FrankD
Well-known member
Some of you gentlemen may remember my first attempts at digiscoping 3 or 4 years ago. I thank you all for the help you gave me back then. It was much appreciated. Admittedly I became a little disenchanted with digiscoping as I just was not able to get the results I wanted to with the setup that I had at the time. I still have all that gear and eventually upgraded the eyepiece on my scope to something more conducive to better quality photos. Still though I just did not "get into it" as much as I once did.
Well, I have been tinkering with a new 80 mm scope that might interest you folks for digiscoping. It is the Celestron Regal F-ED 80 mm. There are two reasons why I think you folks might find the scope interesting. One, the objective lens is advertised as using Fluorite in the APO design. Now there has been some debate over in the spotting scope forum if it is true Fluorite or something similar that gives the same type of result. In reference to this topic the point is pretty much moot as long as one can get the results. The second reason you might find this scope interesting is the price. The average price for this scope is right at $600 US. That is about half the cost of the big Pentax.
Speaking of the Pentax, I have been doing some comparisons between the 65 mm versions of the Pentax and Celestron and actually find the image in the Celestron to have better contrast and an even more CA free image. I would not be surprised to find that the 80 mm comparison would be similar.
Anyway, I just pulled out the digiscoping gear and tinkered with the 80 mm briefly in the back yard. Here is a pic of some beautiful purple flowers at about 15 yards. The scope's zoom was set at 20x and the camera was set at 2x, ISO 200, F4.8, 1/125. I have not edited the photo except to convert it down to a size that will upload to this forum.
Well, I have been tinkering with a new 80 mm scope that might interest you folks for digiscoping. It is the Celestron Regal F-ED 80 mm. There are two reasons why I think you folks might find the scope interesting. One, the objective lens is advertised as using Fluorite in the APO design. Now there has been some debate over in the spotting scope forum if it is true Fluorite or something similar that gives the same type of result. In reference to this topic the point is pretty much moot as long as one can get the results. The second reason you might find this scope interesting is the price. The average price for this scope is right at $600 US. That is about half the cost of the big Pentax.
Speaking of the Pentax, I have been doing some comparisons between the 65 mm versions of the Pentax and Celestron and actually find the image in the Celestron to have better contrast and an even more CA free image. I would not be surprised to find that the 80 mm comparison would be similar.
Anyway, I just pulled out the digiscoping gear and tinkered with the 80 mm briefly in the back yard. Here is a pic of some beautiful purple flowers at about 15 yards. The scope's zoom was set at 20x and the camera was set at 2x, ISO 200, F4.8, 1/125. I have not edited the photo except to convert it down to a size that will upload to this forum.