I have a new toy. Motivated by a quite bad experience with ASKAR 180 FMA and its chromatic aberration I started to search for a better pocket-size telescope. To decide which one was quite simple. I would say there is nothing sharper and nothing with a better reputation than William Optics RedCat 51mm. The detailed comparison with ASKAR will come a bit later. This is the first light, where I tested the portable setup – iOptron Skyguider on a tripod, Canon 6Da, and the RedCat. The Moon was shining like crazy, therefore I attached the dual narrow band filter Optolong L-eXtreme filter. After 3 hours of collecting the filtrated photons, a pretty nice picture came out of it. I took this DSO using the same camera combined with the ASKAR 180FMA (link) but in broadband. Therefore, it’s like comparing apples and oranges. However, the RedCat looks much sharper and it contains more details. I cannot wait to test the RedCat under dark skies.
Telescope | William Optics RedCat 51/250 f4.9 |
Aperture | 51 mm |
Focal length | 250 mm |
Mount | iOptron SkyGuider Pro |
Autoguiding | ZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm |
Camera | Canon 6Da |
Corrector | no |
Filters | Optolong L-eXtreme 2" |
Exposure | 62x180s, Iso 1600 |
Date | 2022-01-12 |