First Light Askar 71F Review: Best Budget Quadruplet for Astrophotography?

this is the Askar 71F, a $600 quadruplet  astrograph and at this price point something   like this is unheard of this is manufactured  by Sharpstar Optics, it has an aperture of 71   mm a focal length of 490 mm making it an f/6.9  telescope this has three glass elements in front   one being an ed glass or extra low dispersion to  minimize chromatic aberration and a flattening   glass in the back that ensures that any image  you get is completely flat against your sensor   and the claim for most quadruplets it's that as  long as you can achieve focus with your camera,   the entire image will be flat so you don't have to  worry about back focus and I put that to the test   in this video with both an Astrocam and a DSLR.  Just to give you my first thoughts I think this   is an amazing telescope and I think I may even go  as far as saying that this could be the telescope   to get people started into astrophotography  because it is a complete package and if you're   looking to get into a quadruplet something for  $600 like this would be perfect and before we go   any further I want to mention that sharp Optics  send this to me for review with the option to   purchase it and by the end of the video I'll  decide whether or not to I'm going to purchase   this telescope some of the first posts I've seen  on the internet about this telescope is that it's   slow yes f6.8 is not fast it's not F4 F5 not  even F6 but I think we can say that it's kind   of a medium speed telescope and that's coming  from someone who uses an F10 SD quite often to   image deep SK deep Sky objects and for $600 f69 is  plenty fast and as I mentioned earlier if you're   looking to get into astrophotography this may be  the perfect telescope for you for such a low price   normally when I recommend telescopes to people  when they're starting out is to get something   wide fi something small because they're easier to  use they're easier to get used to and although at   f6.8 it's not as wide field as such as a something  like a Redcat 51 or even my at60 Ed which with a   reducer can become an F 4.8 this telescope at that  price point is amazing because since it flattens   the image for you you don't have to buy additional  accessories and it also gives you a camera adapter   that you can use with both astam and DSR and we'll  look at both of those soon and how I've decided to   evaluate this telescope is based on five factors  the first we'll talk about the optical quality   and then we'll talk about the build quality which  will go over the hardware itself and then we'll   talk about the portability because that ties  pretty closely with the build quality and then   we'll talk about the ease of use especially since  I am kind of recommending this for beginner astop   photographers and then we'll talk about the value  whether or not it's worth it uh you may already   guess what my thoughts would be but maybe I'll  surprise you and then I'll give you my overall   feedback on what I think about the telescope  effort having used it for a couple of weeks   but first let's talk about the optical quality  the video doesn't really do it justice but the   Optics the glass coating looks really nice I have  several other refractors most of them are acromat   so I can tell you that they don't look as good  the only challenge this this has with my other   telescopes is my AT60 which also has a really  nice finish mostly because it also has an FPL  53 glass in the front making it an apochromatic  telescope with no chromatic aberrations/ now in   the back here we have the flattening element and  if I remove the 2in visual back here you can see   the flattening element in the back and you can  see my hand through it you can't really tell if   it's a flat field through the video but the glass  element is near the back here and this reduces   or this eliminates the need for an external  flattener which is amazing so any image you   take with this will be completely flat and since  the image coming out of this is already flat you   don't have to worry about back focus because  anything that hits your sensor even though   the sensor no matter how big it is it should be  flat sharpstar Optics claims that this will give   you a flat feel all the way up to a fullframe  camera sensor unfortunately for me the biggest   camera sensor I have is an apsc sensor and I do  put that to the use and my Aster cam has an 11   mm small square sensor on my 523 MC Pro and we'll  take a look at both of those in a minute and since   we're talking about Optical quality I'll also  mention that Askar also sends you two eyepieces   a 20 mm and an 8 mm eyepiece both are Plossl  and they also give you a 45° Askar diagonal uh   it's 45° this is actually my first 45° diagonal  and it feels pretty light the ipieces also feel   very very light and my first thought about all  three products is that they are okay not anywhere   remarkable I have other eye pieces these feel  kind of light these are fine for daytime observing   i did test both of them visually through this  telescope as well as one of my SATs and they're   fine they work just like my other Plossl and and I  did test the Askar 8 mm against my Orion highlight   Plossl 7.5 mm and Askar eyepiece feels a lot more  comfortable mostly because the the eye hole of the   Orion is pretty tiny I tested this both on an  Alt-az and equatorial Mount and an Alt-az Mount   it's fine especially when when I'm looking at  something that's not too high up in the Horizon   but on an equatorial Mount when I'm looking at  something that's like 45° 50° in the sky I find   myself looking