Tested the Orion 80mm ED

Bought a new toy? How about writing a review for it? Post it here!
User avatar
VinSnr
Administrator
Posts: 2310
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2003 7:01 pm
Location: Andromeda Galaxy

Tested the Orion 80mm ED

Post by VinSnr »

Tested the scope on Jupiter and some other stuff on Sat. night. Despite the initial problems with the scope, once those issues are sorted out, the views through the scope were pretty fantastic.

Star test was good, rivaling the same star test pattern that I saw on the SV short of the colour abberation. Not exactly as good as the TV 85 (star-test wise) but very close. The crayford focuser was extremely smooth.....but u have to get the tension adjusted when you received the scope. And surprisingly, the focuser can take a lot of weight. I threw in a Pentax XL 21mm, a barlow, a diagonal, point it at zenith and it didn't slip a bit.

On Jupiter, there was no "softness" in the image and still tack sharp even at 210X. Surface details were easily seen. There was no bothering purple halo that normally plagued short achromats at high power. I figure that even 250X should not trouble this scope at all. And honestly, i rather use this scope to see Jupiter than using the 8" SCT. The contrast made a lot of difference.

The scope however could not focus using the WO SCT diagonal with an adaptor. The tube is actually too long for the design. Even with a normal 1.25" refractor diagonal and various eyepieces, the focusing used only the first 1-1.5" of the drawtube. If the tube is cut by an inch, the focusing would be much more balanced and any SCT diagonal should be able to focus on this scope.

I give this scope two thumbs up for the lens quality but one thumbs down for the mechanical quality. Unless u are the tinkering sort, shimming the focuser just to collimate the scope is not something you want to hear. And from the yahoo group, seems like 90% of these scopes need to be collimated right out from the box.

But the value of this scope is hard to beat. Once you get those quality issues sorted out, this scope performs like what an APO should. Hopefully this is the start of the Chinese revolution that wake those Americans up.
dew
Posts: 122
Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2003 10:15 pm

Post by dew »

The scope however could not focus using the WO SCT diagonal with an adaptor. The tube is actually too long for the design. Even with a normal 1.25" refractor diagonal and various eyepieces, the focusing used only the first 1-1.5" of the drawtube. If the tube is cut by an inch, the focusing would be much more balanced and any SCT diagonal should be able to focus on this scope.
i havent had much chance to take my own 80mmED cause of the pretty poor skies lately but also because of the focusing problem.. i could not come into focus with most of my eyepieces. (not enough in focus travel) so it was pretty frustrating.. but i think part of the problem is also due to the slightly longer then average borg turret that i use.. how did you overcome this problem?
also i had a problem with the scopes tension adjustment which i guess could be the same problem as the one you had. tightening or loosening the tension screw made almost no difference to the ammount of effort it took to turn, but then i didnt see much of a problem with that anyway cause like you said, the focuser can take alot of weight without shiftng..


eu-wen
User avatar
Airconvent
Super Moderator
Posts: 5784
Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2003 11:49 pm
Location: United Federation of the Planets

Post by Airconvent »

odd that they would design a scope that cannot focus for some eyepieces.
all the mistakes that other predecessors have committed are already lessons learnt for this team...so why make the same ones again?

would be interesting to know how the rumoured cheaper and more complete celestron 80mm apo will compare with this. as production is progressivly ramped up, will this cause a severe price cut in the interesting stuff like Megrez and Televue? mmmm
:roll:

btw, vince, any pics to show us on high contrast of the images?
rich
The Boldly Go Where No Meade Has Gone Before
Captain, RSS Enterprise NCC1701R
United Federation of the Planets
User avatar
VinSnr
Administrator
Posts: 2310
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2003 7:01 pm
Location: Andromeda Galaxy

Post by VinSnr »

dew wrote:
The scope however could not focus using the WO SCT diagonal with an adaptor. The tube is actually too long for the design. Even with a normal 1.25" refractor diagonal and various eyepieces, the focusing used only the first 1-1.5" of the drawtube. If the tube is cut by an inch, the focusing would be much more balanced and any SCT diagonal should be able to focus on this scope.
i havent had much chance to take my own 80mmED cause of the pretty poor skies lately but also because of the focusing problem.. i could not come into focus with most of my eyepieces. (not enough in focus travel) so it was pretty frustrating.. but i think part of the problem is also due to the slightly longer then average borg turret that i use.. how did you overcome this problem?
also i had a problem with the scopes tension adjustment which i guess could be the same problem as the one you had. tightening or loosening the tension screw made almost no difference to the ammount of effort it took to turn, but then i didnt see much of a problem with that anyway cause like you said, the focuser can take alot of weight without shiftng..


eu-wen
You can't use the turret on this scope. As you said, the turret is longer than usual and this is the same problem with using a SCT diagonal too. The best way to solve this is to use a 2"/1.25" refractor diagonal.

