Following
this forum discussion I decided to upload what equipment pics I have in the hope that they might some day spare another aspiring photographer a little pain.
I have a love-hate relationship with this telescope. It's a great kit, but nothing included with it works exactly as one would expect and is not as newbie-friendly as the marketing made it seem. Still, it's a fantastic piece of equipment and I've enjoyed using it to make numerous quality images with a variety of camera/filter combinations.
Non-optical HardwareMount: Sky Watcher EQ6r-pro
Control Unit: ZWO ASIAir-Pro
Dovetail: Radian Losmandy dovetail plate (included with the telescope)
Optics TrainOTA: Radian 61
Focuser: Stock
Auto-focuser: ZWO EAF (using included mount bracket)
Field flattener: Stock (included with telescope)
Guider: ZWO OAG (original flavor, not the large one) + ZWO ASI290MM Mini
Filter wheel: ZWO 7x36mm
Main camera: ZWO ASI2600MM-Pro
Pros- Extreme portability. Aside from a RedCat or Samyang/Rokinon camera lens setup, this is about as portable as it gets.
- Sharp glass and a smooth focuser.
- Included field flattener (a reducer/flattener, really, but I didn't know the difference when I bought it).
- Exceptionally wide FOV with just about any camera. I've used this scope with a Nikon Z7, ASI183MC, ASI1600MM, and ASI2600MM with no complaints about any of them.
Cons- Mounting rings are less useful than they would seem. It's a pain in the ass to mount additional hardware using them. The "cable management" cutouts are also fairly useless since they can't take more than a single narrow-gauge cable. Forget about the flat cables that come with ZWO equipment.
- Flattener module can be installed in reverse. To use the telescope visually, the flattener can be removed and replaced with an eyepiece holder/adapter. If you're not paying attention when you reinstall it, you can install it backwards and end up damaging both the flattener glass and whatever filter you've installed in the filter drawer. The glass facing the filter drawer should be FLAT. If it's rounded, you have the flattener in backwards and you're setting up to have a bad time - all your images will be grossly distorted with a backwards flattener/reducer, and if you're using, say, a 2" LP filter like the Optolong L-Pro/Enhance/Extreme, you're going to scratch the filter and the flattener. Not that I ever made that mistake or anything...
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