I have an unwavering romance with refractors. It started with the Orion ST80 a few years ago and since then I've slowly worked up in aperture. A few I've used were the "Pencil" Borg, Takahashi TS-50, Orion ED66 CF, Celestron C80ED, Sky-Watcher Evostar 100ED, Celestron Wide View 102, Meade LX85 R5 and received a Celestron C6-R yesterday. I love refractors!
I would like to see a similar video comparing budget APO refractors like the Astro-Tech AT80EDT triplet or Svbony SV550 triplet, and a higher end model like the Takahashi.
I am a visual guy. I own both doublet and triplet refractors. At the end of the day I find that residual color does not bother me. I know it bothers other people, but it just isn’t a big deal to me.
I recently sold my ES152 achro because, over 15 years, I've moved from large scope visual observing, to astrophotography. It was hard for me to give up on my large achro refractor because I held out hope that digital processing magic would come to my rescue. After all, 1) We know stars are round. So, make the egg shapes all round. 2) We know exactly what the color of each star should be. So, digitally color correct them AND eliminate the blue halos we know shouldn't be there. I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts on this. As an aside, I'm holding on to the Celestron 102gt (f9.8, Costco, $200!) that you reviewed positively a number o f years ago. 🔭🔭🔭
I don’t do astrophotography, so I may not be as critical as those who do. For 25 years I had a Questar- as color free as you’ll find- and a TV Pronto, and the color of the Pronto really never bothered me. I actually bought a Ranger this year as a relatively inexpensive travel scope, and it gets used more than any of my scopes!
Excellent presentation Ed. That ST80 performed far better than I expected for a cheap achromat despite its obvious collimation issues. The Ranger was pretty much as I remembered it, good but not superb, and of course the APO excelled. I just wish we had more clear skies here (Clyde valley, Scotland). False colour/ Purple jelly monsters.... It drives me crazy.
@@robertsonsid A lot of dealers still have stock. Orion's web site has disappeared. Meade's site is still up but it directs interested buyers to their dealers.
I love my ST80 as a travel scope, it also does pretty well for EAA. I have also had issues with collimation with it, but I find that generally if you just unscrew the lens cell just a little bit, point the lens at the ground, and give it a few taps and then screw it back in (not too tight!) that it cleans it up quite a bit. I'm not at all upset that it was my first telescope and it is the reason I own 3 others and a pair on binos! People at star parties love it and I've even had Saturn in it with a 3x Barlow and a 9mm eyepiece before and it was surprisingly good for its aperture.
I own several ST-80s, a TeleVue Ranger and various "apo-doublets.". The Ranger is called an ED scope but has only slightly better color correction than a similar achromat. As others have said, one does not have buy a Takahashi to get excellent color correction. The Orion ED-80 revolutionized the affordable apo-doublet market more than 20 years ago. Today, i see them used for $300. There are very nice apo-doublets available today.. Jon
My ST80 clone (Meade Adventure Scope 80) gets used more than my AT80ED. Unfortunately it's been out of collimation for a while (my fault) but for low power wide field views its not abhorrent in the color for my taste. I appreciate you confirming what I've been experiencing.
Ed could make Videos each Day, i will be watching each of them, like Jp performance in germany , big Influence in Car Culture, not only in germany. big thanks. A Neil Young of telescopes. Thank you Ed. i am checking every Day for New videos. although i got a lot of stuff to Do. greets from germany
Interesting comparison. As a purely visual observer, I don't have the kind of bucks it would take to get a 6" APO refractor. So, I went to the "old school" method of dealing with CA, which is having a scope with a long f-ratio. My 6" f/12 ISTAR does a decent job of keeping CA down to a tolerable level, although I did have to upgrade my G-11 mount with a Titan RA to handle the lever moment of a 6'+ optical tube.
Ed. Thanks for the video. Can you do an update video considering which telescope to purchase in each price range that would be good for both visual and astrophotography?
I've started masking all my refractors down a little bit to get rid of the false color and other abberations from the edge of the lenses. So I take my 90mm down to 70mm and it becomes a focal 14! A 70 mm refractor becomes a 50 mm and it corrects the problems without much noticeable light loss.
