William Optics ZenithStar II ED 80/545 - first light

[drjolo]

I have not been imaging in the medium range focal length for a long time, and I decided to go back to the 600mm setup. The selection in this FL is very large, but I decided to go and check for second-hand ED doublet, and I picked William Optics ZenithStar II ED 80 f/6.8. It is FPL-51 based doublet, about 15 years old as far as I know. I equipped it with adjustable 0.8x FF/FR from Teleskop-Express, added QHY247C camera, guider with ASI290MM attached to MC Sonnar 135 lens, put it all on CEM26 and made some first shots. 

Conditions were poor - some light fog, rising Moon and significant light pollution, so most of the processing time I spent on balancing the colors and removing gradients. I did not expect top notch quality from FPL-51 doublet, but the results are promising in my opinion and I will keep that setup for some time for sure. 

Here is the setup ready for capturing:

M1 Crab - 60x2 minutes

Perseus Double Cluster - 60x2 minutes

M35 cluster, 30x2 minutes

Cocoon nebula, 100x2 minutes

Some galaxies nearby Cocoon

Defocused star (omicron Gem) - inside focus, in focus and outside focus. Collimation looks good, but some chromatic aberration is present (I guess, because I have not much experience in analyzing that). 

Now I am looking forward to better nights  

Edited January 5, 2022 by drjolo

[drjolo]

Another light - first in this year. I think this is the first setup I had that was capable to capture whole M31 (not counting Samyang 135). Conditions were as usual at my location during the winter - little smog, light pollution. This setup field of view is 3x2 degrees, so to catch full width of M31 (3 degrees) I need to put it horizontally or diagonally. I will do it next time, under really dark sky

WO Zenithstar II ED80 f/6.8, 0.8x FF/FR, iOptron CEM26, QHY247C, 80x2 minutes. Suburban sky, transparency medium.

And starless version. This little something at the lower right corner is UGC394. Starnet++ was able to recognize it as non-stellar object

 

Edited January 12, 2022 by drjolo