7 replies to this topic

[Swordfishy]

Hey all

 

I paired it to my ZWO 183MC Pro and put them atop my AZ GTI in EQ mode for it's first light in a Bortle 4 park I have 30 minutes from home.

 

I love it! It took me a little finessing to get the spacing right, I went with the 16.5MM and the 21MM extenders that came with the camera behind the 28mm extender that came with the scope, giving me I believe (my math may be wrong) 56MM of backspacing... Backspace is CRITICAL with this scope, but as you can see from the pictures, it is flat throughout until you reach the very extreme edges which most of us crop off to avoid stacking artifacts anyway...

 

 It is a WONDERFUL scope, very light weight and versatile packed with a built in corrector and a SOLID focuser with a focus lock screw. I could not be happier. It will get lots of use.

I took 1 hour (60 x 60 sec subs 111 gain and 10 offset, matching darks, flats and dark flats) of each.

Rosette Nebula, M45, Witch Head Nebula, California Nebula and finally Great Orion Nebula.

I am quite happy with the results!

 

 Rosette 1hr 180mm by Juan Lopez, on Flickr

 

 M45 1hr TPO 180mm by Juan Lopez, on Flickr

 

 Witch Head 1hr TPO 180mm by Juan Lopez, on Flickr

 

 California_Nebula 1 hr TPO 180mm by Juan Lopez, on Flickr

 

 M42 1 hr TPO 180mm by Juan Lopez, on Flickr

[eyeoftexas]

Pictures are beautiful.  Nice job!

 

Your spacing is 16.5 mm + 21 mm + 28 mm = 65.5 mm

[reddog1972]

What kind of glass does this little scope use?  I literally just discovered this scope tonight and can't find any specs on the glass....

[Swordfishy]

What kind of glass does this little scope use?  I literally just discovered this scope tonight and can't find any specs on the glass....

Not sure, BUT, its pretty dang good for the price... Truly. Perfect stars and that was eyeball focus so it will probably improve when I add autofocus.

[AdamJ]

On my ASKAR version I do see a small amount of blue bloat which I am going to try and remove with an ASTRONOMIK L-3. But it's important to remember that this is less than half the cost of a Redcat and that as such it's great value for money for a F4.5 travel scope and performance exceeds my expectations with this in mind. I actually regard it as one of my best purchases. I also note that with mono and refocus between RGB the performance is much much better than with an ultra small pixel OSC.

Edited by AdamJ, 13 January 2021 - 08:17 AM.

[t-ara-fan]

180mm f/4.5?????!?!?!?  That sounded like a big scope.

[michiel]

That is what I thought too

[NikhilJoshi]

I think OP is quoting a focal length. 180mm/4.5 = 40mm, so a much smaller scope, which makes sense given the wide fields and the fact they're using it on an AVX.