Definitely interesting. I had never seen that chart. My only refractor is a Lunt 80 mm apo but it would be fun to compare it to a ST 80, a telescope I have always wanted to own, although it would be redundant. Probably worth pointing out to newbies that reflectors do not have chromatic abberation, one of their advantages.
Ed calls it "distortion," but the correct term is "aberration." Distortion is when the magnification over the field changes, and it is usually classified as "pincushion" or "Barrel" distortion. In the presence of distortion, if you move a pair of stars to the edge of the field, they will get closer or farther apart. Also, if you drift stars through the edges of the field, they will move in curves and not straight lines. Telescopes generally don't have distortion, they have aberrations. Eyepieces have distortion.
The ST80 photos still look great for such a cheap scope. I have one back in the States. Been sitting unused in the closet for 20 years. Hope to free it next year.
I have the FS60. It is a great little scope, with amazing image quality which suffers from one issue: the focuser has a lot of vertical play, which can lead to significant tilt in the images. You can adjust it with come screws, but they tend to get loose pretty easily.
Thanks Ed. There sure are a bunch of ST80's and their clones out there! If I may suggest, re-do the images but with both the Ranger and ST80 stopped to 60mm, same as the Tak. I bet the images for them would be much improved with bigger illuminated fields, less distortion at the corners and notably less of the infamous "blue bloat", especially for the humble ST80. Jeff
I mostly started with newts (mirrors) and false color has always bothered me. Even the tiny bit left over in the less expensive apo's. Newtonian telescopes with good quality eyepieces have the edge over the apo's for me and my mostly visual astronomy... I'm also too lazy to do much processing of any images. I mostly take them to diagnose the system itself.
Hi Ed, love your videos! Could you do a review of the celestron omni 102? I got it at a bargain recently at just 60 bucks, recommended by the LearnToStargaze channel, I'd love to know your take on it. There also seem to be 2 versions of this scope: the omni 102, and the omni XLT 102 with better coatings supposedly. I have the former, would that make a difference while observing?
Great video! I do feel that if you upgrade the ST80 with a 2" focuser, you could shove a 2" field flattener in there and probably get a much better corrected image, though you'd still get the CA. The ST80 with a 2" focuser and flattener is still much cheaper than the Takahashi. As for the Takahashi, I'd be interested in a comparison between it and some of the smaller scopes now available on the market for imaging, like the WO Redcat 51 or the Askar Sqa55. Clear skies!
I actually do lots of EAA with archomat. I use sv501p 60/400 and I recently added sv231 filter to reduce CA even little bit more. Its CA index is 2.8 - that considered very good. Images don't really fall from typical semi-apo. I get lots of "ohh you image with achromat" - but actually I'm quite happy with the result. What actually bothers me more is field flatness rather than colors - so can't use big sensors.
Hello Ed, will you please make a video about what nebulae, star clusters, planets, stars, galaxies and other astro objects really look to a human eye through a dobsonian telescope ? I want you to explain what a person will actually see through a telescope. The Internet is full of long exposure and stacked images and videos of various celestial objects. I want to know what a telescope buyer should expect to see through his telescope. Do nebulae look colourful or just cloudy objects ? Can we see the colours of planets and maybe a little bit of patterns on it ? What would Betelgeuse or polestar or any other star look like ? Thank you.
One thing not mentioned here is that telescopes are advertised as "apochromatic" that either use a triplet objective (three lens elements working together with different refractive indexes) or a doublet (two lenses) made of low-dispersion glass. The Takahashi shown here is a low-dispersion doublet, and still produces pretty colour-free results in these comparisons. This is because it's both a fairly small objective (60mm) and not super fast (f/6). Larger objectives or shorter focal ratios will struggle more to achieve a colour-free image if they're doublets. All else being equal, even the best low-dispersion doublet (usually listed as ED doublets) will not be as colour-free as a triplet, although the difference might not be obvious depending on the telescope and observer. They're better than standard doublets, but just make sure you read the documentation carefully to understand what you're buying. Word of warning: as you'd expect, a triplet commands a substantial price premium owing to the extra lens and complexity.
