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FSQ106 inward bound.

ollypenrice

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Ah, how one thing leads to another! In search of more sky coverage for widefield, my own favourite kind of imaging and popular with guests, I went from the 15mm square chip of the Atik 4000 to the giant 37.25x25.7mm chip of the 11000, hoping the beloved and perfect Baby Q would cover it. Well, nearly but not quite, dammit. The image circle is 44mm and Pythagoras tells us that we need a 45.25mm circle for the 11 meg. I'd hoped the losses wouldn't be much but in fact they are significant, and given the cost of the chip you don't want to lose real estate. The Baby Q was designed to cover the 35mm film format and the big KAF11000 is significantly bigger after all.

So I just pulled the trigger on a second hand Fluorite Tak FSQ106N. This is like the instrument that Tom O'Donoghue uses to such good effect. You can't use the reducer with it but the reducer brings the circle down from the native 88mm (!!!!) to 44mm so that doesn't matter, since it's too small. However, Tom's scope is not very sensitive to focus drift during cooldown and he doesn't need robotic focus. I'm hoping our 106N will be similar in this respect. (The ED 106 scopes do seem to need robotic focus.) It comes with the 'Extender Q' as well, giving 800mm FL at F8. This might be useful for resolution-boosting key parts of an image, just in luminance, though there will be some edge losses since the circle again comes down to 44mm.

Tom and I have some joint projects in mind using two FSQ/11000 setups in tandem. Not an unpleasant prospect... BinoQlars!

Olly

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Are you selling on the Baby??? :grin: :grin: :grin: :grin:

Within the family, so to speak!

Two inch filters are essential and a major expense, alas, with full frame imaging.

My suspicion that the Fluroite suffers less drift is based only on one scope and one comment from a third party. We'll have to see if it is universally true... It is probably to do with the lens element spacings which, I think, changed radically when Tak had to stop using fluorite. However, the ED glass versions are slightly better colour corrected than the earlier ones but they are all good enough to raise a large smile.

The 106 won't represent an expansion of kit since, alas, keeping both FSQs will be out of the question!

Olly

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Naemeth

Naemeth

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Within the family, so to speak!

Two inch filters are essential and a major expense, alas, with full frame imaging.

My suspicion that the Fluroite suffers less drift is based only on one scope and one comment from a third party. We'll have to see if it is universally true... It is probably to do with the lens element spacings which, I think, changed radically when Tak had to stop using fluorite. However, the ED glass versions are slightly better colour corrected than the earlier ones but they are all good enough to raise a large smile.

The 106 won't represent an expansion of kit since, alas, keeping both FSQs will be out of the question!

Olly

Thanks for the clarification. We'll have to see whether or not this is the case in practice.

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Velvet

Velvet

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Hi Olly

Sure you will like the Tak 106, i do mine :)

I in fact chickened out of the 11000 because of the sheer size and filter issues. I am only a beginner so I went for the

H694 with 2 inch unmounted filters to be a bit future proof. Would be very interested in the results from the 11000 with the Tak

though :)

Velvet

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Hi Olly

Sure you will like the Tak 106, i do mine :)

I in fact chickened out of the 11000 because of the sheer size and filter issues. I am only a beginner so I went for the

H694 with 2 inch unmounted filters to be a bit future proof. Would be very interested in the results from the 11000 with the Tak

though :)

Velvet

Check out Tom's stuff with a 106N and Atik 11000. http://www.astrophotography.ie/aboutme.htm He's up for incredibly ambitious wiiiiiide mosaics (and I can tell you, you ain't seen nothin' yet!) which really show what widefield images can look like.

This one of his isn't too bad, either, I suppose :grin:; http://apod.nasa.gov...d/ap120828.html

Olly

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Velvet

Velvet

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Check out Tom's stuff with a 106N and Atik 11000. http://www.astrophot....ie/aboutme.htm He's up for incredibly ambitious wiiiiiide mosaics (and I can tell you, you ain't seen nothin' yet!) which really show what widefield images can look like.

This one of his isn't too bad, either, I suppose :grin:; http://apod.nasa.gov...d/ap120828.html

Olly

sorry Olly i cant get the first link to work???

Velvet

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