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| I'd like to personally see a smaller wide field scope come from WO. The variants of the Redcat and their Z series scopes have pretty much fulfilled the 250-400 mm range. With many people now using their dedicated astro cams attached to their favorite wide field lens I'd love to see if they could manufacture a 150-185mm scope. My opinion of course |
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@Jon That looks pretty great for an IMX455 at f/3.8. I imagine this scope should work nearly 100% out of the box with larger pixels, e.g. an IMX410. Agreed - I think it really is out performing the FSQ106 with reducer at 3.6. Granted this is at 3.8 but I'd take the speed now that BXT can clean up the stars. I'll do a same-target comparison between the P68 and FSQ106 as soon as all the clouds move outta here. |
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Tom Boyd:Monty Chandler: You can see the EAF in my photo. It's right below the ASIAIR, mounted to the course focus knob as usual. |
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| Update on trying to tilt-correct this...two issues: 1) The tilt screws on the scope are phillips head screws! I have no idea how I'd get a screwdriver down in there - I don't think I've seen L-key screwdrivers that small commonly available and a straight screwdriver has no chance of angling in there with the camera/filter wheel blocking access. Why would WO not just use standard hex head??? 2) Hocus Focus failed doing the aberration analysis 6 times in a row last night. It seems like it generates a curve and then just bails out. Not sure what to change here just yet, but clouds rolled in for good so I called it a night. |
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I'd like to personally see a smaller wide field scope come from WO. The variants of the Redcat and their Z series scopes have pretty much fulfilled the 250-400 mm range. With many people now using their dedicated astro cams attached to their favorite wide field lens I'd love to see if they could manufacture a 150-185mm scope. My opinion of course I think such a scope would have to be in the neighborhood of f/2-f/2.8 to be really appealing. They would have to go above and beyond to make it play well with APS-C and FF sensors. I’d be all over it if it happened, but it seems far off. |
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Adjusted my AF step size down to 30 (was at 50) and now can run the aberration inspector tool successfully. Here's the result that corresponds to the 9-box image I posted previously. Will try and figure out how I'm gonna play with these adjustment screws to see if I can make any improvement.  |
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I ordered one of these on Dec 5th through Woodland Hill and as of Friday had not received confirmation of ship. Then on Friday I saw the following disclaimer for the first time: Please Note: William Optics has implemented a new lens cell design for their impressive new Pleiades line of telescopes. This new design requires a bit of extra attention to ensure the safety and longevity of the optics. William Optics recommends that when not in use the telescope be thoroughly dried, so as to be free of moisture or dew, and then stored in a dry, consistent temperature, space. When storing the telescope they recommend leaving it uncovered while it acclimates to room temperature slowly. Having followed the progress on this scope for over a month and just seeing this for the first time gave me pause. MFG. statements like this are usually reactive and not proactive. In other words, are buyers of the WIFD scopes experiencing trouble with internal condensation? Is the window to the focuser scale allowing moisture into the scope? I often experience condensation on my scopes when I bring them in, but wipe them off as best I can. Not sure I want to risk internal scope moisture and the ensuing back and forth with support. I plan to cancel tomorrow morning and join the wait and see crowd. Can someone chime in on the WIFD concerning moisture? |
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I looked at the product manual and feel it's not talking about the same thing. It didn't say anything about special care needs for the new focuser design. Typical notes that could be found on other products.  Don't think the resellers' website descriptions are accurate. Or these resellers know something else?  |
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DavesView: I've had the GT81 WIFD since about July and had it out for many sessions. So far I haven't had any issues with internal moisture as far as I can tell. The weather here hasn't been overly cold for most of my fall/winter sessions, however it's been low enough to get some condensation on it when I bring it in. I'm in Louisville KY, btw. |
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I'm concerned about the possibility that condensation may have formed internally though I haven't had a chance to look things over very well yet. First light 2 nights ago with my new equipment: WO GT81 WIFD, AM5, ASI2600 MM, ASI178MM guide camera, ASIAir Plus + other accessories. Everything went well with the exception of my inability to guide as I couldn't get any stars in the frame. Thought my problem was solved when I noticed that I had left the lens cap on the guide scope, but nothing changed after removing. Therefore, I chose shorter exposure lengths of 180 seconds for the subs relying on the mount's tracking. My first sub:  And a dark frame I took same night:  I wanted to capture more data last night. After focusing with the Bahtinov mask I took a final shot before polar aligning got this result:  I'm guessing this is condensation?? If so where might it be, and how to I rectify the issue? Other images I found online illustrating condensation didn't quite look like this, so I'm wondering if it may be a different issue such as the WIFD?? Some details about my process: I imaged for about 90 minutes total (including darks). The air was cold and dry (33 degrees when I concluded), and it dropped to 28 degrees for the low that night. Instead of bringing the rig inside, I placed it in the garage (inside my vehicle) to allow it to gradually reach ambient temperature throughout the day as I had plans for imaging for a second night. It reached the mid 50s during this period of time. Finally, I knew about this disclaimer from WO after I purchased it, and that is why I purposely avoided bringing indoors where it was much warmer. I didn't want to risk anything. Any assistance from more experienced users would be very much appreciated. |