I have stellarvue 80. I just like small refractors. Easy to carry around. I’ve had some bigger Orion refractors. No comparison. Price neither. But worth it.
i recently picked up the svbony 90 for 219 dollars and it came with a filter. im a visual guy and all i can say is wow! the purple halos really evident, i put the filter on the diagonal and it pretty much all went away. maybe one day i'll get a camera and start taking pictures, can you do a video for photography on a really low budget? i dont even have a laptop
Howdy Ed. Is that an FS60C? If so what is the backspace distance from FF to sensor? I just bought an FS60C and the original FS60 C FF and can't seem to find the original system chart for them. I've been following and reading your reviews for many many years. I can safely say your reviews have cost me a small fortune over the years :) I can also safely say your reviews have never steered me wrong (FS102, FC50 and the recent FS60C). Big thanks for all you do!
Hey Ed, have an amateur question... Why should all the stars be preferably white? Isn't there orange stars like Betelguese or blue stars like Sirius that a person would want to capture its natural color? Also, when photographer post images of distant nebulae or galaxies, it seems that each person has their own way of color correcting to their likeness. Meaning, I've seen many images out there that are different shades (of the same object) depending on who took and edited the photo. Does it just come down to preference in the end?
Very interesting. Thanks for this, Ed. I have to ask, though, what is that monster to your left in the video? It's vertical and only partially in frame. Looks huge!
80mm F5 vs 70mm F6.8 vs 60mm F5.9 is quite a range. It would be interesting to see the edge distortion if they all had the same aperture and focal length.
The chromatic aberration was so bad on the short tube 90 I had, it kept me from observing for a decade, until I had saved up enough money to buy a newtonian that doesn't have that problem.
Takahashi is driving me crazy with their threads and clamshells! Please, can anyone tell me how to attach the 80S clamshell(the one in the video) to a vixen dovetail plate, and also how to turn the M52 thread on the focal reducer on the camera side of the reducer to a M48 or a M42.
The clamshell has three holes in its base. The middle one has a female 1/4" camera thread. There are Vixen style photo dovetail bars available that come with the bolt already in them, otherwise any 1/4" bolt will attach any Vixen style bar to the clamshell tube holder.
Hello Ed. When doing images with the TeleVue Ranger did use the star diagonal, shoot straight through or use a 1.25” adapter? I cannot focus without the star diagonal or 1.25” adapter with mine!
Spacers are your friend. Try using a 3X barlow (with the magnifying section removed) as a spacer to see if you can reach focus. Also try CloudyNights forum for more info.
"In June 2021, Orion acquired Meade Instruments. In July 2024, Sky and Telescope magazine reported that Optronic Technologies, the owner of Orion Telescopes, had closed their facilities in California and had laid off all of their employees. As of July 15, there had been no official announcement from the company."
Another good one, Ed. Two quick comments: First, I would be interested in the impact of an aperture mask on the ST80 for photographic purposes. I know visually when I use the aperture mask in the dust cap that came with my budget achro it makes a big difference in terms of color fringing on the moon and (white light) sun. Objects are also sharper. This shouldn’t be a surprise, photographers have known for years that the sweet spot for performance on many of their lenses is to be stopped down a stop or so from fully wide open. Second, correcting color fringing in Adobe Lightroom is much simpler than it used to be. Just go to the lens correction tab on the right hand side in the Develop module. Since your telescope probably isn’t in their list of lenses, click on “manual”. Then you can use the eye dropper on the area with the chromatic aberration. At least for sun/moon shots, this should be fairly straightforward. All the best.
I love you Ed but like so many its a view always slanted towards astrophotography. Does everyone coming to a star party wish to be an astrophotographer or can afford to? I think it is industry driven to maximize profits. I remember the 12 year old me in the 1960's struggling to fit my Sears Roebuck 76mm f16 refractor with a non- motorized eq mount on a wood leg tripod out our living room sliding patio door to split double stars with Donald Menzel's Field Guide To The Stars And Planets. That long slow achromat didn't care nor was seemingly bothered by "false" color. Every double it was capable of splitting to my eye was exactly the color Menzel's narrative said it would be. And I could enjoy the surface of the Moon, the "canals" of Mars, bands and moons of Jupiter and Rings of Saturn. I never contemplated if their color was accurate. It was enough just observe their existence. But no one seems to make those long tube achromats of decent quality that by nature have good color enough to please the eye. I think that is somewhat a shortcoming of outreach programs partly caused by an industry with different goals. I think it short sighted because getting persons hooked with somewhat awkward but useful visual scopes might extend the interest of more amateurs who might graduate to higher aspirations rather than the inference they are not worthy. My Dad taught me you can attract/catch more fish with better bait. I still think it a valid approach to life. Just a thought..
