nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

I attended a club star party and one of the member had this device on his kit. What a difference it made. I rarely do any planetary imaging ...that is what I started out doing and sorta tired of it but this little piece of add-on has my interest perked once again....if any HOG has one, I would be interested in your review! Seriously thinking about adding yet, another gadget! It's called the "Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector and gets rid of the rolling wavy condition when "seeing" is bad, which is 9 clear skies out of 10 in my neck of the woods.

http://www.highpointscientific.com/zwo-adc-atmospheric-dispersion-corrector

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

I should have added this..... ZWOptical website - if you order one, I would not order from them - 4 weeks to get one. Use High Point Scientific - great company!

https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/products/accessories/zwo-adc/

This site has some image examples using the ADC

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

But it comes by Air Mail...
So, does that mean a drone drops it on the porch?

Thanks Ed. But not for me....

Europa Loc: West Hills, CA

Interesting, thanks.

Here was a review:

I used this on my 5" f/9 refractor and my 7" f/15 Maksutov-Cassegrain, and it works perfectly on both. Subsequent computer modelling indicates it was diffraction liimited over the visible spectrum so long as the object being observed was higher than about 20 degrees above the horizon. The color and monochromatic correction is nearly perfect over the field of a 10mm wide angle eyepiece. However, it will not work so well with 'fast' telescopes because prisms cause astigmatism and coma when used in a converging focal beam, or if the telescope is larger than about 8 inches at f/9 because increasing focal length requires an increasing 'optical wedge angle' with the ZWO. I find it to be a wonderful, very affordable accessory for the amateur refractor, especially apochromats where 'perfect' color correction is the goal. It's well-made, durable and smooth. A best buy!

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

I haven't seen any images taken with it. We were comparing Jupiter with and without the ADC on a 14 inch SCT visual - the improvement was impressive visually. Europa, my guess is there are trade offs on this gadget. All gadgets seem to have "it will do this but you have to give up that" caveats.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Sounds like the poor man's adaptive optics.

Europa Loc: West Hills, CA

The few reviews I've read looks promising, but they say it won't help faster scopes. I couldn't find how a faster scope is defined, but I'm thinking in the >f15 range.

I have an old Meade ETC125PE that I've been holding onto for planetary, it is in this range, so I'm considering it.

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

The other way, Newts are typically fast scopes F/3.9 as they are "light gathering buckets"....when you double the F/stop, you halve the amount of light hitting the sensor. So a F/8 scope would have roughly 1/2 the light a F/3.9 newt would have. Same thing with shutter speed..... Double the shutter and halve the light entering the lens. Hyperstars can make what are otherwise limited light gathering SCT's at F/10 - a fast scope. That is why you have to take longer exposures at F/10 (4, 6, 10 minutes) to gather the same amount of photons that a Newt can take at 30 seconds or less.

We were looking through a 14 inch SCT and visually it was perfect. Now you might get a mess of coma and vignetting if a camera, is connected. I think 8 inch was the recommended limit. So, from that this appears to be perfect for refractors.

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

Speaking of refractors - I had ordered an AstroTech 65EDQ refractor from Astronomics in January - they have been on a wait list. Each time I call...I get a reply that they should be there in two weeks or less. Last month they said they were putting the logos on and the scopes would be drop shipped. So anytime. Well last week I called and they said, probably mid-July. So I just sent an email to Astronomics and canceled. I also called but no one answered and left a message saying the same. I ordered the Stellarvue 70T APO with the FeatherLight focuser and their reducer/flat field adapter....along with the risers. Actually I did last Friday...and it is headed my way, Thursday arrival. This is a F/6 scope but with the reducer it is a F4.8 - this would be considered fast.