# New Lens kind of anyways :)



## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

Well I went and did it. I've been looking at apo refractors for awhile now and finally decided to go for one. 702mm at f6.9 or 561mm at f5.5 with the reducer field flattner. I'll be using it at f5.5 most of the time. It has a 102mm objective 5 elements with the Flat6 3 without. FPL-53 and ED glass. 2 speed focus with a 10:1 and 1:1 ratios. I'll be adding a motor to that soon and controlling it with an Arduino nano via bluetooth or wifi. It comes with a hand controller but I want everything to be useable remotely. So I'll have to replicate the controller. Two pins on the Arduino will do that. Lots of focus motor control code on the net. So it won't be a big deal to do.

The scope is a Williams Optics 102GT with the Flat6 for EOS. It has standard EOS mounting ring on it so its just like using any other lens.










Can't wait to try it out. Managed to get 20 shots of the Rosette Nebula Tues night. Hoping its going to clear tonight so I can get some more color and possibly some Ha. The goto system is a joy to use. One star alignment and you are off to the races. And at 9deg/sec it does race from object to object. Gets things centered nicely and it will be more accurate once I take the time do do the mount modeling. Kinda hard to spend a night setting that up when its so close anyway. No finder scope on mine. I'll be mounting the Borg guidescope down the center axis of the scope for the best guiding. Hard to keep them pointing at the same point with the dual saddle I've found. And its heavy. The payload will loose almost 10lbs with the switch. Hopefully it will be here first part of next week.

Griz


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## MichaelW (Jun 16, 2010)

Looks like your really into this type of photography. When do we see the photos from this investment.


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

Its in Louisville now. I think that is a big customs operation the Argo Navis went through there on its way from Australia. Looks like Wednesday and of course its going to be raining. So hopefully by the end of the week. I've gotten some new images but they are all Ha and need more data. Actually the Ha stuff finally convinced me I needed more aperture. 20 minutes and they just barely show the clouds with the EF400. So I figured it would be over an hour to get nice signal to noise. The mount will track that long no problem but with all mounts the little bit of periodic error will make the stars bigger and fuzz up the detail. So you want the exposure as short as you can make it and still get the data. This is almost 1.8x more area to grab light so I'm thinking 30-45 min for the narrowest filter I have or that is available. Ha adds so much detail and you can shoot when the moon is up. Not that many days a month to do rgb whenever the moon is up you might as well stay indoors. I started out in photography doing this type of imaging. Had to sell off all my equipment when my health went off the cliff. But I'm heading to north Houston today to get some r/c shots. MotoGP coming up and I need the practice. Haven't really used the 7D2 for much except astro so I barely know the camera yet.

Griz


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## Whitebassfisher (May 4, 2007)

My goodness, that lens looks capable of aging a whitetail buck's teeth while it chews.


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## DA REEL DADDY (Jun 7, 2005)

Man that thing looks like you stole it from Galileo. Lol


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

*Its going to be here today.*

Just got back from Houston. Only about an hour left before the brown truck shows up with my new toy.

Yea I'm going to take it to Colorado for the rut this year. I didn't get to go last year and I really want to go again. Should be able to see the snot fly when they go to fighting.

I picked up a microcontroller board while I was in Houston to use to make a motorized focuser for it. The motors and all that are available but they just have a simple handpaddle. I want it to work from the computer so I am going to redo the handpad. Actually it won't be a handpad it will be a little box about the size of a credit card and about an inch thick. Its a complete computer hdmi 4 usb audio ethernet and a camera that runs on linux. That will take input over bluetooth from the touchscreen handpad and from the weather station and control the servos and focus motor.

I don't think its going to fit on my gimbal though I'll have to get a heavy duty ball mount or maybe a video head to mount it up for terrestrial stuff. They have a bunch of smaller ones that are very popular for birds and wildlife shooters overseas. Borg as well. WO sells a lot of 71mm ZeinithStars for that purpose. Don't think you'd be doing any handheld with it though. Its 27" without the dewshield extended so I'm thinking at least a yard long and 11lbs. Its all CNC aluminum tube and all. The one I saw at the star party was a very nice piece. It has the Ohara FPL-53 glass supposedly the best there is. One of the triplet is that and the other two are ED glass. They also have a line of FPL-53 and fluorite lenses.

Looks like Sat will be first light. Its partly cloudy here now but thunderstorms in the next county so probably no chance to try and peek through the clouds to get some images.

Griz


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