ED80 now I know what all the fuss is about.

[geppetto]

Being mainly a reflector sort of guy having the loan of an ED80 (thanks Richard) for a day or two was quite exciting.

Anyway, tonight the cloud gods cleared the sky for me so I jumped at the opportunity and stuck the scope on my

EQ5 mount for a look see.

The scope is this one from aunty flo http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=pro80ed2ota

Lovely solid scope with good quality attachments.

Started the evening by having a good look through it using my 2" 26mm eyepiece.

Was taken aback by the pin sharp stars and the contrasty black background.

Had a tour around Auriga and the clusters there jumped out against the background sky despite my local light

pollution and the relatively small aperture of the scope.

M31 stood out well, the scopes widefield view suited this target as it did M45 and the double cluster.

An amazing bright crescent moon caught my interest and looked pin sharp through the scope. Despite it being a fast

scope, I was pleased to see it had enough reach even with a 26 mm eyepiece to give detailed views for a very comfortable

look around the moon.

I tried it with my 15mm eyepiece and two times barlow and the views of the moon were still very sharp and contrasty.

Next was an imaging session before the cloud on the horizon arrived to end the night. (images posted else where)

The scope coped well with my Toucam at prime focus and the image scale was good enough not to need a barlow.

Both for the Toucam and my Nikon 5400 I removed the diagonal and had to use a 50mm 2" extender to get enough

back focus.

With the Nikon mounted afocally with a 40mm eyepiece, it was easy to take some nice 60 second tracked widefields.

The sturdy and smooth focuser stayed put, even with my camera hanging on the end.

All in all a great and versatile little scope that you'd be hard pressed to tire of.

Suppose I'll have to give it back though

[CELESCOPE]

Glad you liked it Phil , it is a nice scope , lovely crisp views , and also even better the ED100 , i have both , and well pleased with them . well for DSO imaging i mean , looks like you will hve to save your pennies and grab one ehhehe

Cheers

Rog

[John]

Glad you liked it Phil , it is a nice scope , lovely crisp views , and also even better the ED100 , i have both , and well pleased with them . well for DSO imaging i mean , looks like you will hve to save your pennies and grab one ehhehe

Cheers

Rog

If Synta replace the current ED scopes with flashier, more expensive models (which is rumoured) I reckon the ED80 and ED100 will be considered as classics and could get hard to find. Many people (especially our American friends) still think they can't be proper APO's at the price - but they are of course !.

John

[Rob]

I've used both the ED80 & 100. They are top draw scopes, and for the money CANNOT be beaten. I'm still wanting to buy a ED80 myself to compliment my C8!. As widefield visual its perfect!

[Greg]

I love mine for widefield visual and astrophotography..Poratable as well...

Best investment I ever made..

Go on Phil...Go get one...You know you want to...go on Sir...

[The Warthog]

Next star party, I'm going to have to find someone who has one and find out what all the fuss is about. How would they compare to, say, a 5" SCT for contrast and sharpness?

[FLO]

How would they compare to, say, a 5" SCT for contrast and sharpness?

Good question.

For contrast, the refractor should win but for sharpness...

Sharpness has two components: Resolution (the level of detail/information) and Acutance.

Quality of optics aside, maximum resolution is determined by aperture. The larger the aperture, the more detail is resolved (you canna break the laws of physics Jim... Sorry :oops:)

Acutance is easy to see but difficult to explain. It is 'edge contrast'. How well defined and separated the edges of detail are. The human eye/brain interprets light detail next to dark detail as an edge. The quicker the transition from light to dark (the greater the contrast), the sharper the edge appears to be.

So, assuming both scopes have capable optics, the 5" will be higher resolution - it will resolve the most detail/information. But, the refractor will have greater contrast (because it has no central obstruction) which shows as greater acutence. When someone says an image is sharp, they mean it has good acutance - it has bite!

Most observers will claim that the 80mm is sharper, even though it has less resolution/detail.

When trying to observe surface detail on Jupiter, it helps if the optics have good contrast/acutance because that's what helps the detail to stand out. When imaging, contrast is less important as contrast can be added at the image processing stage. For imaging, it is better to have plenty of aperture so that more resolution/detail can be resolved.

None of the above is intended to subtract from Skywatcher's remarkably good ED80 (there are other factors to consider), I just wanted to paint a fuller picture.

Ideally, we would all have large aperture APO refractors 8)

....... I'll get my coat.