So a while back I posted about trying to decide on the AT60EDP and Mike pointed out that it was only designed for astrophotography and wouldn't be suitable for what was my main reason for getting it, which was to give me a wider field of view with my DayStar Gemini Quark. From that standpoint, the AT60ED didn't disappoint, and I now can get the entire Sun in view in the eyepiece. I also bought the focal reducer/flattener for it and a bunch of spacers to get the sensor spacing just right, and generally I've been pretty happy with the flatness of the field to the corners of my APS-C sensor in the QHY-247C. I was able to design a 3D printed focus motor assembly for it similar to what I had on my AT80LE that worked fine as well.
That said, there have been several disappointments with this scope as well. First off was a speck of dust inside or behind the objective lens. Mike at Astronomics thinks it's just inside the cell and can be blown out, but I haven't disassembled it to try yet.
However, while that is hopefully just a manufacturing issue that only affects my scope, the bigger issue is with the weak mount ring provided with the OTA. It was obvious as soon as I hung my QHY247C off the back of the focal reducer that the unit was flexing badly, but after having it installed for a while, it turned out to be completely bent when I took it off to start setting up for solar observing for the eclipse. I wasn't sure initially if it was the mount or the OTA itself, but removing the mount and installing it backwards reversed the tilt on the OTA. Putting the mount on a square, it was bent by about a sixteenth of an inch. I bent it back as close to straight as I could get, and it took an incredibly small amount of force to do so, so I don't expect it to hold its shape for any length of time. I'm hoping Mike can get with his supplier and get them to revise this with a beefier mount. (Of course, I'd appreciate receiving one if you fix it!) Until they do, I certainly wouldn't recommend this scope for anything more than visual observing with light weight eyepieces. It definitely is not up to holding a cooled camera off the end of the focal reducer/flattener. That whole assembly weighs considerably more than the OTA, and when focused is longer as well!
<More pictures in the next post>
Beo
Edited by Lord Beowulf, 27 March 2024 - 10:11 PM.