Anyone using a Sharpstar or TS 140 dual ED Apo?

[Sp@ce_d]

Hi

Just wondering if there's any experience here of these scopes?

I had my eye on an Esprit 150 but looking at everyones stocks it seems I've (literally) missed the boat on probably getting hold of one this year. So far I've seen one thread on here when they were announced & a few threads on Cloudy Nights.

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p11814_TS-Optics-Photoline-140-mm-f-6-5-Super-Triplet-Apo-with-2-ED-elements.html 

[Coco]

9 minutes ago, Sp@ce_d said:

Hi

Just wondering if there's any experience here of these scopes?

I had my eye on an Esprit 150 but looking at everyones stocks it seems I've (literally) missed the boat on probably getting hold of one this year. So far I've seen one thread on here when they were announced & a few threads on Cloudy Nights.

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p11814_TS-Optics-Photoline-140-mm-f-6-5-Super-Triplet-Apo-with-2-ED-elements.html 

I had the 107 under the APM brand, its was superb, bought it of Harrison Telescopes and it was reviewed in the BBC Sky at Night magazine , i wouldnt hessitate in buying the 140

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/reviews/telescopes/apm-107mm-triplet-apo-refractor/

 

365 Astronomy show it also with 10% off.

https://www.365astronomy.com/sharpstar-140ph-140mm-f-6.5-dual-ed-triplet-apo-apochromatic-refractor-telescope.html

 

 

 

[Sp@ce_d]

11 minutes ago, Coco said:

I had the 107 under the APM brand, its was superb, bought it of Harrison Telescopes and it was reviewed in the BBC Sky at Night magazine , i wouldnt hessitate in buying the 140

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/reviews/telescopes/apm-107mm-triplet-apo-refractor/

 

365 Astronomy show it also with 10% off.

https://www.365astronomy.com/sharpstar-140ph-140mm-f-6.5-dual-ed-triplet-apo-apochromatic-refractor-telescope.html

 

 

 

Thanks.. it's consistency of quality I'm fussy about.. (had a few WO scopes some were great, some fell to bits!) I want a frac that I can just put on the mount that works and stays that way. The dual ED intrigued me but I don't want to mess about with something that turns up needing adjustment. Otherwise I wouldn't be thinking of taking the RC of the mount after it's 5 year tour of duty!  Cooling, ie. air spaced or oil spaced I don't think bothers me as it will live in the obsy. There doesn't seem to be many images about & as far as I can tell this was announced in 2018. The Esprit 150 is proven.. my 2 80's I love..  guess it's why there's none in the shops 🤣 But this sounds quite tempting with the lure of f4.8 with reducer & a decent image circle if I sell a kidney for a full frame 😆

[Neil27]

14 hours ago, Sp@ce_d said:

Thanks.. it's consistency of quality I'm fussy about.. (had a few WO scopes some were great, some fell to bits!) I want a frac that I can just put on the mount that works and stays that way. The dual ED intrigued me but I don't want to mess about with something that turns up needing adjustment. Otherwise I wouldn't be thinking of taking the RC of the mount after it's 5 year tour of duty!  Cooling, ie. air spaced or oil spaced I don't think bothers me as it will live in the obsy. There doesn't seem to be many images about & as far as I can tell this was announced in 2018. The Esprit 150 is proven.. my 2 80's I love..  guess it's why there's none in the shops 🤣 But this sounds quite tempting with the lure of f4.8 with reducer & a decent image circle if I sell a kidney for a full frame 😆

Hi Spaced,

I am in the process of putting together my AP set up, after building my roll off a few years ago.

Your equipment line in your signature looks remarkably like my shopping list and the mention of the esprit 150 piqued my interest as well as that is one scope I covet and desire above the rest (In a Gollum type voice 😂)

Its your money but I would sit out the wait for the esprit, as stated it’s a known quantity and many on this forum have bought / used one and can vouch for its quality. Also it’s a lot of glass for around 4K and should provide a lifetime of use and pleasure, both visually and AP.