Why do you ask? Will you buy up all the old Rangers and Prontos I can find for cheap? "Build quality", "resale value"... it's the same old tired shtick that Harley fanboys use to keep up their mystique. Save your shekels and buy a Takahashi son, used Rangers and Prontos go cheap now because they have fallen far behind technology wise. An NP101 while super expensive is better but still lags behind a Tak fluorite doublet on planets. Rangers go that cheap because Astronomics sells 70mm ED scopes for $329 that are BETTER in every way than a Ranger.
Hi Ed, I'm fairly new to the hobby and I'm currently using a very old Newtownian (it's an Antares, The Moon if you are familiar with them, 114mm of aperture and 900mm of focal length). It's on a EQ mount, not motorized I'm pretty decent at finding and tracking objects. I'm about to upgrade to a C8 on an AVX mount. For my budget (around 3000€) do you think this is a good rig? I'm mainly interested in planetary photography so i also have a barlow lens but since I'm also interested in some dso I'm buying a zwo asi585mc. Do you have any suggestions for the budget i have?
While I enjoy Ed's videos, I agree that this is heavily skewed towards the Tak just by using its flattener, which very much does not 'come' with the basic OTA because (as Ed points out) requires a huge extra outlay and is, fortunately, optional when buying the telescope. With the Takahashi set up for imaging, Ed is essentially comparing photographic performance of 2 visual optics vs. a dedicated astrograph, with expected results. A better approach would have been to at least employ a generic FF on the other optics as well, such as the TSflat2, or (because of the 1.25" restriction) none on any of them (or even using the same flattener on all of them). That would be even more interesting to see than the current video. I bet the performance gap would be been closer too, particularly between the Ranger and the Tak. To be fair though, the original intent was to compare unfocused colour rather than outer-field correction even if the latter does feature heavily in the discussion, and flatteners play a lesser role for that.
Bortle 6, 1.25 miles from a large oil refinery. I take photos with my Celestron short tube 80 ($72, 15 years old), an SvBony SV231 color correction filter and use the color correction feature of Sharp Cap Pro. No halos. And, my Newtonians never get any chromatic aberration, at all. My short tube 80 came properly collimated. You need to get yours fixed or replace it. I am lazy. I do EAA and do no post processing.
Always a good evening when there's a new video from Ed!
Wow, that Takahashi is a work of art.
That must have been a huge project creating this video. Well done, sir!!!
I have an unwavering romance with refractors. It started with the Orion ST80 a few years ago and since then I've slowly worked up in aperture. A few I've used were the "Pencil" Borg, Takahashi TS-50, Orion ED66 CF, Celestron C80ED, Sky-Watcher Evostar 100ED, Celestron Wide View 102, Meade LX85 R5 and received a Celestron C6-R yesterday. I love refractors!
Thanks for the comparison. The Tak is such a money magnet but you can’t ignore the spectacular results.
The TV Ranger, without flattener and giving those nice stars, seems to be a helluva scope!
I would like to see a similar video comparing budget APO refractors like the Astro-Tech AT80EDT triplet or Svbony SV550 triplet, and a higher end model like the Takahashi.
I am a visual guy. I own both doublet and triplet refractors. At the end of the day I find that residual color does not bother me. I know it bothers other people, but it just isn’t a big deal to me.
Which triplet?
I recently sold my ES152 achro because, over 15 years, I've moved from large scope visual observing, to astrophotography. It was hard for me to give up on my large achro refractor because I held out hope that digital processing magic would come to my rescue. After all, 1) We know stars are round. So, make the egg shapes all round. 2) We know exactly what the color of each star should be. So, digitally color correct them AND eliminate the blue halos we know shouldn't be there. I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts on this. As an aside, I'm holding on to the Celestron 102gt (f9.8, Costco, $200!) that you reviewed positively a number o f years ago. 🔭🔭🔭
Always enjoy the content here!
