Light speed engaged! Unboxing the Omegon Pro Astrograph 150/420
Unboxing!!
We didn’t do an unboxing for the ASI2600MC duo, but we get another shot!
As I moved to an area with a much more broken horizon, there will not be many long consecutive imaging sessions.
And I’m a tourist. An astro-tourist. I love to visit objects in the night sky. Take the money shot. Buy the t-shirt. And be off to somewhere else.
I don’t mind make it a full night if I can, but I have historically not been revisiting the same place for building a project in any meaningful sense. It’s mostly been with some new equipment etc.
With a great new camera, I now need a good telescope to support my tourist journey around the sky. I need it to be a fast telescope to get as much light as possible, in as short time as possible, so I can catch the buss to the next attraction.
Luckily there are solutions for people like me. They come in different names. The solutions I have been set on till this point are:
Starizona’s “Hyperstar” lens assembly. This will turn my F/10@2032mm EdgeHD from Celestron to an F/1,9@390mm. Sounds magical. The price for this is almost the same as a new telescope, and I will not be able to use the high focal SCT since it’s now a low F/1,9 astrograph.
The second option is to get a new telescope. The RASA has here been my only real option with F/2 it’s pretty much the same as the Hyperstar, but as a separate telescope I can still use my SCT for something else. Now that I have everything else I need for 2 setup.
The bad thing with the RASA is that it has a very small image circle, of about 22mm and a usable field, for guiding etc but not necessarily “flat” of 32mm. This might be possible for the APS-C sensor, with coma in the corners. The other “but” is that the backfocus is very short, 25mm from M42 adaptor, or 29mm from threaded collar.
With the camera consuming 17,5 or 22,5 mm this leaves very little left for filters and other adaptors.
All in all, I decided that the RASA or hyperstar solutions was too close to my fresh, new camera and decided to wait.
Then I stumbled over another solution. Or maybe it found me. Most likely algorithm matched us up. Credit is where credit’s due.
A Newtonian Astrograph with an F/2.8. Only 150mm aperture felt a bit small at first, but focal length is just what I want and then it’s just math really. Price is about the same as a RASA, but backfocus is 55mm and the image circle is about 44mm which leaves plenty of space for future upgrades(NO, no more upgrades!!!).
So, here we are. Unboxing a new telescope.
I also got ZWO EAF autofocuser and a laser collimator from TS optics.
We’ll be unboxing, admiring the sight of a brand new telescope, mount the EAF and check the collimation.
0:00- 0:17 Intro
0:18 – 5:32 The box!
5:33 – 5:36 Letting the clouds out.
5:37 – 10:45 Unpacking and unwrapping.
10:46 – 11:33 Mounting the EAF
11:34 – 12:47 mounting on the CGEM
12:48 – 13:59 Prepping for collimation.
13:59 – 19:03 Collimation
19:04 – 19:28 The end