Good dilemma to have though, we truly are in a golden era for the amateur astronomer 👍

Clear skies, 

[Adam J]

On 07/10/2020 at 16:36, Coco said:

I had the 107 under the APM brand, its was superb, bought it of Harrison Telescopes and it was reviewed in the BBC Sky at Night magazine , i wouldnt hessitate in buying the 140

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/reviews/telescopes/apm-107mm-triplet-apo-refractor/

I have learnt that you pay your money you take your chances with any make after some recent experiences, even the likes of APM. I have seen an APM 107 F6.5 that performed badly (trefoil). Glad yours worked well though. 

Adam

 

Edited October 10, 2020 by Adam J

[Coco]

3 hours ago, Adam J said:

I have learnt that you pay your money you take your chances with any make after some recent experiences, even the likes of APM. I have seen an APM 107 F6.5 that performed very badly (trefoil / not even diffraction limited). Glad yours worked well though. 

Adam

 

Yes it could be said for 'any telecope' I suppose, take Hubble for one ..   Have you got an extra ordinary copy of 130PDS, good for you if you have...

[Adam J]

8 hours ago, Coco said:

Yes it could be said for 'any telecope' I suppose, take Hubble for one ..   Have you got an extra ordinary copy of 130PDS, good for you if you have...

No, my signature is out of date I no longer own a 130PDS, I have a couple of scopes now but I mainly use a Esprit 100 that I would call average. Its my second Esprit 100, the first was not up to expectations and I returned it, had pinched optics and a clear central zone. 

But for the record the 130pds had exceptional optics when we'll collimated. It's the mechanicals that let that scope down. 

Adam 

Edited October 9, 2020 by Adam J

[John]

The APM 107mm referred to by @Coco is one with the LZOS (Russia) triplet objective lens in it. These are quite different level of quality from some of the other APM branded refractors.

LZOS objectives are world class - right up there with Takahashi and Astro Physics. And so they should be for what they cost.

I have an APM branded scope with a LZOS 130mm F/9.2 triplet objective and it is probably the finest instrument that I've ever observed with.

 

Edited October 8, 2020 by John

[johninderby]

Yes LZOS does make exceptional optics. 👍🏻

Best 80mm triplet I ever looked through was a LOMO objective. Good old hand made Russian optics. 🙂

[Adam J]

On 08/10/2020 at 23:30, John said:

The APM 107mm referred to by @Coco is one with the LZOS (Russia) triplet objective lens in it. These are quite different level of quality from some of the other APM branded refractors.

The 107mm f6.5 in Coco's link is certainly a rebranded sharp star lens not an LZOS. They do a very similar in appearance 105mm F6.2 that is LZOS. To my knowledge there has never been a 107mm LZOS sold by APM. 

The quality of the LZOS lens cells are not in question as you say. I would have one if I could afford it. 

I flagged up the APM / Sharp Star lens as it's the same OEM as the TS branded  scope OP is discussing. My only point is that it is dangerous to make a judgement from a single sample good or bad. Hence I wanted to provide a counterweight to Coco's experience with that scope. 

APM discontinued the 107mm as recently as July this year. 

 

 

Edited October 10, 2020 by Adam J

[John]

Good points Adam.

You are right - the LZOS lens is 105mm. APM (and others) claim that the 107mm triplet is of similar quality to LZOS.

They do all look very similar !

 

[PadrePeace]

And I think that’s the point AdamJ is reasonably pointing out here.
 

There is lots of ‘branding’ laid over the same fundamental supply chain TS, APM, Sharpstar the list goes on because most of the many brands out there do not make their own glass and cells so no matter what they claim it’s a lottery whether you get a good one or a poor one from the Far East.
The only thing that really counts in my experience is post sales customer care; If it’s not up to scratch what are the brands prepared to do about it? That’s all you are paying more for. 

On ‘top quality glass’ I’ve recently seen a pretty poorly ground LZOS lens optical report so even the Russians push out iffy stuff. 

Retailers will claim all sorts of things and sometimes back it up with a published optical report. The point is you cannot be sure you’ll be buying a scope with that advertised optical spec and thats because brands don’t optically bench test (interferometer) all of their glass before selling it to you. At best they rely on a specification placed with their supplier, which if that isn’t met, no one will be any the wiser cos no one can afford to check how well your glass is ground and configured in its cell, so buyer beware.
An optical report as a sales pitch is just that ... it’s also the report they decided to share with us. Don’t get sucked into the hype around premium branding alone. There are good scopes and poor scopes and price doesn’t always count. This site is full of evidence on that point. 
 

