New Skywatcher HAC125 F2 astrograph

[ONIKKINEN]

I could see some benefits with a hyper newtonian compared to RASA type scopes. As i've understood it RASAs are best married to a camera that once attached doesn't get removed or touched in any way to keep collimation/tilt intact. With a newtonian the situation is less tense and you could swap out the camera and use many scopes with it and dont need to sacrifice a camera to the one scope. Hypernewtonians then become more portable, at least a little bit.

With this HAC125 we are close to the RASA situation in that it looks like you should really leave the camera attached once its set up and tilt sorted (if it can be sorted, not sure). But since it should be used with only certain smaller form factor cameras this is less of a hit financially, because i would probably not want to use a small chip with another scope anyway. If this thing takes off and reception is at least somewhat good then would not be surprised to see a 150/200mm version be developed somewhere down the line. Assuming whatever production line they have set up can be scaled up of course. Could be that they just sourced this one very specific size of mirror somewhere and this is all that we will get. Time will tell.

[TiffsAndAstro]

1 minute ago, ONIKKINEN said:

I could see some benefits with a hyper newtonian compared to RASA type scopes. As i've understood it RASAs are best married to a camera that once attached doesn't get removed or touched in any way to keep collimation/tilt intact. With a newtonian the situation is less tense and you could swap out the camera and use many scopes with it and dont need to sacrifice a camera to the one scope. Hypernewtonians then become more portable, at least a little bit.

With this HAC125 we are close to the RASA situation in that it looks like you should really leave the camera attached once its set up and tilt sorted (if it can be sorted, not sure). But since it should be used with only certain smaller form factor cameras this is less of a hit financially, because i would probably not want to use a small chip with another scope anyway. If this thing takes off and reception is at least somewhat good then would not be surprised to see a 150/200mm version be developed somewhere down the line. Assuming whatever production line they have set up can be scaled up of course. Could be that they just sourced this one very specific size of mirror somewhere and this is all that we will get. Time will tell.

I only have a simple 72ed and I already  never want to touch the camera.

If I had a Rasa I'd superglue the camera on

[Elp]

7 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

 

If I had a Rasa I'd superglue the camera on

What would you do if you had to reframe the camera?

[TiffsAndAstro]

4 hours ago, Elp said:

What would you do if you had to reframe the camera?

I'd have my Rasa in custom made ota rings, of course

Rotate it in the rings. Of course, I'd probably have superglued it into those, too

Edited 14 hours ago by TiffsAndAstro

[900SL]

Given the way they have done the camera attachment, it looks like the usual Skywatcher POS. I won't hold my breath until some muggins buys one and posts his or her findings

[Elp]

Someones posted on Astrobin but you can't discern too much from it. The above link I've posted is the only user review I've seen so far, browser auto translates and is easy to read.

[Pompey Monkey]

I'm looking forward to seeing which one of the early adopters for this starts moaning about distorted stars at the edges.

There seem to be quite a few consumers these days that can't grasp the "time/cost/quality" triangle and expect miracles... 🤣

[TiffsAndAstro]

15 minutes ago, Pompey Monkey said:

I'm looking forward to seeing which one of the early adopters for this starts moaning about distorted stars at the edges.

There seem to be quite a few consumers these days that can't grasp the "time/cost/quality" triangle and expect miracles... 🤣

In consumers' defence,  companies seem to take liberties with their advertising and marketing. 

See the recent WO kerfuffle.

Haven't seen any English language advertising for it yet, but, if they imply a flat corrected field but it doesn't provide that, it would be a dubious practice at best.

Edited 25 minutes ago by TiffsAndAstro