

[Tim]

Latest result from the 150.