Finally, before the re-attack starts beware brand snobbery as some of the best astroshots I have ever had the pleasure of seeing have come out of AdamJ’s 130PDS. It’s  all about how you use and tune it as a photon gathering instrument and then how well the data is processed. Just saying....

Edited October 10, 2020 by PadrePeace

[Sp@ce_d]

9 hours ago, PadrePeace said:

And I think that’s the point AdamJ is reasonably pointing out here.
 

There is lots of ‘branding’ laid over the same fundamental supply chain TS, APM, Sharpstar the list goes on because most of the many brands out there do not make their own glass and cells so no matter what they claim it’s a lottery whether you get a good one or a poor one from the Far East.
The only thing that really counts in my experience is post sales customer care; If it’s not up to scratch what are the brands prepared to do about it? That’s all you are paying more for. 

On ‘top quality glass’ I’ve recently seen a pretty poorly ground LZOS lens optical report so even the Russians push out iffy stuff. 

Retailers will claim all sorts of things and sometimes back it up with a published optical report. The point is you cannot be sure you’ll be buying a scope with that advertised optical spec and thats because brands don’t optically bench test (interferometer) all of their glass before selling it to you. At best they rely on a specification placed with their supplier, which if that isn’t met, no one will be any the wiser cos no one can afford to check how well your glass is ground and configured in its cell, so buyer beware.
An optical report as a sales pitch is just that ... it’s also the report they decided to share with us. Don’t get sucked into the hype around premium branding alone. There are good scopes and poor scopes and price doesn’t always count. This site is full of evidence on that point. 
 

Finally, before the re-attack starts beware brand snobbery as some of the best astroshots I have ever had the pleasure of seeing have come out of AdamJ’s 130PDS. It’s  all about how you use and tune it as a photon gathering instrument and then how well the data is processed. Just saying....

Yup, customer care is the key factor. I’ll exhaust all avenues & make compromises to be able to deal with my trusted retailers. It’s a symbiotic relationship after all in these niche markets. Always pays to do a bit of research and ultimately you should be prepared for worst case scenario of writing it off if you still want to go down the unknown retailer/new kit route!

The old “Workman and his tools” saying is so true.. some who seem they could produce an APOD out of just about anything! Not me for sure... I seem to need more investment in my processing skills than my equipment.
 

So, back to the scope in question. I’ve not found many images taken with it. Only really by one person in Canada’s link on CN to Astrobin & I tracked down their flicker Account for some more. They all look good (his other photography is well worth checking) but it’s only the one scope so no chance to compare consistency. Anyway, I may have tracked down an Esprit this side of Xmas fingers crossed 🙂

[newbie alert]

12 hours ago, PadrePeace said:

And I think that’s the point AdamJ is reasonably pointing out here.
 

There is lots of ‘branding’ laid over the same fundamental supply chain TS, APM, Sharpstar the list goes on because most of the many brands out there do not make their own glass and cells so no matter what they claim it’s a lottery whether you get a good one or a poor one from the Far East.
The only thing that really counts in my experience is post sales customer care; If it’s not up to scratch what are the brands prepared to do about it? That’s all you are paying more for. 

On ‘top quality glass’ I’ve recently seen a pretty poorly ground LZOS lens optical report so even the Russians push out iffy stuff. 

Retailers will claim all sorts of things and sometimes back it up with a published optical report. The point is you cannot be sure you’ll be buying a scope with that advertised optical spec and thats because brands don’t optically bench test (interferometer) all of their glass before selling it to you. At best they rely on a specification placed with their supplier, which if that isn’t met, no one will be any the wiser cos no one can afford to check how well your glass is ground and configured in its cell, so buyer beware.
An optical report as a sales pitch is just that ... it’s also the report they decided to share with us. Don’t get sucked into the hype around premium branding alone. There are good scopes and poor scopes and price doesn’t always count. This site is full of 

So you're saying that a APM,  LZOS, LOMO, TEC, astrophysics ,televue  etc aren't any better than a TS branded product? So what are you paying for, and quite a substantial amount more?

