180mm Mak F15

[alan potts]

I have one of these scopes which in truth is only sitting on my scope rack dust collecting.

Has anyone tried the Meade F 6.3 reducer on one of these and is it possible to image with the. I realise even if the reducer does work it will still be slow and fairly long F/L. I have a Brightstar mammut which I have never used with fairly large pixels that may work on it (  at least I think it will ) I believe they are 8.6  x  8.3um.

Any thoughts, even if it's forget it.

Alan

 

[Sunshine]

I’m not sure about imaging DSO’s But, I have taken some great planetary shots with it, shame it’s sitting on a shelf really. 

[vlaiv]

What cameras do you have that you can use on this scope?

There is no such thing as slow scope for imaging

That scope has massive focal length, and that presents some challenges. As far as I know, Maksutovs have fairly flat field so you should be able to use fully illuminated section of the field without any sort of correction needed.

Quick search gives fully illuminated field of about 30mm (but don't quote me on that one - I'm not 100% certain of it). With focal length of 2700mm, this is equivalent of 15mm/1350mm, or 7.5mm/675mm.

By no means wide field setup, but should be capable of capturing galaxies, planetaries and globular clusters.

To be a good match for this scope, camera should have more than 14um pixel size. Of course, you don't actually have to have such camera, any camera will do if you bin it to required pixel size / resolution.

Let's say you pair it with ASI071

You can get 1236px x 821px image covering ~30' x ~20' of the sky with resolution being 1.46"/px at 180mm aperture.

I would not call that slow, although I would call it "constricted". But not much more than for example my 8" RC paired with ASI1600 which gives me 37.2' x 28.2'.

Trouble of course is to find suitable mono camera for this scope that is affordable. Only options at the moment are expensive CCD sensors close to full frame. KAF-16200 would be good choice (not that I'm suggesting to get one just to use it with said scope )

 

[DaveS]

How about an Atik 383L? Binned 2x2 it gives 0.82"pp

http://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/?fov[]=50||21||1|2|90&messier=65

But you'll need an OAG, and I'm not sure how stable the mirror is.

[vlaiv]

2 minutes ago, DaveS said:

How about an Atik 383L? Binned 2x2 it gives 0.82"pp

http://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/?fov[]=50||21||1|2|90&messier=65

But you'll need an OAG, and I'm not sure how stable the mirror is.

All those smaller sensors will work, and you can bin them. Only drawback will be:

1. Smaller FOV

2. Smaller final image size if you maintain sampling rate above 1"/px (and one should as not to over sample).

ASI1600 for example, can be binned 4x4 for 1.16"/px with 1164px x 880px and FOV of 22.2' x 16.8'

[DaveS]

Yes, I was thinking of affordability, the Atik 383l is a lot cheaper than the Atik 16200, which is the cheapest 16200 based cameras.

[vlaiv]

Btw, a fellow amateur astronomer from my country has Mak180 and has done quite a bit of imaging with it.

Here is some of his work:

You can see other images at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/132897674@N03/page1

although he now mainly uses MN190 for imaging

[DaveS]

Thanks Vlaiv.

I actually have a Mak 180 kicking around not doing much at the moment, I may try to get it into use for imaging, though will have to look for a suitable OAG.

[alan potts]

2 hours ago, vlaiv said:

What cameras do you have that you can use on this scope?

There is no such thing as slow scope for imaging

That scope has massive focal length, and that presents some challenges. As far as I know, Maksutovs have fairly flat field so you should be able to use fully illuminated section of the field without any sort of correction needed.

Quick search gives fully illuminated field of about 30mm (but don't quote me on that one - I'm not 100% certain of it). With focal length of 2700mm, this is equivalent of 15mm/1350mm, or 7.5mm/675mm.

By no means wide field setup, but should be capable of capturing galaxies, planetaries and globular clusters.

To be a good match for this scope, camera should have more than 14um pixel size. Of course, you don't actually have to have such camera, any camera will do if you bin it to required pixel size / resolution.

Let's say you pair it with ASI071

You can get 1236px x 821px image covering ~30' x ~20' of the sky with resolution being 1.46"/px at 180mm aperture.

I would not call that slow, although I would call it "constricted". But not much more than for example my 8" RC paired with ASI1600 which gives me 37.2' x 28.2'.

Trouble of course is to find suitable mono camera for this scope that is affordable. Only options at the moment are expensive CCD sensors close to full frame. KAF-16200 would be good choice (not that I'm suggesting to get one just to use it with said scope )

 

As it stand at the moment I have only 3 DSLR's 40D (mod) 1DSmk2 and 7D Mk2 , not worth it now but there's few thousand quid, I have a OSC Mummut Brightstar and the 290mini I use to guide.  Dont forget I could try thr Meade reducer which I bought for the lx200 12 in but that's too heavy without a bigger mount which is why I thought of the Mak, poor thing is lonely.

