So Celestron buyers like Celestron, Meade buyers like the Meade and Antares buyer like the Antares. Have always disliked the crude, noisy SCT threads, but I get it. The click-lock with a 2 dielectric diagonal with a somewhat shorter light path, using both a 2 ES 28mm/68 and the same low-profile adapter with a 1.25 ES 24mm/68.
Astro-Tech Schmidt-Cassegrain f/6.3 Focal Reducer Field Flattener That said any comparison reviews are helpful. Who cares?
F 6.3 focal reducer/corrector. - Discussions - Stargazers Lounge I was referring to the C6 to answer you specifically. I wish there was.
Imaging - Focal Reducers and Flatteners - Page 1 - KW Telescope Stars in the corner of the image frame are indistinguishable between the Antares and the Celestron. Melotte 15 - First Process in PixInsight (easy! A longer effective focal length leads to higher magnification with a given eyepiece for visual observers. The Buyer's Guide To Eyepieces at the top of the Eyepieces forum has a column for this spec.
Focal reducer for 8SE - Celestron vs. Antares - Cloudy Nights In the 1960s, Celestrons founder, Tom Johnson, created groundbreaking new telescopes never before seen on the consumer market. As often noted in reviews and forum threads, Antares products tend to have threads that are a little less precise, and this specimen certainly demonstrated this. The reducer features fully coated optics in an anodized aluminum filter ring with an ergonomic rubber grip. Our proprietary StarBright XLT optical coatings dramatically increase transmission, up to 97.4% on our Schmidt corrector lenses. This filter threads on to the rear cell of your Celestron or Meade SCT telescope. Thanks for any advice or experience you could share. Easy solution found a very tiny dab of super lube on the threads and all was well and quiet. If the reducer is placed closer to the eyepiece or camera than the distance D, the reduction factor decreases. Antares Click Lock Visual Back - posted in Cats & Casses: Here is the situation:I bought a Celestron CPC 1100 for visual use.Want to put on the scope simulteanously a6.3 focal reducer, filter wheel, and aneyepiece turret. Great report and verifies what I had thought all along, Fortunately, my neighbors are not out in their backyards at 11 pm, or they may have thought I was torturing a small mammal. That means the base of the mounting threads of the focal reducer needs to be 55mm from the camera sensor to achieve the design reduction factor, which is usually 0.8x or 0.85x. CPWI has an extensive object database, employs PointXP mount modeling, and more. However, this also came at a cost, as the sky background in the Antares was slightly brighter. Upon close inspection, it was clear that the housing of Antares assembled in Canada version was a little more substantial than the Celestron. This article explained the basics of how focal reducers work with various kinds of telescopes and how their working distance affects their reduction factor, and it provided sufficient detail to help amateur astronomer choose and use the right focal reducer for a particular application. We have tested our current batch and it works with Meade, Celestron, and Baader SCT accessories. ED stands for "extra-low dispersion," which refers to the composition and optical properties of the glass used for the lenses. The camera side of the focal reducer is threaded for a T-adapter with wide M48 threads, or in some cases, with smaller M42 threads. With the Celestron Reducer/Corrector Lens, thats precisely what you get. I've heard and read all kinds of things about the Antares being only a reducer and not a corrector, etc. Many focal reducers are meant to be used within a few millimeters of the specified working distance to achieve the best possible image results.