downwards and almost breaking  my neck trying to look through the eye piece   so I very much prefer 90° eyepieces for Equatorial  Mount and honestly even for Alt-az mounts they're   just a little bit more comfortable the only way to  make this comfortable would be to make sure that   the tripod legs of the mount is extended all the  way out so that the try so that the telescope is   much higher and you're not breaking your neck but  of course that makes your setup a little bit less   stable and I would prefer stability but since this  is an astrograph I think the primary purpose of   this would be for Imaging and not visual so the  eye pieces on the diagonal are all extra again   they're fine if if you're starting out they  are perfect but if you already have your own   diagonal your own eye pieces you may find these  less than remarkable continuing to talk about   Optical quality I tested this both with my 523  MC Pro which has a very small square sensor here   I believe it's 11 mm as well as a DSL like this  one which has a APS-C sensor in the back course   the the mirror is down so you can't really see the  sensor but it is an APS-C sensor and I tested this   on two different nights and I did a small Imaging  session with both of them unfortunately for   for the last 2 weeks I've only had like 3 hours of  clear skies from the signal subframes all the way   to the processed images the stars look pinpoint  to the very edges with both cameras so here's an   example of one frame of M13 through the ASAP  image analyzer and we can see that the starts   that we can see our pinpoint to the very edges  of course this is a small sensor so we expect   there to be some kind of flatness even with non  Aster graphs near the center so if we look at   this image where the centerpieces Mizar and Alcor  using my APS-C camera we can see that the stars of   the very edges are still very pinpoint so I can  verify that at least with a small 11 mm sensor   and an APS-C sensor that the image that I get is  completely flat fielded comparing this to my at60   which does not have a built-in flattener I can  tell you that when I look at M13 that even with a   small sensor answer about halfway through you can  start seeing x-shaped Stars just for your pleasure   here is just a stacked image of about 15 minutes  of Mizar and Alcor out of the Askar 71f and my   Canon T5i and here is M13 out of the Askar 71f and  my 533 MC Pro the colors look spectacular I know   I've gotten better at my processing over the years  but this is the best image of m113 that I've taken   so far now I mentioned that I tested this visually  as well I did it both at night and during the day   during the day it's normal it's just it gives  you a zoom of something far away I looked at   some trees I don't do a lot of visual astronomy  let alone visual tree watching I guess maybe I   should pick up bird watching and during my night  of visual astronomy I looked at some very bright   stars including Arcturus Deneb and VGA that's how  you pronounce it and I saw exactly zero chromatic   aberration around the edges now comparing this  to an or 100mm Achromat that I've had for a   few years looking at those Stars I will very  easily see purple and blue around the I think   it's the bottom right side of the image both  visually and through my camera so the Stars   looked much smaller and there was no chromatic  aberration I want to test this out on the moon   one day again unfortunately because of clouds  and because of it's around the new moon now I   have not been able to test test it on the moon  but once I get that opportunity I'll test it out   I'll show my results if I do see any chromatic  aberration so to summarize the optical quality   this is excellent we get pinpoint starts no  chromatic aberration it gives you a complete   flat field all the way to the edge of an APS-C  sensor at least if I ever get my hands on a   fullframe camera you can bet that I will test  this but for now it's flat all the way through   for me some of you may be wondering what about an  external reducer can we make this telescope faster   I re out to Shure Optics and I asked them and at  the moment at the making of this video they do not   have any plans on creating any kind of external  reducer for this telescope it'll stay at f6.8 for   myself I'll just leave it at f6.8 I think it does  fine you've seen my images I am more than happy to   take another half hour or another hour of images  to get a good amount of data so now let's move   on to the build quality where we're going to talk  about the actual Hardware itself one of the first   comments I read about this telescope online is the  logo here it looks like it's scratched right so if   you look at the logo on the lens cap here you can  see that it's actually just the logo of the Askar   so there's a shooting star on the k and a bird  on the r looks pretty cool looks fancy uh just   from afar it just looks like maybe something's  chipping off but that's the build that's just   their logo the first thing I noticed when I  touched this telescope for the first time is   that pretty much everything about this is aluminum  including the dust cap here there are some plastic   parts to it and we'll go into that soon but  I'm want to start from the top or the front   of the telescope and then I'll work my way back  to talk about the build quality so the first here   we have the do Shield it extends about another  50 mm and it gives you a pretty nice dark area   right in front of the lens so that it there is no  stray light it also comes with a locking knob for   the dew shield itself which is nice so you can  lock this up and it doesn't go back it