First Light: W/O Star 71

[PNJ]

Hi All

Received my new williams Star 71 5 element astrograph yesterday, and was luck enough last night to try it out, but the sky conditions were not that good, high haze and bright moon.
Visually i was impressed with this little gem, and i liked the idea that the special low profile diagonal also had a rotator built into it. cool idea.
My first test was on the double cluster at 1x1 full resolution, however i did notice a slight , very slight elongation of the stars in the extreme top left and bottom right of my images, but later discover it was alignment issue of the camera rotator , i will have to correct this for my next imaging session.
with the sky been poor i decide to try 2x2 binning in Ha on the heart nebula.
Not too bad and looks like a nice flat field, and also no vignetting that i can see.
will post more images at full resolution when i get the camera aligned with the rotator.
the build quality amazed me actually, and look forward to imaging with this telescope, and also quite a surprising visually too

image.    5 x 20 mins subs , 2x2 QSI 583

The Double cluster is just one frame in luminance to show flat field. At 1x1 bin

Also i need to work on the camera rotator , as when i applied different pressure to the locking bolt i got different shape starts in the corners. 

[Earl]

Ill be interested to see your final result when you have is singing for you, these look like a nice little scope.

[PNJ]

thanks Earl,   yes just need to tweak it all.   And of course last night in the North East was not very good sky, for imaging regardless of a bright Moon.  

paul J

[Barry-Wilson]

Very nice first light Paul.  I saw the WO Star 71 at Ian King's stand at the Astrofest in Warwickshire earlier in the year - I was tempted.  Your first two images show that the scope has great potential and I look forward to seeing more images.

Cracking colour for your Losmandy plate, matches your Avalon  .

Barry

[Martin Meredith]

Great first light images. I've been waiting to see what this scope can deliver and it seems to have tons of potential.

Martin

[PNJ]

Got my replacement W/O Star 71 telescope today, as my first one was showing strange star shapes at 1x1 binning.  But my dealer was great and sent me another telescope, having submitted test images to them showing defects.

Only got a very short window of sky tonight, about 10 mins lol

but enough to see that my replacements seems as it should be.

here is a crop of extreme  top left and top right without scaling.

what does the group think ?

cheers

Paul

[Ruud]

Looks good to me.

Enjoy the telescope!

[NOMH]

That is a great widefield telescope/camera combo. Enjoy!

JB