[johninderby]

26 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

So you're saying that a APM,  LZOS, LOMO, TEC, astrophysics ,televue  etc aren't any better than a TS branded product? So what are you paying for, and quite a substantial amount more?

Would strongly disagree with his opinion as it doesn’t match up with my experience but it is just an opinion which he has a right to have even if most will disagree. 

Edited October 11, 2020 by johninderby

[John]

3 hours ago, newbie alert said:

So you're saying that a APM,  LZOS, LOMO, TEC, astrophysics ,televue  etc aren't any better than a TS branded product? So what are you paying for, and quite a substantial amount more?

The only one of those that I have personal experience of is my TMB/APM/LZOS 130mm F/9.2 and that is a superb optic.

My experience does suggest though that other "non premium" manufacturers have narrowed the gap between their products and the very best so the value for money factor has shifted in their direction more.

Something similar has happened with eyepiece optics over the past 5 years or so.

 

 

[Adam J]

6 hours ago, newbie alert said:

So you're saying that a APM,  LZOS, LOMO, TEC, astrophysics ,televue  etc aren't any better than a TS branded product? So what are you paying for, and quite a substantial amount more?

I think that the mass market optics manufacturers are closing the gap as others have said.

But in the end many scope makers will only guarantee diffraction limited optics and they define that as 0.8 strehl, the thing is that it should also be defined as <0.25 wave peak to valley in addition to <0.8 and some miss out on that second bit, so you get poor scopes even if they are 0.95 strehl as the portion of the light that is not going to the right place is a long way out causing odd halos when imaging.

On the whole diffraction limited is not that great a claim these days as it was back in the 1980's or even 90's modern polishing machines are pritty good, so it should be possible to exceed diffraction limited performance consistantly and by some margin.

Worth remembering that every single scope from any optics maker has passed through a interferometre at some point, so the shocking thing to me is not what some of these makes are acheiving on average in terms of quality its that they are still letting scopes that are simply not good enough through to the customer however rare that might be.

This is a great video on the process. The difference is the amount of time that is spent getting the best out of the optic, changing spacing, rotating the elements, polishing out flaws. By compairson the mass marked brands will not optimise the optic further once it has passed that minimum specification even if more could be extracted from it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKIPFWVxvNc

So i do believe that you are going to have a better optic from those companies listed above....or more to the point less likely to have a total lemon.  But even at that point I have heard of coating issues on some high end scopes (the bit that they all out source). So I guess I would be no less nervious buying an AP scope than a SW scope because although its vastly less likely an AP will be anything but perfect thats balanced against the price I would be paying for it.

What I dont beleive is that an APM with a Sharpstar optic in it is any better than a TS or Altair scope with a sharp star optic in it,  especially without an optical report being provided. You have got to remember that the optical report is always generated by the maker. If they are not giving you an optical report its not because they dont have one, its bacause they dont want you to see it. They dont want you to know that some of there scopes have much better optics than others, because after all everyone is paying the same price.

I guess the point overall is that if you buy a astronomy camera then you can be prittt sure that the one you buy will be almost exactly like the one reviewed in Sky at Night or Astronomy now. That is not the case with telescope optics, some will be better than others. So the reputation of the optics maker is more important than the telescope brand when the two are not the same.

Adam

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2020 by Adam J

[PadrePeace]

Don’t get me wrong guys. I’m not getting at any particular brands. Without them we’d have no hobby. They were just examples of what is out there for us to choose from. AdamJ’s points above are sound but if you find you exclusively love TS, APM, WO whoever, then that’s great if you are getting what you want. We are all different, we buy different  makes of car, white goods etc, but they are all bound to a number of common supply chains. Mass produced Optics are the same and as AdamJ point out they are all individually different.
 

When someone quotes, and ive seen this in articles and adds that they had their scope hand picked by (insert head of x brand) how can that be construed as anything other than what is being said here.  There are great and poorer copies out there. What makes brands different is the consumer, your preferences for a colour, bias towards your first scope supplier perhaps, price point, pick a metric.  Doesn’t make you right or wrong. Just don’t expect everyone is having your experience with their copy of X 107/700 or X 100 or whatever it happens to  be. What counts is how brands react once you say you are unhappy. In this dept FLO as a supplier seem to stand out from the crowd. That’s priceless.

 

Edited October 11, 2020 by PadrePeace