doesn't   uh collapse which is nice if you're taking flat  fields or you want to make sure that you know it   doesn't slip down so that's a nice feature again  also aluminum there's flocking on the inside so   that stray light will not bounce back into your  Imaging train next we have the Rings here the   Rings are also aluminum but the Locking knobs  here are plastic and they honestly could have   been a little bit better a little bit sturdier but  they they do the job uh especially when you start   looking at the price range and they are pretty  easy to just loosen I'm not going to take it   off all the way pretty loosen and I can twist  the telescope there we go loosen a little bit   and I can twist the telescope to adjust it let  me see I can do it see there we go there we go and and it's pretty smooth it would have gone  better if I was had it actually mounted and   again locking these is nice is is okay could be  better but these are plastic here uh the knob on   the do Shield is also plastic so these are just  a few of the plastic parts so on top here we have   a multi-purpose handlebar that also allows you to  mount a guiding scope so I used a guide scope here   just to test it out uh I haven't tested an OAG  but I will at some point and having a guy scope   on top here makes it really easy to balance and I  had a really easy time balancing this on both on   both axes on my cm40 Mount now I don't know if  my fingers are a little bigger than normal but   my fingers don't really go through to call this  a full handlebar but you can grab a hold of it   you just have to be careful that it doesn't slip  out you can get a full grip on it so when I pick   this up I make sure I have it and then I have the  bottom dovetail as well just so I don't slip it   cuz this is a little bit heavy now looking at the  bottom here we have a 230 mm aluminum dovetail and   on the bottom here it also has a 3/8 in screw hole  that you can use to attach a ARCA Swiss dovetail   so you can attach it to a regular tripod as well  it's a pretty nice basic dovetail play nothing   too special about it it moves up and down if you  loosen it now moving down we have the focuser here   now the focuser is really nice it's a rack and  pinion focuser it has a coarse knob here as well   as a fine fine focusing knob here which is a 10:1  ratio and it feels really nice and when you use   the coarse knob you can hear it sing a little bit  I don't if you can hear it on the video but and   it extends out to about 50 mm and with the fine  focusing knob it focuses very finely it does come   with a screw for the focusing lock here and that  goes if you can kind of see it at the bottom here   at the bottom right here and the reason I don't  have it installed right now is because I need to   move my Dove tail bar bar up a little bit so that  uh I can put the screw in there and I have access   to it right now the dovetail is a little bit far  back so that it kind of blocks the the the hole   where the focusing screw locking screw would go  and then we'll talk about the two synta style   dovetail shoe mounts here where you can use to  attach a guide scope or a red dot finder or any   other accessory uh it's pretty standard the the  not the Locking screws are in the middle here the   only change would make it just move those to the  edges to the ends here so there are holes so you   can move it there pretty easily um the only reason  is because if you look here if you have a guide   scope here and it's a little bit long if you have  a camera here it takes up the space here and you   can't really get your finger in there to really  tighten it but again easy to fix it's fixable uh   already built into this whole thing the next thing  we're going to talk about is the camera angle   Rotator so this one comes with it this locking  knob here is another plastic piece um all the most   of the knobs here are plastic and once you unscrew  this you can easily turn the camera angle Rotator   so that you don't have to take your camera out put  it back in and it has a marker here and if you're   looking at it from the straight from Top you can  see that where it's lining up and you can get your   camera angle right the second session if you need  to the only two changes that I would make these   aren't really complaints is that first is that  this area is very smooth and if you if you don't   have grip You' find yourself you know having to  press down really hard to try and turn it or you   know use the knob here to try and turn it which  probably shouldn't do because this is plastic   it could snap off and then yeah so if I were to  make changes to this I'd make this a little bit   more grippy add some kind of grip here it can be  rubber it can be metal just something that I can   grip onto instead of the knob here instead of the  the Locking knob here or the the Rotator itself   and potentially you know just slip so that would  make it easier the second adjustment I would make   to this is if you look here if you look at it  from this angle there is about a centimeter or   centimeter and a half uh dip into into the tube  here into the focusing tube here and the line   doesn't go all the way through so unless you're  looking at it directly from the top you know   parallel uh it's really hard to tell where this  line is pointing so I have to go like this and   I can say yep it's at about 70° so if I were to  make a change I just extend that line all the way   to the middle you can probably do that yourself  with a white sharpie or something uh but you just   have to make sure that that it's perfectly lined  up which I'm not going to do because I will mess   it up so moving