For adjusting the focuser tension, remove the thumb knob under the focuser. You will see two very tiny hex screw once the thumb knob is removed. Adjusting this two screws will adjust the smoothness of the focuser. The problem with yours is that you keep adjusting the thumb knob which you called the tension screw. All this knob does is just to add tension to the drawtube, but to adjust the smoothness, you need to play with that two tiny hex screws.
User avatar
VinSnr
Administrator
Posts: 2310
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2003 7:01 pm
Location: Andromeda Galaxy

Post by VinSnr »

Airconvent wrote:odd that they would design a scope that cannot focus for some eyepieces.
all the mistakes that other predecessors have committed are already lessons learnt for this team...so why make the same ones again?

would be interesting to know how the rumoured cheaper and more complete celestron 80mm apo will compare with this. as production is progressivly ramped up, will this cause a severe price cut in the interesting stuff like Megrez and Televue? mmmm
:roll:

btw, vince, any pics to show us on high contrast of the images?
rich
The chinese save cost by using back the 100mm f/6 tube. This tube however is actually a bit too long for this scope. That's why any accessories that have a longer nosepiece will have problem focusing on this scope.

The Celestron 80mm ED uses a rack and pinion focuser which in my opinion, totally inferior to the crayford of the Orion. The crayford focuser in the Orion is an extreme pleasure to use. Just the crayford alone is worth that extra bucks.
blurblock
Posts: 261
Joined: Wed Dec 17, 2003 7:12 am

Post by blurblock »

Your review is quite consistant with the review by cloudynights, even though I do not understand what it is meant my "Phyiscally Large for the aperture" as mentioned by the Cloudlynights review.
dew
Posts: 122
Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2003 10:15 pm

Post by dew »

You can't use the turret on this scope. As you said, the turret is longer than usual and this is the same problem with using a SCT diagonal too. The best way to solve this is to use a 2"/1.25" refractor diagonal.

For adjusting the focuser tension, remove the thumb knob under the focuser. You will see two very tiny hex screw once the thumb knob is removed. Adjusting this two screws will adjust the smoothness of the focuser. The problem with yours is that you keep adjusting the thumb knob which you called the tension screw. All this knob does is just to add tension to the drawtube, but to adjust the smoothness, you need to play with that two tiny hex screws.
ahh i see.. okok, ill go try it out.. by the way, what tube rings do you use with this scope? is it the one from orion or from another brand? only asking cause when i bought this scope i stupidly did not buy the tube rings for it and now whenever i mount, its really really shaky..
thanks!


eu-wen
User avatar
harlequin2902
Posts: 744
Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2003 11:04 am
Location: Singapore, Sengkang

Post by harlequin2902 »

Your review is quite consistant with the review by cloudynights, even though I do not understand what it is meant my "Phyiscally Large for the aperture" as mentioned by the Cloudlynights review.
I guess it means something like - "...it's afterall just an 80mm scope but has the physical bulk of a 102mm..." ?
Samuel Ng
User avatar
harlequin2902
Posts: 744
Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2003 11:04 am
Location: Singapore, Sengkang

Post by harlequin2902 »

On Jupiter, there was no "softness" in the image and still tack sharp even at 210X. Surface details were easily seen. There was no bothering purple halo that normally plagued short achromats at high power. I figure that even 250X should not trouble this scope at all. And honestly, i rather use this scope to see Jupiter than using the 8" SCT. The contrast made a lot of difference.
How pure was the image (i.e whiteness) ? Even without the purple halo from chromatic aberration, was the image as white like in TV and Tak APOs ? Or did it still have a yellowish tinge like on normal achromats ?
Samuel Ng
User avatar
VinSnr
Administrator
Posts: 2310
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2003 7:01 pm
Location: Andromeda Galaxy

Post by VinSnr »

dew wrote:
You can't use the turret on this scope. As you said, the turret is longer than usual and this is the same problem with using a SCT diagonal too. The best way to solve this is to use a 2"/1.25" refractor diagonal.

For adjusting the focuser tension, remove the thumb knob under the focuser. You will see two very tiny hex screw once the thumb knob is removed. Adjusting this two screws will adjust the smoothness of the focuser. The problem with yours is that you keep adjusting the thumb knob which you called the tension screw. All this knob does is just to add tension to the drawtube, but to adjust the smoothness, you need to play with that two tiny hex screws.
ahh i see.. okok, ill go try it out.. by the way, what tube rings do you use with this scope? is it the one from orion or from another brand? only asking cause when i bought this scope i stupidly did not buy the tube rings for it and now whenever i mount, its really really shaky..
thanks!


eu-wen
i have the Orion rings for this scope. But when I do the testing, I wasn't even using the rings. Just mounted it onto a 410 manfrotto head
Post Reply