Astrophotography with Budget Heritage 100p Telescope + Premium ZWO AM5 Mount

The Sky-Watcher Heritage 100p reaches focus with a bunch of astro cameras, unlike most entry telescopes, and it also has a fast f/4 primary mirror just like an imaging Newtonian. I think it's time I popped the 100p on an equatorial tracking mount to see how it performs for deep sky astrophotography!
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[@Tony-Elliott]

WOW what a fantastic result from this small set-up , thanks for taking the time to make these video Chris

[@Astrolavista]

Thanks Tony! I might give M63 a go next time. You're very welcome. I enjoy making the videos and being part of a community so I appreciate the support : )

[@stuartbolden2142]

Nice, Chris.. I really like that you are prepared to experiment with less expensive scopes, putting them through their paces. I think that's important as the are a lot of people that cannot afford the Takahashi and Askar range of equipment. It's important to bring astronomy to the masses and show that cheaper equipment can be used to achieve great results.

[@artyombeilis9075]

I'm using $50 svbony 60/400 achromat with quite decent results. I also added recently sv231 filter and it gives an additional improvements.

[@Astrolavista]

Thanks so much Stuart; I couldn't agree more :) Astro should be assessable to all, and it's tons of fun getting results from affordable equipment. I 100% want to do more deep sky imaging with the 100p. Yes, it has coma but you can crop that out and nicely frame smaller objects. Clear skies!

[@OlliesSpace]

Cant complain for a little scope at that price, nice job Chris.

[@Astrolavista]

Thanks Ollie mate!

[@sjpp71]

Nice result. Love these experiments with budget scopes! And nowadays there are software tools to improve star shape, probably worth a try with some data out of this setup.

[@Astrolavista]

Good point. I'll look into that.

[@MM0IMC]

2:38 I love the ruby coloured coating on those filters. 👍

[@AnotherAmateurAstronomer]

Nice. I have started using a 6" Schmidt Cassegrain with Hyperstar running at f/2.0 when I need speed.

[@Astrolavista]

Excellent! Hyperstar is something I would like to try at some point myself, congrats!

[@universewonders1]

Pretty good for a 4 inch reflector, i had a plan to buy this scope and use it for wide astrophotography, but want to use it with the 585 sensor, its a bummer that it wont reach focus, curious what is your plan to combat this

[@ms70072]

Wow this is amazing for the scope. It's bananas that the beginner-friendly 100p is F4, does that not mean it requires lots of collimation? If you want another low cost challenge I have been finding the WO Guidestar is cracking for only £270 at the moment on FLO. It's even got FPL53!

[@Astrolavista]

Hey Mike. The primary mirror is glued into position, so other than a small tweak to the secondary mirror when I first received it, it's been maintenance free. That Guidestar is tempting, cheers! www.firstlightoptics.com/william-optics/william-optics-guidestar-61/ref/astrolavista/

[@artyombeilis9075]

Thanks for the review. I was thinking about using such a scope myself since I wanted a much faster setup in comparison to my 60/400 achromat I use today. But it seems that even for tiny sensor there is lots of coma. On 60/400 achromat I have no real field flatness issues even with 178MC sensor. Also how factory collimation is? Since this model does not allow main mirror collimation. So thanks for testing! I'll skip on it and stick to my F/6.6 scope.

[@Astrolavista]

It was a touch out of collimation when it first arrived through the post, so I collimated via the secondary mirror and it's ok now.

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

Interesting video. What bortle scale do you have there ?

[@Astrolavista]

Bortle 6, so could be better and it could be worse.

[@jesuschrist2284]

Been wondering something similar. How heavy is the ota?

[@Astrolavista]

Hey Jesus, the OTA weighs just 1.2kg, so pretty darn light :)

[@jesuschrist2284]

@@Astrolavista yeah thats really nice ty

[@ronm6585]

Thanks Chris. Does the scope stay in focus ok?

[@Astrolavista]

Hey Ron :) it stayed perfectly in focus for the 33 minutes of imaging before my ASI Air decided to disconnect itself lol Seriously though, the focuser has quite a bit of stiction so it tends to stay put.

[@ronm6585]

@@Astrolavista Good to hear. Thanks Chris.

[@supermario8416]

Interesting results. You said in another video that you want to use a mask to lower the aperture of the 120 mm Skywatcher achromat to 80 mm to see the differences… do you still want to try that out or you gave up on that idea?

[@Astrolavista]

Hi, yes indeed; that's still on my list of video ideas for sure :) The planets would make for good test subjects as we can see how colour fringing and detail changes with aperture/focal ratio. I need to check when the planets will be back with us.

[@supermario8416]

@@Astrolavista nice. Well it looks like we will have to wait for another 2 months then :)

[@BurningFlame1999]

Like, nice image but I would still prefer a cheap 70 or 80 mm F10 achromat insted of the 100 mm newtonian.

[@BurningFlame1999]

@nonegone7170 yes but the 100 mm newtonian also has a central obstruction and a mirror with just 90-92% reflectivity. A 70-80 mm achromat is certainly better than a 100 mm newtonian.

[@FisTheDucc]

​@@BurningFlame1999But ur inaging at f10 then instead of f4 which is a biig difference. Also a cheap achromat does hav lots of CA, newts doesnt have that.

[@FisTheDucc]

And while comparing the resolution capabilities, the newt wins

[@BurningFlame1999]

@@FisTheDucc I uses telescopes only for visual observations. For astrophotography maybe the 100 mm newtonian is better but for visual observations a 70-80 mm achromat easy wins. The newtonian has coma, the achromat doesn’t.

[@FisTheDucc]

@@BurningFlame1999 thats fair then