The SW Esprit 100ED scope… I know this is an old school telescope that has been around for quite some time now, but I thought it might still have relevance in a world that is a wash of new quads, quints, septuplets and more new offerings that offer lots of mystery glass and promised flat fields and even huge apertures for a bargain basement to mid range price. It is getting harder to decide what to get today and what you are actually getting in terms of quality and glass.
I had a very hard time recently deciding and comparing all the available offerings that made my head started spinning. I wanted something that gave excellent images in the 100mm range without paying for a Takahashi!
I knew SW Esprit’s have been around for awhile and some people had problems with pinched optics when cold, while others raved about them.
Well, I finally decided that I did not want another multiple lens quad, quint or more as I have a quintuplet and I still do not know the glass types and am just soso happy with it. So I finally decided upon an older optical design with a beefy focuser. I bought the Sky Watcher!
The Esprit 100ED scopes are definitely built like tanks, and when you replace the short silly single Losmandy dovetail plate with two ADM longer versions the weight adds up to about 23 lbs! Wow, that is heavy for a 100mm scope and heavier than my 115mm FK61 triplet! That is definitely very heavy for a 100mm F5.5 scope so it definitely uses a lot of thicker steel compared to most! Then again the main tube that holds the objective is a huge oversized 130mm with an even bigger dew shield. The Dew shield was my only complaint as I had to remove it due to sagging from being so heavy, but adding a plastic foam wrap around the objective cell fixed that easily and nicely. The 3.4” focuser is nice and beefy and a very high quality.
So yes, it is old school, hugely over-built with its old captains wheel and strange rotator assembly but all I can say in the end is… the FPL-53 glass combo delivers absolutely stunning crisp images and at the end of the day that what still matters the most to me.
Here is an image of the rig and my first light of M13 in an almost full moon, 91% humidity and only 1.5 hours of 120s subs. Fog rolled in cutting my night very short.
So I think I have to say some old school stuff is still definitely relevant today!
Edited by Kevin_A, 19 May 2024 - 10:58 AM.