Thank you for another fine telescope comparison, Ed! Always love your content.
Thank you Ed for all your work and effort to bring us so much information in our beautiful hobby.😊👍🤗
Great comparison summary.
Thanks Ed. The affordable st80 has a budget role to play.
I don’t do astrophotography, so I may not be as critical as those who do. For 25 years I had a Questar- as color free as you’ll find- and a TV Pronto, and the color of the Pronto really never bothered me. I actually bought a Ranger this year as a relatively inexpensive travel scope, and it gets used more than any of my scopes!
queastar are miror telescope. light travels in equal focus point so they dont have much to false color at all. it realy is not that much of a suprise
Thanks for making my Sunday Ed!
Excellent video!
This was just what I was after! I am THAT beginner.
Always enjoy your videos, Ed. Thank you.
Excellent presentation Ed. That ST80 performed far better than I expected for a cheap achromat despite its obvious collimation issues. The Ranger was pretty much as I remembered it, good but not superb, and of course the APO excelled. I just wish we had more clear skies here (Clyde valley, Scotland). False colour/ Purple jelly monsters.... It drives me crazy.
i have owned the tak f60 ten yers ago ,it is incredible sharp.looking at the moon is amazing together with an ethos eyepiece!!!
Fantastic video, Ed! I love my Ranger a lot.
thanks Ed
R.I.P Oroin, hopefully they come back someday.
@rickkearn7100 I heard Meade, will have to look into Celestron.
@@rickkearn7100celestron has a stock issue but I don’t think they are shutting down.
@@Joviangamer Orion acquired Meade in 2021, so I believe Orion's closure affected both. As far as I can tell Celestron is still in business.
Amazon is still selling Orion scopes. I am wondering if the US company sold out.
@@robertsonsid A lot of dealers still have stock. Orion's web site has disappeared. Meade's site is still up but it directs interested buyers to their dealers.
I love my ST80 as a travel scope, it also does pretty well for EAA. I have also had issues with collimation with it, but I find that generally if you just unscrew the lens cell just a little bit, point the lens at the ground, and give it a few taps and then screw it back in (not too tight!) that it cleans it up quite a bit. I'm not at all upset that it was my first telescope and it is the reason I own 3 others and a pair on binos! People at star parties love it and I've even had Saturn in it with a 3x Barlow and a 9mm eyepiece before and it was surprisingly good for its aperture.
enjoyed it thoroughly I have a ST 80
Good video, especially for those of us who have 'humble hardware'.
I own several ST-80s, a TeleVue Ranger and various "apo-doublets.". The Ranger is called an ED scope but has only slightly better color correction than a similar achromat. As others have said, one does not have buy a Takahashi to get excellent color correction. The Orion ED-80 revolutionized the affordable apo-doublet market more than 20 years ago. Today, i see them used for $300. There are very nice apo-doublets available today..
Jon
My ST80 clone (Meade Adventure Scope 80) gets used more than my AT80ED. Unfortunately it's been out of collimation for a while (my fault) but for low power wide field views its not abhorrent in the color for my taste. I appreciate you confirming what I've been experiencing.
Ed could make Videos each Day, i will be watching each of them, like Jp performance in germany , big Influence in Car Culture, not only in germany.
big thanks.
A Neil Young of telescopes.
Thank you Ed.
i am checking every Day for New videos. although i got a lot of stuff to Do.
greets from germany
Interesting comparison. As a purely visual observer, I don't have the kind of bucks it would take to get a 6" APO refractor. So, I went to the "old school" method of dealing with CA, which is having a scope with a long f-ratio. My 6" f/12 ISTAR does a decent job of keeping CA down to a tolerable level, although I did have to upgrade my G-11 mount with a Titan RA to handle the lever moment of a 6'+ optical tube.
Ed. Thanks for the video. Can you do an update video considering which telescope to purchase in each price range that would be good for both visual and astrophotography?
Ed, @ 0:35 I thought we might get a musical appreciation video from your record collection.
I've started masking all my refractors down a little bit to get rid of the false color and other abberations from the edge of the lenses.
So I take my 90mm down to 70mm and it becomes a focal 14!
A 70 mm refractor becomes a 50 mm and it corrects the problems without much noticeable light loss.
