Explore Scientific FCD100 Series 127mm f/7.5 Carbon Fiber Triplet ED APO Refractor Telescope with 2.5" HEX Focuser

With clouds in the sky, imaging was going to be a problem.
First object - Moon. Using only the diagonal and my cell phone camera I got a pretty good image of the moon. Craters, mountains and Mare were very sharp visually even with light cloud cover. Then I swung over to Orion to look at the Orion Nebula. Again a nice sharp image using my 15mm eyepiece. Well, looking through the eyepiece real-time there is no real color discrimination. However, with this setup, I could see slight color detail and excellent resolution - even with the hazy cloud cover.
Then swinging over to Mars, I could see slight detail with the various Martian surface features. Then switching to a random star, I could see the slight blue detail of Orion's Alnitak. No color aberration even with the cloud cover.
Alnitak. No color aberration even with the cloud cover.
I can't wait to get my QHY monochrome camera and my QHY color camera hooked up to see what imaging is like. I'll give an update with both cameras when there's no cloud cover and I get everything set up.
Until then....Keep Looking UP!

As you can see from my e-mail address that I own an advertising agency and normally you would be suspicious of what an ad man has to say about anything. The fact is that you can take what I have to say about this scope to the bank. I am not an observer, I am an imager (www.oneilladvertising.com to see images over the years) I have had this scope now for almost two years, picked it up at the WSP, directly from Scott. I was reluctant at first, going from a 12" RC down to a 5" APO but at 74 it only made sense, to me and my back. I asked Scott if I could test the 127MM Carbon fiber FCD100 scope, (one of the ones displayed) after looking through it at bright stars and star clusters (yes Omega Centauri was visible) I was blown away by the crispness of the stars and lack of color around the brightest stars. The view of Omega Centauri was the best I had ever seen. But as I mentioned, I am primarily an imager and was curious as to how good it would be as an imaging scope. I put my ST-10 with color wheel on the scope and picked an easy target, the Rosette to image. Pin point stars with no hint of color fringe plus the fidelity of the shot was very evident. I now head to Chiefland, FL every chance I get to redo all the shots. I already owned the Feather Touch Posi Drive system and replaced the Hex focuser (excellent by the way) so I can focus from the computer. The Carbon Fiber tube is a must for imagers, no image shift, even during large temperature changes. I now have a keeper.