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ASKAR ACL200 - World first unboxing and first impressions

Uranium235

By Uranium235
in Member Equipment Reviews

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Uranium235
Uranium235

Yesss, its here Many thanks to the guys at Sharpstar/Askar and FLO for making this happen. A reassuringly heavy bit or kit!     

Uranium235
Uranium235

First test image, barely time to get 8x30s (L) on Sadr - then the clouds return  

Uranium235
Uranium235

My work is done... im going to bed...lol..  10x120 (L)  QSI683

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Adam J

Adam J

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Posted (edited)
7 minutes ago, Tenor Viol said:

I see AN has a review of the 180 - interesting piece of hybrid kit. 

I have one, its a really nice bit of kit. I am going to review but my camera is currently mounted on the Esprit finishing a project so I only have a quick test image at the moment. But from the test everything is looking good and it has a nice feel to it too. I would hesitate to recommend it until I have a full image for obvious reasons but from my perspective at £350 its was worth a punt and it looks like it will pay off.

Adam

Edited by Adam J
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Tenor Viol

Tenor Viol

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Posted
7 minutes ago, Adam J said:

I have one, its a really nice bit of kit. I am going to review but my camera is currently mounted on the Esprit finishing a project so I only have a quick test image at the moment. But from the test everything is looking good and it has a nice feel to it too. I would hesitate to recommend it until I have a full image for obvious reasons but from my perspective at £350 its was worth a punt and it looks like it will pay off.

Adam

That's half the price of a Redcat...

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Adam J

Adam J

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1 minute ago, Tenor Viol said:

That's half the price of a Redcat...


Yes exactly, my thinking is that for my portable setup that I will use only a few times per year I do not want a £700 socpe sitting about gathering dust.

Adam

 

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Icesheet

Icesheet

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Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, Uranium235 said:

My work is done... im going to bed...lol..  :D

10x120 (L)  QSI683

Group2-L_test.thumb.jpg.e3da6fdd6cd3228d4b605aa23cde014c.jpg

Looks like a nice sharp and flat image. Did you stop the lens down here? Looks like some diffraction spikes on the brighter stars?

 

Edit: I see it has 10 blades so you would expect to see more spikes I suppose? Is it something else?

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Icesheet

Icesheet

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Posted (edited)
On 01/09/2020 at 00:28, Tenor Viol said:

I see AN has a review of the 180 - interesting piece of hybrid kit. 

 

On 01/09/2020 at 00:34, Adam J said:

I have one, its a really nice bit of kit. I am going to review but my camera is currently mounted on the Esprit finishing a project so I only have a quick test image at the moment. But from the test everything is looking good and it has a nice feel to it too. I would hesitate to recommend it until I have a full image for obvious reasons but from my perspective at £350 its was worth a punt and it looks like it will pay off.

Adam

The review in AN was very positive. I also have the FMA180 and am similarly optimistic as Adam at this stage. I’ve only had it out to image briefly but it looks promising and I have high hopes it will perform better than the Samyang 135 (at least the copy I had). I also used it for terrestrial observation and it was really sharp and bright with the Panoptic 15mm eye piece I have. Doesn’t handle glare well though. 
 

I would note the FMA is also half the price of the ACL200 too so I should expect the ACL to perform better overall. Be interesting to see if it does as the FMA is certainly more versatile. 

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Uranium235

Uranium235

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37 minutes ago, Icesheet said:

Looks like a nice sharp and flat image. Did you stop the lens down here? Looks like some diffraction spikes on the brighter stars?

 

Edit: I see it has 10 blades so you would expect to see more spikes I suppose? Is it something else?

This was taken with the lens wide open. When you have exact focus you will always get diffraction spikes - they are caused by the clips that hold the lens elements in place (its a very common occurance).

The adjustments required however to get to this stage are very...very... fine.  On a centrally focused star there was a little corner distortion (though equal and distribited evenly) - but if you move the star 2/3rds of the way out to the corner, then refocus it flattened the field out.

Not really half the story really though. Ive only gotten to this stage because I swapped out my adaptors twice, then had to install a 50 micron (0.05mm) shim on the camera becuase it had a bit of tilt. Still more adjustments to make though, I had the spacing set to 56.5mm - but I think at least 0.5mm can come off that.

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Icesheet

Icesheet

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50 minutes ago, Uranium235 said:

This was taken with the lens wide open. When you have exact focus you will always get diffraction spikes - they are caused by the clips that hold the lens elements in place (its a very common occurance).

The adjustments required however to get to this stage are very...very... fine.  On a centrally focused star there was a little corner distortion (though equal and distribited evenly) - but if you move the star 2/3rds of the way out to the corner, then refocus it flattened the field out.

Not really half the story really though. Ive only gotten to this stage because I swapped out my adaptors twice, then had to install a 50 micron (0.05mm) shim on the camera becuase it had a bit of tilt. Still more adjustments to make though, I had the spacing set to 56.5mm - but I think at least 0.5mm can come off that.

Thanks 👍🏻 Very nice piece of information I didn’t know. My focus must be rubbish then 😆

 

 

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Uranium235

Uranium235

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15 minutes ago, Icesheet said:

Thanks 👍🏻 Very nice piece of information I didn’t know. My focus must be rubbish then 😆

 

 

Still a long way to go, I have to find out how this thing reacts when I want to build a mosaic. The corners need to be 100% perfect for the overlap to work correctly.

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Adam J

Adam J

Posted
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8 hours ago, Uranium235 said:

Still a long way to go, I have to find out how this thing reacts when I want to build a mosaic. The corners need to be 100% perfect for the overlap to work correctly.


What are you using for your mosaics Rob as I know for sure that APP would cope with the kind of distortion you are describing easily.

Adam

 

Edited by Adam J
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Uranium235

Uranium235

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Ok, I've had a couple of decent clear nights so I can post the first "proper" image from it.

However, I must confess I had to stop the lens down to f5 in order to clear up some of the corner troubles on the KAF8300 sensor (22mm diagonal).

25x600s  - QSI683 - Astrodon Ha

50346966737_be49843902_o.jpg

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