Gina's Esprit 80ED Pro Unboxing and First Impressions

[Gina]

More results...  Longer subs - 1m Ha but just 5 subs to stack.

The full frame resized to 1200 px wide for upload here.

Top left corner cropped

Top right corner cropped

Bottom left corner cropped

Bottom right corner cropped

[JohnC64]

Hi Gina,

probably just being overly cautious  here, but the brighter stars appear to have dark notch in them, (at about the 7 O'Clock position)  Is the OAG impinging into the light train a touch? Or is it just the low resolution jpegs?

Great image for just 5*1mins in Ha

John

Edit - just read back - no OAG.

Edited December 5, 2013 by JohnC64

[Gina]

Well, I've found out why I couldn't get AT to work last night - I had the Scale maximum too low   What an eejit

I've fixed the focussing motor on properly so that should be that problem solved too.  So next clear night skies we get I should be able to get the PA done.

[Gina]

Hi Gina,

probably just being overly cautious  here, but the brighter stars appear to have dark notch in them, (at about the 7 O'Clock position)  Is the OAG impinging into the light train a touch? Or is it just the low resolution jpegs?

Great image for just 5*1mins in Ha

John

I don't have an OAG on the Esprit so I don't know what this is.  It seems to be happening when the histogram is stretched massively to bring out the faint stuff.  When the star brightness is not taken up to (or beyond) the saturation point all seems well.  I guess it needs some fancy processing

[Gina]

I need 5 or 6 mm spacing (need to work it out precisely) from the body of my camera for the flattener , and due to sky watcher yet again using M48 camera side I have never seen a M48 CCD and the imaging circle from the adapter does not need M48 T would be fine...(sigh) I have to get an adapter from m48 to T and maintain the spacing means a custom adapter.

The camera side of the flattener is M65, and adapter is supplied to convert this down to M48.  Which camera do you have if it's that much back focus? 

Edited December 5, 2013 by Gina

[Gina]

As one of the adapters for the Esprit, Would FLO be looking at a M65 to T adapter?  That would solve a lot of peoples problems (Mine included!!  )

John

That's a question for Steve.  I suggest you post the question in the Sponsor forum.  Sounds a good idea to me.

I shall be using an M65 connection to the flattener to take advantage of the extra distance for my debayered 450D with built-in filter wheel.  IMV the fewer adapters the better.

[Earl]

The camera side of the flattener is M65, and adapter is supplied to convert this down to M48.  Which camera do yo have if it's that much back focus? 

Ah ok.

My QSI 638 WSG has a backfocus of 50.2mm without filter, my Baader filters are 2mm thick so this adds .7mm givving me a total back focus of 50.7mm, I currently using a 6mm extension with my Williams flattener which works ok.

If I can find a M65 to T it could work.... time to trawl TS

[JohnC64]

I did find this one,which is a bit thinner http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p5249_TS-Adapter-65mm-to-M48-for-Baader-Steeltrack-65mm-thread.html and combined with their M48 to to

T adapter gives an extra 3mm. I was going to wait to see if I could find it in one adapter though

Edited December 5, 2013 by JohnC64

[Earl]

I did find this one,which is a bit thinner http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p5249_TS-Adapter-65mm-to-M48-for-Baader-Steeltrack-65mm-thread.html and combined with their M48 to to

T adapter gives an extra 3mm. I was going to wait to see if I could find it in one adapter though

Yeah 1 piece will be better.

[dmahon]

I have never seen a M48 CCD

SX offer M48 (and many other alternatives) on the front of their filterwheel.

Edited December 6, 2013 by dmahon

[Earl]

SX offer M48 (and many other alternatives) on the front of their filterwheel.

I agree Filter wheels have various but I have not seen a CCD with anything other than a T thread by default.

[Gina]

As I think I mentioned earlier in this thread, I'm making a combined bebayered DSLR - hence mono CMOS APS-C size sensor - and filter wheel with spaces for (now) 8 filters.  This will mount directly on the M65 thread on the flattener.  It will be an alternative to the Atik 460EX and EFW2 for wider FOV.  It won't match the 460EX of course but will be Peltier set-point cooled.  It is also a test camera to confirm that the Esprit 80ED will fully cover the APS-c size sensor.  I shall be very interested to see how this camera will perform.  Initial tests show a considerable increase in sensitivity by removing the CFA plus of course the 2x2 increase in resolution over the standard camera.

