Kson Scopes

[Kevdan]

Hi All,

Are the kson scopes any good, they seem to do odd size relectors like 120mm and 135mm,

I know you get what you pay, but these are similar prices as some skywatcher reflectors.

Also quick question 1 - what is stacking when taking astro pics?

quick question 2 - the felxtube versions of the reflector scopes do these need collimating on every use as the secondary mirror is constantly being moved up and down just a couple of "straight bars" ?, answer may sway me against this type of scope.

Thanks,

Kev.

[garethmob]

hello kev

im not sure about that scope or the flex but i no a little stacking

stacking (from what iv learnt from this forum and tried my self)

is where you take numerous frames (photos) of the same subject say m42(orion nebular) at a specific length of time (bulb mode on dlsrs with canon) with a timer

for instance if your doing widefield with a 58mm fixed camera lens iv found about 30 photos each one 30 seconds long (with the 20 - 30 seconds time between each take) you can get quite stunning pictures

you can then load all the photos inside DSS (deep space stacker) and it will put all of your photos together to make one photo usally showing fantastic detail and colour

there is dark frames and flats and bias's which improve your photos as well but i havent really mastered them my self yet

[Cornelius Varley]

New Kson telescopes were only sold in the UK by Telescope Planet who have now ceased trading. My feeling is that the old sized telescopes were a marketing ploy. Why buy a Skywatcher 130 when you can have a whole 5mm more aperture for about the same price? I don't think Ksons will be any better than Skywatcher or Celestron telescopes.

Stacking as the other poster mentioned refers to the processing of astro-photographs. In lunar and planetary imaging a video clip is processed through a program called Registax or Avistack. The AVI file is broken down into individual frames and the best ones are stacked in the program. The combining of the images improves the signal to noise ratio to improve the final image. Varoius tweeks can then be applied to the image (wavelets) to extract more detail.

I assume it would be a good idea to check the collimation of a Flextube telescope before using it.

Peter