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I'm concerned about the possibility that condensation may have formed internally though I haven't had a chance to look things over very well yet. Everything I've heard from other people who have the WIFD, you probably do not have internal condensation. Especially since you've only had it out twice. I've ordered my first WIFD and went with the Redcat 51 III to wet my beak on the least priced scope available with this feature. Also, on your guiding. @Tom gave me some great guiding advice for my new AM5: Set Max RA/Dec Duration at 350ms in the Guide screen. Exposure time of 1 second (2 seconds with less than good seeing) and Aggression at 30% to 50% (play with it). Set guide scope to 48 to 60 gain. Good luck! |
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Hey, I really appreciate the reply DavesView. Some encouraging words for sure. I didn't have the dew heater switch on the 2600 as I probably should have. I'll have a closer look after work today. Also very grateful for the advice re: my guiding issues. I'll make these adjustments before giving it another go this evening. We're having night after night of clear skies here on Northern Virginia and I want to take advantage! |
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Wanted to post a quick update to yesterday's conversation. Ventured back out last night, and much to my surprise and happiness, the artifacts were no longer in the image. Here's a 3 minute test exposure: What is unfortunate is that I still can't get my guide camera to function properly. I realize it's probably a silly mistake I'm making, but I can't seem to identify it. I begin looping using the asiair after PA and get absolutely nothing. The camera is recognized by the asiair, so I'm left to wonder what else it could be?? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!  |
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| It shows you are looping, meaning it is not guiding. Click on the start shooting button and then click on the hot button below it to start the guiding process. It will then pick a star, calibrate and guide once the calibration process has finished. Another note, I don't see any stars. Are you in focus on your guide scope? |
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I have the 30mm guide scope that came with the WO GT81 WIFD. It has a FL of 120mm, and I put that value in during the set up process in the ASIAir +. Also verified a couple of times just to be sure. And no, I'm not OAG guiding. "Did you click on the hot link just above where you enter the focal length of your guide scope that says 'Fill in Main Scope FL''" Yes, I did. That value was 382mm "In image 2 your camera sensor shows 3096x2080" Looks like this is referring to the resolution of the guide camera. Not something that I entered myself.  Thanks for helping me figure this out DavesView. Very much appreciated! |
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I have the 30mm guide scope that came with the WO GT81 WIFD. It has a FL of 120mm, and I put that value in during the set up process in the ASIAir +. Also verified a couple of times just to be sure. And no, I'm not OAG guiding. Check out my edited reply. |
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| Let me start over. You caught my reply in the middle of edit. Your focal length should be 120 for the guide camera. I don't see any stars in your picture. Are you in focus? Also, once you are in focus on your guide camera, click on the start shooting button, then click on the button below it. The process will begin. Don't click on the 'Fill in Main Scope FL'. |
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Talk about being embarrassed. I thought it likely that I was overlooking something obvious, and appears I was. I entirely forgot to adjust the guide scope focus in this process. I thank you again for giving my post the attention you did DavesView! |
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Talk about being embarrassed. I thought it likely that I was overlooking something obvious, and appears I was. I entirely forgot to adjust the guide scope focus in this process. You're welcome. I've been doing this exactly one year this month. The mistakes are fresh in my memory.  |
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My Pleiades 68 is on the way. Replacing a WO GT71 which I added the flattener/reducer and a rotator to. Very much looking forward to the slightly more than 2x light gathering capability vs the 71 and the wider field. I'm using a ASI183GT for Mono + Filters and also have a 183MC Pro for color. OSC is mostly for use with my C8 Hyperstar setup though, I'd rather LRGB with the mono than OSC where I can have automated filter changes. With the FOV the 183 gives some larger targets were also hard to capture fully in-frame without doing panoramic shots which ads so much time to capture and processing. If I'm as happy as I hope I am I might consider ditching the hyperstar and getting the 111 down the line for mid field stuff and keep the c8 with reducer for galaxy season, planetary and other small target. The 111 would def pushing the limits of my HEQ5 though, so probably after I upgrade that. |
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| So… looking at some pics posted here, I thought this scope was petzval and didn’t need a flattener? Are people really happy with this performance? |
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Sean Mc: It's not a Petzval. Was never advertised that way. Not sure why so many people thought so. It was clear it needed ~55mm back focus as several of the 7 lens elements are for flattening. |
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| I see. Thx for clearing that up. |
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My scope arrived and I filmed a little unboxing and setup video. Pardon my awful production and narration. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU9Pq_jIz68 |
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| Might be a bit wide to resolve anything. |
