William Optics Zenithstar ZS71 ED 2013

[johnb]

Well this is interesting, I have been looking around for a new scope for a while and this may do the trick (current kit in my signature) I'm assuming there will be no issues using my modded cannon on this ?

Regards

John B

[Jim]

I am very interested in the ZS71....is it better than the TS 65mm Astrograph? (hopefully they have sorted the "piched optics" issue by now???)

My shortlist is down to these 2.

[Wilsmaboy]

Well I've bought Jez's off him so look forward to trying it out.

[nightfisher]

regarding the finder situation when i had a ZS 71 i made a bracket to mount a 9x50 side by side, was a bit fiddly but worked, i still have the bracket but not the ZS, will find a link to my posts regarding it

[stellarpunk]

Great information guys, thanks. My order for one is about to go in. [rubs hands in glee]

[cultiv8ed]

I am looking at picking up something along the lines of this scope later this year.  Does anyone know how the ZS71 compares to the Altair Astro 70ED? http://www.altairastro.com/product.php?productid=16686&cat=270&page=1

They look almost identical in terms of spec and had almost the same review in the sky at night mag.

[knobby]

Any news on mounting a finder / guider ?

[carastro]

Any news on mounting a finder / guider ?

I've got one of these scopes, and whilst the optics are pretty good, though it does tend to give a purple halo around bright stars, my 2 complaints about the WO designs are the lack of a finder and a stubby dovetail which doesn't allow movement for balancing.

I have added a longer dovetail and a small mounting ring I had made previously for a Megrez, and welded a Skywatcher finder shoe onto that for a finderscope.  However I found this wasn't good enough for finder-guiding as there was some flexure and I got trails above 5min subs.  So I have had to re-jig the whole set up.

I have now removed the WO small dovetail and mounted the WO scope in a pair of ST80 rings (had to pad one out with some stiff foam), and the plan is the mount a finderguider on top of that.  

I have cured the finderguider flexure problem by mounting it in it's own mounting rings on a plate (had to buy the rings from America as I couldn't find any small enough in the UK).

I have yet to test this out.  The finderguider in it's own rings works fine on my larger scope I can now get 20 minute subs with no trailing.  

I don't as yet have a photo of the WO scope mounted in the ST80 rings.   

HTH

Carole 

[knobby]

Thanks Carole