William Optics ZenithStar 66 SD APO Manuel d'utilisateur télécharger pdf (Page 2)

Pretty

Little

Patriot

By “Uncle” Rod Mollise

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

They laughed when I set my telescope

up on the star party field. I thought they

would, anyway but not at me. No, what I

imagined would cause laughter was not the

sight of a broken-down hillbilly wrestling

way too much gear from vehicle to field, but

the telescope said hillbilly was wrestling. I’m

talking about the William Optics ZenithStar

66 SD Patriot Edition, pards; and, believe

you me, you’ve never seen a scope like this

one.

But I’m gettin’ way ahead of the story in

typical Uncle Rod fashion. Let’s turn back

the clock a few months to an afternoon

when a box appeared in the front hall of

Chaos Manor South – Rod’s humble abode.

This box was emblazoned with the swan

logo familiar to fans of Taiwanese telescope

maker William Optics, and that spelled astro

stuff. Ain’t nothin’ Your Ol’ Uncle likes bet-

ter than diggin’ into new gear, so pretty soon

Styrofoam peanuts were flying everywhere.

What was revealed when the dust settled

was William Optics’ 66-mm ZenithStar

APO refractor. I receive my fair share of gear

to evaluate, and I’ll admit I’ve become a bit

blasé about yet another shipment from some

astro-peddler. But this time my interest was

piqued. You see, despite my well-known

penchant for SCTs, I’ve always acknowl-

edged the value of small wide field refractors.

They are just so dad-gummed useful – for

everything from wide field viewing, to pig-

gyback imaging, to guiding.

I’ve owned and loved a Short Tube 80

refractor for years. At one time, these f/5

achromats were the darlings of the amateur

astronomy community. Not just the amateur

“chattering classes”, either, but rank and file

amateurs who actually get out and use tele-

scopes. The ST80 was everywhere for a

while, riding piggyback on everything from

C8s to 30-inch Dobsonians. Popularity does

not a good scope make, however.

Yeah, unfortunately, when you came

down to it, the main thing the ST80 had

going for it was its price (two hundred

bucks). Other than that, it had a usually

acceptable objective, a usually acceptable

focuser, and it produced usually acceptable

images. Unfortunately, though, “acceptable

images” meant you had to be willing to

accept lots of the color purple visually and in

images. Mightn’t there be something better,

though: a wide field apochromatic (apo,

color free) refractor that didn’t break the

bank, but which improved on the ST80

optically and mechanically; or a telescope

that didn’t recall Revenge of the Purple

People Eaters every time you took a gander

at the Moon? For quite a while, the answer

was, “no.”

“No,” until recently, when reasonably

priced apos suddenly began to flow into the

hands of U.S. amateurs from Taiwan –

notably from William Optics (WO). These

new refractors, most of which were two-ele-

ment ED glass affairs, were said to not just

banish color, but to do it with style and with

build quality that left the pore ol’ 80 in the

dust. The natural WO scope for me to grav-

itate to as a “Short Tube 80 Killer” was the

runt of the litter, the 66 SD, which initially

sold for less than 400 bucks (they can now

be had for a hundred dollars less with no

finder or diagonal). “SD,” by the way, as I

understand refractor lingo, means the same

thing as “ED.” That is, glass with special dis-

persion properties that help it reduce the

color that devils achromats.

When I pulled the 66 from its box, my

first surprise was that it came with a nice alu-

minum case emblazoned with the WO logo

and filled with good (if somewhat ill-

smelling) die-cut foam. This was certainly

nicer than the aluminum “tool attaché” I

bought for the ST80, but it’s what’s inside

that counts, ain’t it? What was inside was a

beautifully finished, little black-tube refrac-

tor with a retractable dew shield, a built in

“L” shaped mounting bracket (

G-20tpi), and

one heck of a focuser.

William Optics’ trademark Crayford

focuser is an attractive, gloss-finished affair

that’s equipped with nice-sized knobs, oper-

ates with buttery smoothness, and is easily

adjusted for the proper amount of tension to

handle heavy payloads (it does fine with my

SBIG ST2000 CCD). But that’s not what

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William Optics ZenithStar 66 SD APO Manuel d'utilisateur Page 2

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