I intend to get ASI 071 and 183 which are aimed my scopes from 420mm-1000mm, but nothing specifically for this scope and I will not spend on this. However if a few hundred quid brings something to do say Jupiter and Saturn then I may shell out.  

I also have two very large Canon lenses 300mm and 500mm though at the moment mounting is a problem though I did use an old 300mm F4L I have.

Alan 

[alan potts]

1 hour ago, DaveS said:

Thanks Vlaiv.

I actually have a Mak 180 kicking around not doing much at the moment, I may try to get it into use for imaging, though will have to look for a suitable OAG.

Have I started a club?

Alan

[alan potts]

2 hours ago, vlaiv said:

Btw, a fellow amateur astronomer from my country has Mak180 and has done quite a bit of imaging with it.

Here is some of his work:

You can see other images at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/132897674@N03/page1

although he now mainly uses MN190 for imaging

Wow now that good, I have a M/N 190mm aswell.

Are you a Phil Collins fan? He is where he is today very largely due to cousin John, Genesis would not exsist had it not been for him, can you believe no one wanted them, Queen too, same story, unbelieveable now

Alan

Alan

[scitmon]

9 minutes ago, alan potts said:

Have I started a club?

Alan

Having just bought the Skymax 180 myself, I'll join!

[vlaiv]

21 minutes ago, alan potts said:

As it stand at the moment I have only 3 DSLR's 40D (mod) 1DSmk2 and 7D Mk2 , not worth it now but there's few thousand quid, I have a OSC Mummut Brightstar and the 290mini I use to guide.  Dont forget I could try thr Meade reducer which I bought for the lx200 12 in but that's too heavy without a bigger mount which is why I thought of the Mak, poor thing is lonely.

I intend to get ASI 071 and 183 which are aimed my scopes from 420mm-1000mm, but nothing specifically for this scope and I will not spend on this. However if a few hundred quid brings something to do say Jupiter and Saturn then I may shell out.  

I also have two very large Canon lenses 300mm and 500mm though at the moment mounting is a problem though I did use an old 300mm F4L I have.

Alan 

I believe above M13 was done with 450D modded, so DSLR is worth a try on Mak180. However, I would include binning into processing pipeline as it will be oversampling as well.

Any sort of planetary CMOS will do well with said scope to capture Jupiter and Saturn. You already have a kit for it - 290 mini. As long as it can produce fast frame rates, and you have filter wheel, you could be making some very decent planetary images.

If you look at above link I posted, you will see some very good planetary images done with simple ASI120MM camera and filters - that means that it can certainly be done. 290 mini should fare even better than asi120.

[Sunshine]

Most of you here can leave me exiled, defeated, and left for dead when it comes to any AP but, having a smaller 150 Mak, and on my first attempt period using a camera that can be bought in a bubble gum machine lol i have managed these shots which i am particularly stoked about. Considering the years of AP experience most of you have over me, i would love to see what some other Mak owners can achieve with these awesome scopes, sadly, they have a stigma attached to them and are grossly under used. My Mak is my little telescope that could, and on occasion, when observing with other amateurs in the field, he steals the show.

Edited April 25, 2019 by Sunshine

[alan potts]

Those shots look really good, I have never tried to photograph a planet, my question at the top of the page was more aimed at DSO and what could be done, by some of the best clearly rather a lot. Down the line I may well spend a few hundred quid and get a camera for plantary shots which doesn't need to be cooled I understand. With the plants being away from the evening sky for so long last year I almost forgot about them.

Alan

[johninderby]

As they say horses for courses..

The 180 is ideal for planetary imaging where it’s long focal length and hence larger image scale is an advantage and it’s narrow fov is no problem but exactly the wrong characteristics for most DSOs. Fantastic lunar scope as well.

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by johninderby

[alan potts]

10 hours ago, johninderby said:

As they say horses for courses..

The 180 is ideal for planetary imaging where it’s long focal length and hence larger image scale is an advantage and it’s narrow fov is no problem but exactly the wrong characteristics for most DSOs. Fantastic lunar scope as well.

 

I was sort of thinking of it as for the likes of say M57, I made poor shot of The Ring with the Meade 12 inch LX 200, even de-forked, it's really too heavy for AZEQ6. My idea was to use that closeup ability on this sort of target even though I know guiding will be a task. 

Alan