Each focal reducer has a fixed specification called the working distance or required back focus. You may need spacers or a T-adapter to ensure the correcting working distance. All Rights Reserved. Reducer Lens .7x - EdgeHD 1400 I have a Raspberry HQ camera, a Sony TV Zoom 12.5-75mm f1.8 and a Astromania 1,25" 0.5x focal reducer. I have the Antares and have no complaints. However, with appropriate spacers and a camera with a known back-focus, it is easy to determine the exact amount of focal reduction for a given setup (some imaging software packages will also let you derive this from images). If a stronger level of focal reduction is used, say 0.5x, then the image circle may be too small to fill the sensor of larger cameras. The Celestron f/6.3 is ~150 compared to the Antares at ~70. Fastar Technology allows imagers the option of drastically increasing the speed and sensitivity of their Celestron optical tube, allowing bright, detailed images with short exposures. If used with other f/ratios, the field flattening characteristic may be unpredictable. This would tell us exactly how well aberrations are corrected. An eyepiece with a 27mm field stop yields a true field of 1.03 in the C6 at f/10. These scopes are compatibles with focal reducers. Scope size might influence choice as well, as a C6 might benefit from the Antares' transparency, while larger scopes might benefit from the Celestron's higher contrast. That was fun. I use the same back spacing for both on a small 6" Celestron SCT. Thanks for pointing this out. The problem with those SCT reducers is that they cause chromatic aberration and require refocusing when using parfocal RGB/other filters. I have a made in Japan 6.3 R/C and a made in China 6.3 R/C. I found both to be very good. Celestron Nexstar+ 127 SLT, several budget plossl eyepieces, Celestron 8-24mm zoom EP and a 12.5mm illuminated double reticle EP, Svbony SV205 camera w/.5 focal reducer, Celestron SkyMaster 20x80 binos on a 40 yr old QuickSet PanHead tripod, Stellarium, Sharpcap and ManyCam on my laptop, SkyView and Nightshift on my phone and a dandy little $9 . This is a. Possibly the design of the Antares was changed .. You also wont be unhappy spending the few extra bucks on the Celestron for the pretty orange lettering, particularly if you can pick one up used, as I did. Edited by Tony Bonanno, 16 April 2021 - 06:44 PM. No rainchecks will be issued for items out of stock at OPTcorp.com to match a competitor's price. And when used in some refractors, the field flattening is not as accurate as it is in the f/10 SCTs. The lens is housed in machined aluminum for are machined aluminum black anodized. I even lost track of which reducer I was using. The stars at the edge could be worse or better. Performance wise what differences might there be using the reducer on a smaller scope. However, in principle, the reduction factor of a focal reducer can be varied by changing the distance from the back of the focal reducer to the camera or eyepiece. Things change but when I rebought I got an Antares and it seems about the same to me. They only publish the value of D, the working distance (sometimes called the back focus distance) and the design reduction factor MRD. Meade does not make an equivalent line of focal reducers for the ACF scopes, although some models of Meade ACF are already at f/8, faster than the f/10 ratio of Celestron Edge HD scopes. 160K views 9 years ago This video is a complete overview of focal reducers and how they function applying to telescopes. Opticstar F6.3 Focal Reducer / Corrector. Photographically you also get a wider field and much shorter exposures.
Celestron & Antares f/6.3 Reducer/Corrector Shoot-out The new Lithium Phosphate (LiFePO4) battery chemistry has significant advantages over other battery chemistries, great for for those Astronomers on the go. High power views will provide flatter fields all the way to the edge, both visually and photographically. Thank you so much for the informative article, I now understand better how to integrate my reducer into my system to get better performance. He tested this on an 8 Celestron , I have a Celestron 6SE. There may have been an almost imperceptible difference, but the Antares and Celestron were producing precisely the same reduction. More about this below. To calculate how much back focus spacing you need to add, take the thickness of the filter and divide it by 3. Figure 6 shows a 1.25" focal reducer from GSO configured with a ZWO ASI224MC camera. However, because the field curvatures in refractors and SCTs vary a lot, I would predict unpredictable effects inre: field curvature. I was originally hoping to do this with a made in Japan Celestron, but ended up with a newer China version but thats probably better in the end since it is the version now available, with the Japan ones rarer and only available used. Overall, this reducer does a phenomenal job at preventing gradients due to internal reflections from the camera sensor back to the glass in the reducer, as I suffered with the Antares reducer. . Steve Our patented SkyAlign alignment technology makes setting up a computerized telescope simple, fast, and accurate. Not one detectable iota of discernable difference. That is definitely a 2" eyepiece, but it is not a large or long focal length 2" eyepiece. So it provides a 0.63x design reduction factor when used with an f/10 SCT at the specified working distance. Practical Considerations of Focal Reducers, 4.2 Back Focus Requirements of Focal Reducers, GSO makes focal reducers for their line of Ritchey-Chretien, Celestron makes a series of focal reducers for the Edge HD line, 0.75x focal reducers for these telescopes, focal reducer for an 8-inch Celestron EdgeHD, A Primer on T-Rings and T-Adapters for Astronomy and Astrophotography, Choosing the Best Telescope for Beginners 2023, Top Night Sky & Astronomy Events in August 2022, Top Night Sky & Astronomy Events in July 2022, Selecting a Baader Planetarium Star Diagonal, A Guide to Choosing Astronomy Eyepieces for Binoviewers, Choosing a Magnifying Finder Scope for Your Telescope, A focal reducer will provide its design reduction factor only when it is placed at the exact working distance from the focal plane of the eyepiece or camera, Reducing the operating distance, that is, moving a focal reducer closer to the eyepiece or camera increases its reduction factor, or conversely reduces the amount of focal reduction. The Antares FR2-0.7X is the same 4-element f/6.3 lens system used for f/10 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes but in a 2" barrel threaded for standard filters.