Definitely interesting. I had never seen that chart. My only refractor is a Lunt 80 mm apo but it would be fun to compare it to a ST 80, a telescope I have always wanted to own, although it would be redundant. Probably worth pointing out to newbies that reflectors do not have chromatic abberation, one of their advantages.
Ed calls it "distortion," but the correct term is "aberration." Distortion is when the magnification over the field changes, and it is usually classified as "pincushion" or "Barrel" distortion. In the presence of distortion, if you move a pair of stars to the edge of the field, they will get closer or farther apart. Also, if you drift stars through the edges of the field, they will move in curves and not straight lines. Telescopes generally don't have distortion, they have aberrations. Eyepieces have distortion.
The ST80 photos still look great for such a cheap scope. I have one back in the States. Been sitting unused in the closet for 20 years. Hope to free it next year.
I have the FS60. It is a great little scope, with amazing image quality which suffers from one issue: the focuser has a lot of vertical play, which can lead to significant tilt in the images. You can adjust it with come screws, but they tend to get loose pretty easily.
Hi Ed the st-80 makes a perfect solar scope because it's all metal! Clear skies
Thanks Ed. There sure are a bunch of ST80's and their clones out there!
If I may suggest, re-do the images but with both the Ranger and ST80 stopped to 60mm, same as the Tak. I bet the images for them would be much improved with bigger illuminated fields, less distortion at the corners and notably less of the infamous "blue bloat", especially for the humble ST80. Jeff
Ed, when are you going to review the FOA-60?
I mostly started with newts (mirrors) and false color has always bothered me. Even the tiny bit left over in the less expensive apo's. Newtonian telescopes with good quality eyepieces have the edge over the apo's for me and my mostly visual astronomy... I'm also too lazy to do much processing of any images. I mostly take them to diagnose the system itself.
Hi Ed, love your videos! Could you do a review of the celestron omni 102? I got it at a bargain recently at just 60 bucks, recommended by the LearnToStargaze channel, I'd love to know your take on it. There also seem to be 2 versions of this scope: the omni 102, and the omni XLT 102 with better coatings supposedly. I have the former, would that make a difference while observing?
Great video! I do feel that if you upgrade the ST80 with a 2" focuser, you could shove a 2" field flattener in there and probably get a much better corrected image, though you'd still get the CA. The ST80 with a 2" focuser and flattener is still much cheaper than the Takahashi.
As for the Takahashi, I'd be interested in a comparison between it and some of the smaller scopes now available on the market for imaging, like the WO Redcat 51 or the Askar Sqa55.
Clear skies!
I am glad that I am not into astrophotography. I don't want to fall victim to astrophotographer OCD syndrome. 😂
I actually do lots of EAA with archomat. I use sv501p 60/400 and I recently added sv231 filter to reduce CA even little bit more. Its CA index is 2.8 - that considered very good. Images don't really fall from typical semi-apo.
I get lots of "ohh you image with achromat" - but actually I'm quite happy with the result. What actually bothers me more is field flatness rather than colors - so can't use big sensors.
Interesting subject
Hello Ed, will you please make a video about what nebulae, star clusters, planets, stars, galaxies and other astro objects really look to a human eye through a dobsonian telescope ?
I want you to explain what a person will actually see through a telescope. The Internet is full of long exposure and stacked images and videos of various celestial objects.
I want to know what a telescope buyer should expect to see through his telescope.
Do nebulae look colourful or just cloudy objects ?
Can we see the colours of planets and maybe a little bit of patterns on it ?
What would Betelgeuse or polestar or any other star look like ?
Thank you.
One thing not mentioned here is that telescopes are advertised as "apochromatic" that either use a triplet objective (three lens elements working together with different refractive indexes) or a doublet (two lenses) made of low-dispersion glass.
The Takahashi shown here is a low-dispersion doublet, and still produces pretty colour-free results in these comparisons. This is because it's both a fairly small objective (60mm) and not super fast (f/6). Larger objectives or shorter focal ratios will struggle more to achieve a colour-free image if they're doublets.