forward in the back here we have a  1.25 inch visual back and again this is one of the   few plastic parts here so you take this out put  your diagonal in it does have a compression ring   so it's not just the Locking screws screwing into  the eyepiece or Diagonal and marking it up so it's   a it's a compression ring which is really nice and  I did find that when I use that on the diagonal it   tends to keep it perfectly or as close to parallel  as possible with the optical tube so that there's   no tilt and you don't really get that with uh  non-compression ring systems and even with some   compression ring systems they could be uneven so I  find this one to be pretty good now behind that is   the 2in visual back so I can unug this and I can  take out the the adapter the 1 and A4 inch visual   back and here we have a 2-in visual back and you  can see that there's also compression Rings here   so it's nice so if you have a 2-in diagonal or a  2-in t adapter like I do here it can go straight   in and then you can put your camera in lock  it up and it's also pretty good I didn't test   to see whether or not this keeps everything flat  without the adapter but I assume that since this   is also a 2in uh tube here that it will I don't  plan on using the 2in visual back anytime soon   for anything anyway so I'm just going to assume  that it works just as well as the 1 and a/4 in   another piece of accessory they give you with this  telescope is a four-piece camera adapter and the   first thing you'll notice when you charge this  is that this is also aluminum and it has a nice   aluminum cover in the back as well so when I take  that off it has M48 threads and for me at least   both my Aster Cam and DSLR screws into this with  the T adapter and the Astrocam m42 to M48 adapter   and if I take this off it has M54 threads here so  for some reason you need M54 female threads you   can use this here but on the inside of this there  are actually 2in threads here so you can screw in   2in filters here so here's me testing it out on  a 2in Optolong L-extreme filter and what I like   about that setup is that it puts the filter really  close to the sensor and that's great for both   quality and for vignetting and beyond that this  also screws off so that this is kind of a spacer I   think this is 18 mm spacer uh and then here these  two also come apart there we go so I believe this   is like m62 or something M60 one of those but  we we wouldn't really uh attach anything to this   if you did you would need a little bit more uh  spacing anyway just to make sure you're far enough   away to get achieve Focus but I plug this back in  and then after you take off the 2in visual back   you can screw this in goes in pretty smooth and it  gives you enough of a space between the flattener   and your image sensor so for my ASF 53c MC Pro  what I have is that so this will just go into the   M48 threads here so this is the m42 to M48 adapter  and or spacer and I just put this in here here we   go and this is the Imaging train I don't need to  add any other kind of flattener or reducer here   and funny thing is I found out that the to achieve  Focus all I have to do is take the Imaging tube   out or the focusing tube out all the way until I  can't go anymore for this Astrocam I don't know   if it's going to be the case for all Astrocam but  for me when I was Imaging outside trying to take a   picture of M13 I kind of got a little bit scared  when I got to like the 45 mm Mark thinking oh my   God I need I'll need a spacer I didn't as soon  as I hit the 50 mm Mark wherever that Mark is   pretty sure that's 5050 mm it achieved focus and  this is the picture of Arcturus that I took with   a Bahtinov mask on so that makes it a little bit  easier for me where I don't have to worry about   getting an external focuser and I can focus during  the daylight in blind and to connect a DSLR you   will need an M48 t- ring like I have this one for  U EOS cameras and what this will do is since this   is M48 it screws directly on to the end of this  just like this and then I can take my DSLR line   up the red which is here and then it snaps on and  there we go I can use the camera angle adjuster to   angle this and this is my Imaging train and for  my DSLR I tested this both out you know on Mizar   and Alcor and also during the day I tested this on  the sun just to play with it and it I found that   it focuses around the 25 or 30 mm Mark I forget  which one and so here are some example images of   the Sun that I took with my my Canon T5i connected  to the Askar 71f with the M48 t-ring so in terms   of build quality I think it's excellent most of  it is Aluminum which I love the knobs could be   a little bit better the there could be a grip on  the camera angle reducer but the accessories that   come with it especially the camera adapter is  perfect especially for my needs I didn't have   to buy anything extra I didn't have to buy a  flattener I didn't have to buy spacers it just   all worked out of the box which is I believe that  this is kind of a complete package especially if   you're trying to get into astrophotography or if  you're looking for a quadruplet because it's all   here so let's talk about the portability of this  telescope so it's still a pretty small refractor   this will fit into one of my Apache cases that  I bought from Harbor Freight when you collapse   it it goes all the way as little as I think 372  mm or about 14 1 12 in I'm little bit off on the   conversion there but it gets pretty small it  can fit into a small case if also comes with   the Styrofoam in the packaging it's pretty thin  and narrow and you can put that into like a long   