22.2 x 14.8mm CMOS sensor with 4,272 × 2,848 of 5.2 micron square pixels.  14 data bits versus 16 for the 460EX so smaller dynamic range.  Sensor diagonal = 26.7mm.

Edited December 6, 2013 by Gina

[Gina]

The Esprit 80ED DOES need a dew heater, surprise surprise   Spent last night's clear skies doing PA then tried an image session on the Heart nebula but I couldn't get any clear images and when I checked the scope, the object lens was covered in dew.  The dew was horrific last night - everything was dripping wet in the open scope room.

[ollypenrice]

I agree Filter wheels have various but I have not seen a CCD with anything other than a T thread by default.

Our Atik 11000s are M54. Big chips!

Olly

[Earl]

The Esprit 80ED DOES need a dew heater, surprise surprise   Spent last night's clear skies doing PA then tried an image session on the Heart nebula but I couldn't get any clear images and when I checked the scope, the object lens was covered in dew.  The dew was horrific last night - everything was dripping wet in the open scope room.

waiting on my dew heater has stopped me from doing anything as its pretty wet here at the mo.

[Earl]

Our Atik 11000s are M54. Big chips!

Olly

Aye tis a big one that, its quiet interesting that the curretn crop are all tiny sensors, It will pendulum back soon enough with the mega high Megapixles, followed by the huge ram and 64 bit upgrades needed to load the files

[dmahon]

Esprit 80ED with flattener plus OAG, EFW2 and 460EX  now mounted on 11" ADM Losmandy style dovetail ready to be attached to the EQ8.  For anyone concerned about the balance, the centre of gravity of this rig is just about dead centre of the dovetail

Imaging setup 04.jpg

Gina (or anyone else who has one) - What's the gap between the two screws that go into the foot of the Esprit 80?

There doesn't look to be much room between the 11" dovetail and the filterwheel - is the focuser racked all the way in?

[Gina]

I'm planning to bring the scope indoors today to add the dew heater so I'll measure it.  That's if it isn't raining all day, of course.

[Gina]

The distance between the mounting points is 55mm.  The rain has gone away for a few minutes and there's that strange bright yellow thing up in the sky

[dmahon]

Thanks.

There's a few spots of light tonight too. It won't last.

[Gina]

I was able to spend some imaging time last night running Luminance and RGB tests on the Esprit with field flattener and FLO prototype adapter (for correct spacing) using the Atik 460EX, EFW2 and Baader LRGB filters.  This is an area of the sky around the pole as I thought that would give least star trailing due to poor PA and unguided.  I used 10s exposure and took 32 L subs.  These were stacked in DSS and stretched a bit in Ps.  I have seleted the middle and 4 corners to crop to a size that can be uploaded here without resizing.  So these images are pixel for pixel.

Middle

Top Left

Top Right

Bottom Left

Botton Right

[swag72]

Looking at the images you have posted and the corner crops, I don't think I'm seeing round stars, but will gladly stand corrected. How do you feel about these test images Gina?

For a better look see, I think you'd do better posting a single fits sub, unprocessed or stretched at all.

[Tinker1947]

There not quite round stars, but to  me seem to be trailing all the same way, so it could just be guiding that's at fault.....perhaps get the the PA sorted and see how that goes.....

Edited December 30, 2013 by Tinker1947

[Gina]

Looking at the images you have posted and the corner crops, I don't think I'm seeing round stars, but will gladly stand corrected. How do you feel about these test images Gina?

For a better look see, I think you'd do better posting a single fits sub, unprocessed or stretched at all.

OK - I'll see if I can upload a single FITS file to DropBox and link to it.  I thought the stars looked round - they don't have the spikes I had with the first scope and seem alright.  I'll upload the RGB tests shortly.  This was less impressive - nice sharp reds but deteriorating with the greens and worse with the blues.  But I do need to get guiding sorted out and have a good run on a clear night.

[dmahon]

That's concerning - I thought the whole point of the triplet was that the focus was the same for all colours and you didn't get the dreaded blue bloat?