My new baby...

[AstroBee]

I've had an Explore Scientific ED127mm APO for a few years now and have always been very, very happy with it. I've dreamed about getting the big brother to it, the ED152CF model but the price tag is staggering. Especially since I'm just now getting back to work after being out for 16 months. As it turns out, a good astro friend of mine managed to pick up a used (but mint condition) ED152CF for a steal. He buys and sells astro gear for a hobby. I begged him to hold on to it till I could afford to take it off his hands.
This weekend, he informed me that he wanted to sell it so I had a sit-down with the banker (wife) and she agreed that this was too good a deal to pass on.
So I'd like to introduce you to the latest family member, yet to be nicknamed, the Explore Scientific ED152CF. Complete with the newly purchased ZWO2600mm camera!



And fully decked out with my imaging gear.


Amazingly, although much larger and bulkier, it is only 2.5lbs heavier than my ED127mm aluminum scope.

[Ylem]

She's beautiful

[Graeme1858]

Congratulations on the new family member! She is indeed very lovely.

Regards

Graeme

[SkyHiker]

Nice!

[Juno16]

Beautiful rig, congratulations!

[Refractordude]

Great and congratulations.

[10538]

Awesome! Got to read that first light report!

[AstroBee]

Well, I managed to get it out in the backyard tonight because I wanted to work out a few bugs like focuser backlash and Reducer spacing. Nothing worth sharing except that After a couple of hours I managed to get the backlash numbers right in NINA and now have a smooth V Curve. My spacing is off a tad bit so I've ordered a spacer kit that will hopefully fix that problem. With the same 0.7x reducer/corrector on my ED127 the spacing was exactly 55mm. That's what I'm at right now and it looks like it's going to take 56 or 57 mm to get the corners looking sharp.
It wasn't a great night for imaging with lots of haze and or smoke in the sky and with my Bortle 8-9 skies to begin with, LRGB imaging is pretty much worthless. I'm still waiting on my narrowband filters to arrive but that's really pointless at this stage until I get the spacing worked out.
Overall I'm still very happy with the rig and I'm sure with a little patience I'll get it perfect.

[Unitron48]

Congrats on the new scope. Looking forward to additional updates!!

Dave

[KingNothing13]

Way cool - glad you were able to get it for a relative steal, that's always helpful.

[helicon]

Great addition Greg. I have the Humbler Ar152 Achro, but I love the ED air space triplet. Congrats on wrangling with the CFO enough to get it. I sometimes keep mine on the deck for a couple of days or three during periods of good, fog-free weather with a tarp laid over it. Otherwise bringing it out of the house and attaching the tube to the dovetail is a bit more difficult than hauling out the Z10. Really needs a place in a dedicated obsy, one of these days.

[AstroBee]

Congrats on wrangling with the CFO enough to get it.

Thanks Michael,
Believe it or not, it was actually the other way around. I'm the penny-pincher in the household. My wife knew that this was my dream scope and the one I've talked about for a while that I wanted to buy once we have some property and a remote dark sky observatory. My friend had this scope and was getting ready to put it on the market and I expressed my disappointment that we couldn't afford it at the moment. My thoughts were always to get the property, build the observatory, and then when we could afford it, upgrade the telescope. When she found out that he was willing to sell it to me for literally half the cost of new she convinced me to just switch the order of purchases since we really cannot afford the remote property at this point. What can I say, I'm a lucky guy. She's a keeper.
Eventually, I'll get the emergency savings account back to where it was.
So now I have the scope for when the observatory eventually gets built.

[Gmetric]

That’s a hell of a setup! Congrats on getting a beast of a scope for a bargain.

[yobbo89]

very nice stack of gear, what do you have on it, a nuc pc and something smaller ontop ?

[AstroBee]

very nice stack of gear, what do you have on it, a nuc pc and something smaller on top?

yobbom,

The small white box on top is a TP-Link USB-powered travel router model TL-WR902AC which I use in the field to create a wireless hotspot that I can then connect to the NUC on my laptop or phone/tablet.
I'm very happy with the setup as I'm able to connect to the rig wirelessly with my laptop to get everything set up and running, then I log in with my tablet throughout the night to monitor the progress. Once it's up and imaging I can shut the laptop down to conserve battery since my laptop battery only lasts about 5 hours.
The blue box under the NUC is the Pegasus Astro PowerBox V2 which distributes power to the mount, camera, and NUC and works as a USB hub for the Camera, filter wheel, router, and guidescope. It also works as the focus controller for the Pegasus Motor Focus.
So with this setup, I only have one power cable that drops off the mount to the battery sitting below.


Oh, I forgot to mention this, the NUC requires 19v power and the Pegasus Astro Power Box V2 only outputs 12v so in the photo you will see part of a small inverter on the guide rail between the stack and the guidescope.
That is a 12v-19v step-up inverter. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S0 ... UTF8&psc=1
It would be nice if Pegasus made the computer power output on the box a variable output because I struggled looking for a NUC that ran on 12v. The only ones I found were using the much less powerful Celeron processor. My NUC is this i3 model which has easily taken care of the task.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087D ... UTF8&psc=1

[Lady Fraktor]

A very nice new refractor AB

[yobbo89]

very nice stack of gear, what do you have on it, a nuc pc and something smaller on top?

yobbom,

The small white box on top is a TP-Link USB-powered travel router model TL-WR902AC which I use in the field to create a wireless hotspot that I can then connect to the NUC on my laptop or phone/tablet.
I'm very happy with the setup as I'm able to connect to the rig wirelessly with my laptop to get everything set up and running, then I log in with my tablet throughout the night to monitor the progress. Once it's up and imaging I can shut the laptop down to conserve battery since my laptop battery only lasts about 5 hours.
The blue box under the NUC is the Pegasus Astro PowerBox V2 which distributes power to the mount, camera, and NUC and works as a USB hub for the Camera, filter wheel, router, and guidescope. It also works as the focus controller for the Pegasus Motor Focus.
So with this setup, I only have one power cable that drops off the mount to the battery sitting below.


Oh, I forgot to mention this, the NUC requires 19v power and the Pegasus Astro Power Box V2 only outputs 12v so in the photo you will see part of a small inverter on the guide rail between the stack and the guidescope.
That is a 12v-19v step-up inverter. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S0 ... UTF8&psc=1
It would be nice if Pegasus made the computer power output on the box a variable output because I struggled looking for a NUC that ran on 12v. The only ones I found were using the much less powerful Celeron processor. My NUC is this i3 model which has easily taken care of the task.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087D ... UTF8&psc=1

very nice, cheers for the link on the inverter, yeah 12v laptops and mini pc,s can sometimes be a pain to find. i'll keep some of your gear in mind incase i go onsite for imaging, i do have a 12v mini pc ,but no screen or wireless ascess for it on it's own, so that little tp link usb router looks like a good solution .

[Greenman]

Wow Greg, nice setup - love to see the images you can achieve with this. Great that you agreed on this as a couple, as negotiations can be worse than Brexit in my household

Have fun.

[Makuser]

Hi Greg. Wow, that's a beautiful work of art. An ED152 is a refractor fan's dream machine. Thanks for sharing your new (to you) equipment report with us Greg and also the great included photos, and keep us posted on your next outing with this fine instrument.

[dagadget]

LOL a 152 Refractor is awesome and he will enjoy it just like I do mine.