tool box or something and turn that into a really  nice carrier Askar has the weights online but of   course I like testing the weights myself and when  I put this on a scale it read 5 lbs 12 O or 2.63   kg which is pretty nice and with the Dovetail and  the Rings and The Handlebar it comes out to 6 lbs   15 oz or about 3.15 kg and then if we if we add  the camera adapters it comes out to 7 lbs and 4   oz so it's pretty portable it's not the lightest  telescope it's heavier than some of my bigger   Achromats just because of the glass elements of  it's complete aluminum build I'm going to say   98% aluminum build even with the camera I think  it only goes up to about 10 lbs with my DSLR and   as you saw I was able to attach this to my a GTI  to image the Sun and that has a limit of 11 lbs   so that gets bonus points for me for being an even  more port rig because I can just take that and my   My AG GTI and this telescope with me uh I do have  the EQ converter for that and it can be a really   portable nice astrograph setup great portability  with this telescope so next category we're looking   at is the ease of use in the beginning I talked  about this being a complete package for someone   getting into astrophotography or even someone  looking to get into an astrograph and I think   because this is a complete package because it  comes with a built-in flattener it comes with the   camera angle adapters it comes with a uh average  diagonal and eyepieces I think that the ease of   use of this is really high it's really easy to  use this is also fairly wide field at f6.3 not   the widest field uh it's not the fastest but it's  still pretty fast so the learning curve for using   this is lower than if you were to use an SAT or  or even a regular triplet apochromatic where you   may need to buy a reducer and a flattener to  make it faster to make it so that you have a   flat field with your camera you Mayan even need to  buy buy spacers where in this case it comes with   everything you need and because it gives you a  flat feels from the get-go you don't have to worry   about back focus so that's something you don't  have to learn which I think is really beginner   friendly the first time I needed to worry about  back focus when I wondered why the edges of my   pictures are really bad uh it was a learning curve  right that's when I got my first caliper had to   measure things out and then things worked learning  process but here I think that in that case this   is beginner friendly and bonus points because  this works out of the box with both my DSLR and   an astrocam I can't say the same about any of my  other telescopes I didn't have to buy a flattener   I didn't have to buy any spacers I didn't have  to buy any adapters this came with everything   of course I already had my t-ring and my m42 to  M48 adapter for my Astrocam but those came with   the camera those are accessories that would go  with the camera itself and not the telescope so   I'm not counting those so out of the box this is  amazing so let's talk about value this is $600 for   a quadruplet astrograph which is amazing and of  course when SharpStar Optics gave me the option to   buy it I was going to buy it because at $600 it's  amazing it came with everything I would need to   get started with both Visual and astrophotography  although 99.9% will be used for astrophotography I   talk about my at60 Ed quite a lot on this channel  and I love that telescope brand new that telescope   is $420 but it does not come with a flattener. An  extra flattener would be $100 or $140 if you buy   a flattener/reducer so that already brings that  price up to $560 and even if you don't worry about   spacers we're still talking about a $560 doublet  with a flat field versus a $600 quadruplet with   a built-in flat field and of course the at60 has  a much wider field and it's much faster with the   reducer at F 4.8 this at 6.9 is a little bit  slower but again for $600 for a quadruplet I   think its value is really really good the closest  quadruplet I could find in terms of size is the   Orion Eon 70 mm which is an F5 telescope which  is much faster but that costs almost $1600 $1,600   versus this $600 for this 71 mm f6.8 telescope  so I think in terms of that this is a much better   option of course as soon as I got this telescope  my forecast has been just clouds clouds clouds I   was lucky enough to get even 2 and 1 half hours  of Imaging done I'll show you the images again   at the end and I am just really happy with this  telescope again I'm thankful for sharpstar optics   for sending this to me for review and I hope I  gave you enough useful information in this video   for you to decide whether or not you want to get  this telescope for yourself I will use this on   the moon at one point that's a guaranteed test  that I'll be able to do and I hope to be able   to test this with a fullframe camera as well  that's less likely uh unless I borrow someone's   camera for my astronomy club or something but  aside from that this telescope passed all of   my tests with zero chromatic operations if you  have any questions about anything I mentioned in   this video if you have any questions that I didn't  answer in this video let me know in the comments   below I hope to do more Hardware reviews in the  future so any comments and questions you have   will help me get better I really appreciate  your attention thanks for watching CL guys [Music]

Channel: Naztronomy

Views: 4,782

Keywords: astronomy, astrophotography, nazmus, naztronomy, astronomer, science, space, space pictures, telescope, celestron

Id: zNXAu4TBRmA

Length: 27min 42sec (1662 seconds)

Published: Fri May 17 2024