Well, they are quite entry level and cost less than $100. They have been around forever and I bought mine used. It was 15 years old. The are a wide field optical tube. With only 400mm focal length, they do not achieve magnification easily, and with only 80mm aperture cannot resolve faint deep space objects. And, only have 1.25" focusers so there are no corrector lenses made for them. That being said, I love mine. It is my grab and go scope. Combined with the Sky Watcher AZ GTi alt/az mount I use, I can set it up in less than the time to write this sentence. My German equatorial mounts take at least half and hour to level and polar align, And Newtonian reflectors require frequent collimation and disassembly to clean the primary mirror, since the front of the tube is open to the world of dust, pollen, mosquitoes and aardvarks. And, although they are only refractors and subject to chromatic aberration, I have found that using an SvBony 131 correction filter combined with the Sharp Cap Pro color correction routine, they can take pictures as good as any ED refractor. So, yes. I reckon they are really good, in their own way. Thanks a lot for your comment.
@AmatureAstronomer I had an Orion Short Tube 80 scope on a celestron alt az mount. This set up got me started in astrophotography so I have fond memories of it. I still use short focal length scopes as they are so much easier to use.
Good stuff. With a little bit of post processing, these photos will look 2-3 times better. One day, get yourself an Astrobin account so we can see your journey. Cheers. Your shorts look like youre getting better.
Yes, I like it. It is very light all I have to do is set it down facing in a general Northern direction. It takes no time to set it up. I have a couple go to equatorial mounts which take about 30 minutes to level, balance and polar align. And, I have a motorized mount which is not go to which takes about the same length of time to set up, but longer to find objects. The only bad thing about the Sky Watcher AZ GTi mount is that it is an alt/azimuth mount and suffers from field rotation for photography. So, if you are going to use it for photography, a black line appears on two sides of the photo which grow and then switch sides. The field rotation starts after 10 or 15 minutes and will eventually eat the entire photo, so I only use it for photography as a grab and go when a cloud bank is moving in and I do not have much time or when I am photographing something which only takes a few minutes, like a planet or star cluster. If you are not using it for photography the field rotation does not occur. I think I will make a review video for it.
Great photos, especially with just 15 min exposure time and no post processing.
The 80mm short tube scopes are really good I reckon.
Well, they are quite entry level and cost less than $100. They have been around forever and I bought mine used. It was 15 years old. The are a wide field optical tube. With only 400mm focal length, they do not achieve magnification easily, and with only 80mm aperture cannot resolve faint deep space objects. And, only have 1.25" focusers so there are no corrector lenses made for them.
That being said, I love mine. It is my grab and go scope. Combined with the Sky Watcher AZ GTi alt/az mount I use, I can set it up in less than the time to write this sentence. My German equatorial mounts take at least half and hour to level and polar align, And Newtonian reflectors require frequent collimation and disassembly to clean the primary mirror, since the front of the tube is open to the world of dust, pollen, mosquitoes and aardvarks.
And, although they are only refractors and subject to chromatic aberration, I have found that using an SvBony 131 correction filter combined with the Sharp Cap Pro color correction routine, they can take pictures as good as any ED refractor.
So, yes. I reckon they are really good, in their own way.
Thanks a lot for your comment.
@AmatureAstronomer I had an Orion Short Tube 80 scope on a celestron alt az mount. This set up got me started in astrophotography so I have fond memories of it.
I still use short focal length scopes as they are so much easier to use.
Good stuff. With a little bit of post processing, these photos will look 2-3 times better. One day, get yourself an Astrobin account so we can see your journey. Cheers. Your shorts look like youre getting better.
Thanks for the tip!
Do you like the az gti mount ? Im thinking of getting it because I just want to save time finding objects
Yes, I like it. It is very light all I have to do is set it down facing in a general Northern direction. It takes no time to set it up. I have a couple go to equatorial mounts which take about 30 minutes to level, balance and polar align. And, I have a motorized mount which is not go to which takes about the same length of time to set up, but longer to find objects.
The only bad thing about the Sky Watcher AZ GTi mount is that it is an alt/azimuth mount and suffers from field rotation for photography. So, if you are going to use it for photography, a black line appears on two sides of the photo which grow and then switch sides.
The field rotation starts after 10 or 15 minutes and will eventually eat the entire photo, so I only use it for photography as a grab and go when a cloud bank is moving in and I do not have much time or when I am photographing something which only takes a few minutes, like a planet or star cluster.
If you are not using it for photography the field rotation does not occur. I think I will make a review video for it.