First Light on my new piece of kit.

[+Graham]

Now I do not usually do write ups on bits of kit but this time I have to make an exception as to say I am truly truly impressed with this bit of kit is the understatement of the year.  

 

After many years of using the brilliant Williams Optics GT 81 I decided to bite the bullet and buy myself a Focal reducer / Field flattener.

I decided on the Williams Optics 0.8 Reducer / Flattener which is a dedicated part for the GT 81.

 

This reducer / flattener takes the focal length of the GT 81 from 5.9 down to an impressive 4.2.

It also gives me me about a 1/3 larger field of view with the Atik 414 EX.

 

Ordered the said item last Monday and it duly arrived yesterday.

This morning I set about fitting it to the scope.

The prime distance between the Focal reducer / flattener and the chip on the Atik 414 EX is between 51mm and 53mm.

Now as chance would have it using the supplied adaptor + my Starlight Filter wheel the spacing is 52mm. 

 

Next job was to manufacture myself a new extension tube to go between the scope's focuser and the focal reducer thus keeping the amount of focuser tube protruding from the focuser to a minimum so preventing any flexing in the image train.

An hour later fresh off the lathe was a shiny new Aluminium 2 inch extension tube.

Another couple of hours for the Anodising and it was ready to fit. 

This new extension tube means I only have 10mm of focuser tube visible and it is all rock solid.

 

The First Light.

 

First thing I had to do was reset the focus of the scope and the Loadstar guide camera on the off axis guider.

Looking at the sky I gave myself little chance of achieving my goal as the only star visible was Vega, well when I say visible I mean it was actually just a faint smudge. 

 

Slewed round to Vega and to my amazement there she was on the screen albeit way out of focus and looking like a torch light shinning through a winter fog.

After ten minuets or so focus was achieved.

Now for the fun bit focusing up the Loadstar. 

I fired up PHD and to my amazement I saw stars in fact there were lots of them, horribly out of focus but they were there.

After an hour of trudging back and forth from the computer to the obs adjusting the Loadstar fraction by fraction I ended up with pinpoint guide stars.

Now this might sound unsurprising but in all the time I have used the Starlight filter wheel with the built in OAG I have never had pinpoint guide stars.

They have always been oval and slightly bloated.

This fact brought me to the conclusion that the field flattener must be working.   

 

Now for the moment of truth.

I slewed round to where the Wizard Neb should be.

 

Once again in PHD I had many guide stars to choose from so set to calibrating the guiding.

All good so far.

 

Now came the crunch would this bit of kit be any good.

I set Maxim off and running doing the usual 600 second subs in HA.

 

When the first sub landed I must admit I just stared at the screen in stunned silence.

It was incredible.

Sitting on the screen was the Wizard Neb.

 

Ok ok I can hear you thinking what is so amazing about that, it was supposed to be there wasn't it ????? 

 

Let me put it like this.

Outside it was now so overcast and gloomy I could not see a single star in the entire sky, I could not even see the moon or in fact even any light from it.

 

I took this photo to demonstrate just how bad it was.

Taken with my Canon lying on its back pointing straight up this is a 30 second sub at ISO 800.

 

 

 

This is a shot of my PHD screen showing the guiding and all the available guide stars.

 

 

Finally this is 5 x 600 second subs stacked in Maxim.

No processing just as is.

 

 

Now I would be the first to admit it is nothing special but go back for a second and take another look at the sky shot again and you will come to the same conclusion that I have.

This focal reducer / field flattener has to be some thing rather special.

 

Without it I would have stood absolutely zero chance of getting anything at all.

No guide stars and certainly no chance of picking out the Neb.

 

Conclusion.

 

Was this worth the price tag of £170.00 

 

Absolutely  

 

I wish I had got one years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[red dwalf]

they are good bits of kit Graham, that is for sure, the distance from reducer to chip is still somewhat of a enigma. on FLO`s website it gives two distances, Lens-to-chip suggested distance: 55-57mm and another of 64.38mm, still haven`t figured out which is correct.

[BAZ]

I can almost feel your excitement from reading this report Graham, a great read. If it's taking images through cloud, you have attained similar powers to Sheila and she scares me.

I am assuming that now you have a bigger field of view, larger and fainter objects are no longer safe, I look forward to seeing what you turn out.  

[+RonC]

Great result Graham, I use a reducer/flattener on the ED80 all the time with good results too!

Very readable blurb and exciting as Martyn said!! 

[tuckstar]

Must be some kind of Wizardry!

[Smithysteve]

abracadabra and hey presto - Magic happens!

It amazes me when i am visual observing just how much you can see, when to the naked eye it looks like impossible conditions! 

A good write up and yes, it is an incredible result! Nice one!

[Sheila]

well done you    wish i could get phd to work  with the MyT as maxim misbehaves a lot    must have another go and get guiding with the 130.

I can only get 10 min subs unguided at the moment  but sounds awesome bit of kit for you  

[Tweedledee]

Very nice. Looks like you're going to have a lot of fun with that widefield setup. 

[sloz1664]

Great to see a plan come together so efficiently, which usually isn't the case with astro imaging. The image of the wizard looks really good.

Steve

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