All else being equal, even the best low-dispersion doublet (usually listed as ED doublets) will not be as colour-free as a triplet, although the difference might not be obvious depending on the telescope and observer. They're better than standard doublets, but just make sure you read the documentation carefully to understand what you're buying. Word of warning: as you'd expect, a triplet commands a substantial price premium owing to the extra lens and complexity.
Huh. On Open Clusters the CA actually distinguishes the stars of the cluster from the background. On everything else the effect is distracting
What are your thoughts on Meade and Orion shutting the doors as a consumer Ed?
I have stellarvue 80. I just like small refractors. Easy to carry around. I’ve had some bigger Orion refractors. No comparison. Price neither. But worth it.
i recently picked up the svbony 90 for 219 dollars and it came with a filter. im a visual guy and all i can say is wow! the purple halos really evident, i put the filter on the diagonal and it pretty much all went away. maybe one day i'll get a camera and start taking pictures, can you do a video for photography on a really low budget? i dont even have a laptop
Howdy Ed. Is that an FS60C? If so what is the backspace distance from FF to sensor? I just bought an FS60C and the original FS60 C FF and can't seem to find the original system chart for them.
I've been following and reading your reviews for many many years. I can safely say your reviews have cost me a small fortune over the years :) I can also safely say your reviews have never steered me wrong (FS102, FC50 and the recent FS60C). Big thanks for all you do!
Hey Ed, have an amateur question... Why should all the stars be preferably white? Isn't there orange stars like Betelguese or blue stars like Sirius that a person would want to capture its natural color? Also, when photographer post images of distant nebulae or galaxies, it seems that each person has their own way of color correcting to their likeness. Meaning, I've seen many images out there that are different shades (of the same object) depending on who took and edited the photo. Does it just come down to preference in the end?
Very interesting. Thanks for this, Ed. I have to ask, though, what is that monster to your left in the video? It's vertical and only partially in frame. Looks huge!
I use long refractors for visual only and I have colours in my stars at f10.
Did you see the chromatic aberration chart? Goggle it and start reading the CloudyNights forum.
On your stacked images, what are your exposure times?
80mm F5 vs 70mm F6.8 vs 60mm F5.9 is quite a range. It would be interesting to see the edge distortion if they all had the same aperture and focal length.
All three scopes are rather good.
Would have loved to see the Sky Watcher Evostar80 thrown into the test.
The chromatic aberration was so bad on the short tube 90 I had, it kept me from observing for a decade, until I had saved up enough money to buy a newtonian that doesn't have that problem.
Takahashi is driving me crazy with their threads and clamshells! Please, can anyone tell me how to attach the 80S clamshell(the one in the video) to a vixen dovetail plate, and also how to turn the M52 thread on the focal reducer on the camera side of the reducer to a M48 or a M42.
The clamshell has three holes in its base. The middle one has a female 1/4" camera thread. There are Vixen style photo dovetail bars available that come with the bolt already in them, otherwise any 1/4" bolt will attach any Vixen style bar to the clamshell tube holder.
Awww .. and I thought I discovered Saturn's previously unknown blue atmosphere ...
Hello Ed.
When doing images with the TeleVue Ranger did use the star diagonal, shoot straight through or use a 1.25” adapter?
I cannot focus without the star diagonal or 1.25” adapter with mine!
Spacers are your friend. Try using a 3X barlow (with the magnifying section removed) as a spacer to see if you can reach focus. Also try CloudyNights forum for more info.
Yes, but HOW does an apochromatic telescope reduce false color? I still don't understand this.
How to buy ST80 now?
How about Tak vs Astro-Physics ?
Negligible
"In June 2021, Orion acquired Meade Instruments. In July 2024, Sky and Telescope magazine reported that Optronic Technologies, the owner of Orion Telescopes, had closed their facilities in California and had laid off all of their employees. As of July 15, there had been no official announcement from the company."
Nice video but a bit unfair! You should go for 60 mm for a f7 ota, on the ST. Stil ca, but much better.
The benefit of wearing varifocal glasses means you grow accustomed to CA.
Another good one, Ed.
Two quick comments:
First, I would be interested in the impact of an aperture mask on the ST80 for photographic purposes. I know visually when I use the aperture mask in the dust cap that came with my budget achro it makes a big difference in terms of color fringing on the moon and (white light) sun. Objects are also sharper. This shouldn’t be a surprise, photographers have known for years that the sweet spot for performance on many of their lenses is to be stopped down a stop or so from fully wide open.
