TS Imaging Star 71 firstlight (quick and dirty!)

[halli]

Hi

After several months dithering over what best to go for in the small frac area, flirting with Esprit 80 triplet, Altair wave ED80 triplet and WO GF81.   I decided to press the button on the altair when lo and behold the prices of everything went up and I couldn't find stock of the Altair anywhere.    I decided to reconsider and started looking at smaller scopes.   The idea of 5 elements including FF and FR started to really appeal with the main contender being the WO Star 71.   Again I was thwarted as this was being replace with a new 4 element version and couldn't find it anywhere but came across the TS imaging star 71.   How similar does that sound.  After further research I discovered that it appeared to be the same scope by the same Chinese company but simply re-badged as perhaps WO had done  - but with a bit of gold paint !   It looked like good value as obviously TS couldn't uplift the price as much as WO as their name was not as prestigious.  I therefore decided to take the plunge.

Luckily the day after it arrived the skies had cleared momentarily so I rushed outside and mounted the instrument on my NEQ6 and actually found some stars to focus on (albeit without a Bahtinov and any other aid !) .  Managed to get point craft working in APT and got M31 in its sights.  Worried that the clouds would roll in and without any guider commissioned I took 46x30s luminance shots of M31 with an Atik 383l+.

I stacked and did a rough and dirty DBE and stretch in PI and the result is as below.  

Don't think its that bad considering the focussing was guess work without any aids so am quite pleased.  

The main issue was to check the field flatness as there appeared to be a number of stories about some WO Star 71s not being collimated leading to eggy stars at the corners.   As far as my untrained eyes go - the stars in the below look acceptable to me (ignoring any focussing issues)  I guess I need to use it more extensively to really get to know any foibles.  

I haven't found a lot of images with the TS71 so I though it was worth staring this topic to at least share with anyone else looking at this type of scope - it seems very good value and appears to be a definite alternative to the WO version.

 

 

[geordie85]

Nice write up and image you've got there with a nice flat field too. 

This 8s the scope I was considering when the WO Star 71 got discontinued but then FLO had a discounted, Es Reid collimated one for a reduced price so I bought that instead. 

Congrats on the new scope. Hope you have many years of enjoyment 

[halli]

Thanks for your comments Geordie   - its always good to get additional coats of eyewash over a first image for confirmation things appear ok.  

I notice FLO did the collimated version which cuts out any risk with the manu's QA , looks like you did well there !  

I know the cost of the WO GT81 triplet together with tube rings and separate flattener seemed to go up quite a bit which really makes the TS71 far better value.

[halli]

Managed to squeeze in a bit of colour from 11x30s of RGB taken at the same time as the Luminance  - still very little data but shows how much light this little scope collects at f4.9 with only 30s subs !