Faststar/Hyperstar: Is it worth it at this price?

[baggywrinkle]

I was looking at the Hyperstar/Faststar mod for my 9.25 SCT.

I nearly fell out of my tree when I saw the price at around £1100!!!!

That is more than the cost of the OTA by a long way. Just wondering:

 

1. Is it worth it

2. How Celestron justify the eye water and nether region cringing price?

[Davey-T]

Don't know if you can justify the price but I think the big problem with it is fiddling around with filters and focusing, bit of a gimmick IMHO.

A Tak Epsilon may be slightly less trouble if you wanted a "fast" imaging scope.

Dave

[Filroden]

41 minutes ago, baggywrinkle said:

 

1. Is it worth it

2. How Celestron justify the eye water and nether region cringing price?

You may want to search Astrobin or other image sites for examples of the results. I know the huge increase in field of view is appealing. That much light gathering over a wide area...

[Peter Drew]

18 minutes ago, baggywrinkle said:

I was looking at the Hyperstar/Faststar mod for my 9.25 SCT.

I nearly fell out of my tree when I saw the price at around £1100!!!!

That is more than the cost of the OTA by a long way. Just wondering:

 

1. Is it worth it

2. How Celestron justify the eye water and nether region cringing price?

1) Can be if you like the faff

 

2) Can you make your own?

 

No other option really if you want to operate your SCT at F2.  A .33 focal reducer will get you close with a CCD.   

[kirkster501]

 

1. No

2. Because they can / lack of production scale to bring costs down

Focusing at such short FL will be extremely tricky and you will rapidly get frustrated. Rest assured.  Olly will be on soon to tell you the same I am sure.

It is a tick in a box to say the scope is "DSO AP ready".  I am not slagging off the C925, I have one myself and it is a superb scope.  It is not a scope for deep Sky AP though.  It is a planetary AP scope.

For the £1100 you spend on that you could get a HEQ5/ED80 + DSLR and do AP properly.

Just my 2 penneth

[pietervdv]

Imaging at f/2 does sound very appealing, but if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

F/2 requires very tight mechanical tolerances, zero component slop and a very rigid telescope structure. Having owned a Celestron SCT myself I

think this will always be very tricky...

 

Pieter

[ollypenrice]

 

On 22/04/2017 at 10:51, pietervdv said:

Imaging at f/2 does sound very appealing, but if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

F/2 requires very tight mechanical tolerances, zero component slop and a very rigid telescope structure. Having owned a Celestron SCT myself I

think this will always be very tricky...

 

Pieter

Pieter has it, and he knows what he's talking about because he has built one of the best fast imaging Newts currently in operation. In truth £1100 + scope is not expensive for an F2 system, it is ridiculously cheap. That's because, in my opinion, it cannot be done. As Filroden said, look at the results with a critical eye. This system is not on my wish list, despite the fact that, as a provider, a fast system is what I want to offer my guests. However, I also want to offer them a high quality system which works nicely night after night.

The F3.3 reducer only works on miniscule chips not longer in regular circulation.

Fast is expensive. Almost without exception, fast is, however much you spend, difficult. Think before you buy.

Olly

[AKB]

On 21/04/2017 at 12:31, baggywrinkle said:

That is more than the cost of the OTA by a long way

...however, it's less than the price of some Astrodon filters.  Expense is relative.

On 21/04/2017 at 12:31, baggywrinkle said:

the eye water and nether region cringing price

Ah, so that's what I experienced when I pressed the button on buying a 9.25 Hyperstar?

 

[MattJenko]

Another non cheap option for fast imaging:

http://www.officinastellare.com/professional-telescopes-prod/rhveloce/RH_Veloce_200.html

[The Admiral]

Yummy, but not cheap by any stretch of the imagination (relative, I know), even used!

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/287504-officina-stellare-rh-200-ota-and-feather-touch-focuser-own-your-dream-scope/?do=findComment&comment=3150328

Ian

[RobertI]

Fastar/Hyperstar is becoming increasingly popular for for EAA/Video astronomy where the results are quite amazing. See this example and note the short total exposure times to achieve the results (although admittedly the lucky poster was on a mountain in Hawaii!). I am not an expert but it seems that although Fastar seems expensive, the ultra fast f-ratio means a lot can be achieved with short exposures (meaning no guiding required, which is simpler and cheaper), and a wide field can be captured with smaller chipped cameras which are cheaper. So it seems to work for the right applications.

[DaveS]

Given the cost of the Hyperstar and OTA (Assuming bought together) I'd be thinking of the 11" RASA instead.