Second, correcting color fringing in Adobe Lightroom is much simpler than it used to be. Just go to the lens correction tab on the right hand side in the Develop module. Since your telescope probably isn’t in their list of lenses, click on “manual”. Then you can use the eye dropper on the area with the chromatic aberration. At least for sun/moon shots, this should be fairly straightforward.
All the best.
I love you Ed but like so many its a view always slanted towards astrophotography.
Does everyone coming to a star party wish to be an astrophotographer or can afford to?
I think it is industry driven to maximize profits.
I remember the 12 year old me in the 1960's struggling to fit my Sears Roebuck 76mm f16 refractor with a non- motorized eq mount on a wood leg tripod out our living room sliding patio door to split double stars with Donald Menzel's Field Guide To The Stars And Planets.
That long slow achromat didn't care nor was seemingly bothered by "false" color.
Every double it was capable of splitting to my eye was exactly the color Menzel's narrative said it would be.
And I could enjoy the surface of the Moon, the "canals" of Mars, bands and moons of Jupiter and Rings of Saturn. I never contemplated if their color was accurate. It was enough just observe their existence.
But no one seems to make those long tube achromats of decent quality that by nature have good color enough to please the eye.
I think that is somewhat a shortcoming of outreach programs partly caused by an industry with different goals.
I think it short sighted because getting persons hooked with somewhat awkward but useful visual scopes might extend the interest of more amateurs who might graduate to higher aspirations rather than the inference they are not worthy.
My Dad taught me you can attract/catch more fish with better bait. I still think it a valid approach to life.
Just a thought..
Don't know where you're finding TeleVue Rangers for that cheap.
Why do you ask? Will you buy up all the old Rangers and Prontos I can find for cheap? "Build quality", "resale value"... it's the same old tired shtick that Harley fanboys use to keep up their mystique. Save your shekels and buy a Takahashi son, used Rangers and Prontos go cheap now because they have fallen far behind technology wise. An NP101 while super expensive is better but still lags behind a Tak fluorite doublet on planets. Rangers go that cheap because Astronomics sells 70mm ED scopes for $329 that are BETTER in every way than a Ranger.
Hi Ed, I'm fairly new to the hobby and I'm currently using a very old Newtownian (it's an Antares, The Moon if you are familiar with them, 114mm of aperture and 900mm of focal length). It's on a EQ mount, not motorized I'm pretty decent at finding and tracking objects. I'm about to upgrade to a C8 on an AVX mount. For my budget (around 3000€) do you think this is a good rig? I'm mainly interested in planetary photography so i also have a barlow lens but since I'm also interested in some dso I'm buying a zwo asi585mc. Do you have any suggestions for the budget i have?
A bit pointless comparing a Tak 60 with a flattener to a $200 short tube 80 especially if they were processed differently.
While I enjoy Ed's videos, I agree that this is heavily skewed towards the Tak just by using its flattener, which very much does not 'come' with the basic OTA because (as Ed points out) requires a huge extra outlay and is, fortunately, optional when buying the telescope. With the Takahashi set up for imaging, Ed is essentially comparing photographic performance of 2 visual optics vs. a dedicated astrograph, with expected results. A better approach would have been to at least employ a generic FF on the other optics as well, such as the TSflat2, or (because of the 1.25" restriction) none on any of them (or even using the same flattener on all of them). That would be even more interesting to see than the current video. I bet the performance gap would be been closer too, particularly between the Ranger and the Tak. To be fair though, the original intent was to compare unfocused colour rather than outer-field correction even if the latter does feature heavily in the discussion, and flatteners play a lesser role for that.
Esthetically, I actually prefer the pictures from the Televue over the Takahashi 🤷🏻♂️
Bortle 6, 1.25 miles from a large oil refinery.
I take photos with my Celestron short tube 80 ($72, 15 years old), an SvBony SV231 color correction filter and use the color correction feature of Sharp Cap Pro. No halos. And, my Newtonians never get any chromatic aberration, at all.
My short tube 80 came properly collimated. You need to get yours fixed or replace it.
I am lazy. I do EAA and do no post processing.