Adaptive optics device

photometric

ZWO is gradually developing some high quality astrophotography equipment, but there is one major component it still lacks. That is an adaptive optics device. These originally were manufactured by other companies as a tip/tilt mirror, but this form has been replaced by a tip/tilt prism. The device is used for guiding corrections and works on the principle that a prism suspended magnetically can move much more quickly than a correction sent to a telescope mount; the latter having much greater inertia. So … how about an adaptive optics device as a feature request?

moson

I will convey your feedback to our devs and they will consider this.

lorenzo

I second that.

The lack of an adaptive optic system is a pity.

I used for years the Sbig system and I must say it's a dream.

Now I use an Asi 294 and I really miss the adaptive optic system.

In my opinion, a system like that will be a huge added value to the Asi world.

Please consider it.

Ciao.

Lorenzo Siciliano

Support@ZWO

Thanks for your feedback, we will consider this.

benni

I have an sx-ao, which is compatible with all devices.

Some weeks ago, my usb cable for that failed and I had to guide with the mount.

Significantly less round stars due to my mount being of old age....

So I will not try to go without the ao again if I do not have to.

From a practical side, I can say that it is important for that thing to be stable and have not much backfocus.

Many flatteners just have 55mm.

But when you have an off axis guider and a filter wheel, then it is difficult to have something additionally in the path. Fortunately, many refractors also have 105mm backfocus. And then one can squeeze an ao in.

Stability is also important. Many sc or rc telescopes are sensitive to tilt of the imaging train, which is a problem if the housing of the ao is not extra stable.

An option may be to put the sensor on piezo crystals and let it shake around with a vibration reduction system.

but one would need a special guiding software then:

A guiding software which sees an uncorrected image and directs the camera to move.

For color cameras, one could even put the guiding chip next to the main sensor...

With glasses, an ao gets heavy and takes space. And one has to take care in calibrating the guiding software.

A main problem in phd guiding is the download time of the guiding image. I do not know how it is with usb3 guiding cameras. But with usb2, you only can remove slow and large seeing frequencies. Because of the download lag, setting phd to 0.01 sec makes the image worse than 0.2 sek. But of course it is always better than without ao.

I certainly will not go without the sxao. But I would of course be interested in a smaller ao if it is as good as the sxao. Or one that is in camera.

It would also be interesting if one could have an ao, a filterwheel, an off axis guider and a rotator all in the imagingtrain. And then a fork mount with an arm long enough that this fits in...