If you remember the final scene from the movie Scar Face, Tony Montana tells the Columbian hit squad "Say hello to my little friend", as he fires a grenade from his grenade launcher equipped M-16. No, I didn't get a 'Montana Special'. This is my new little friend:


It can't launch grenades, but, man, can it shoot!

I used to have an AT72ED which I bought when they first came out. I really wanted the older AT66, but ended up with the then newer 72mm ED scope. While I liked the AT72ED and shot many images with it, I always felt that it was a bit bigger and heavier than what I wanted. A few years ago I downsized my stable, keeping only three scopes: TV-85, 150mm Mak, and 10" Dob.

I have been out of astronomy, and just about everything else for the past couple of years. Late last year I got back into imaging and some observing. Have you ever lived to regret selling something you didn't realize you loved so much until it was gone? You guessed it, I missed my AT72ED and have been kicking myself in the rear for selling it. (I have no regrets selling the other scopes and gear.)

Recently, I have been imaging Orion and other deep sky goodies with my DSLR. The TV-85 with 0.8x reducer/field flattener gave me good images, but I wanted wider fields. My camera lenses are OK, especially the 55-250mm Kit Lens, but they can be a pain to use and have their limits. I kept wanting something that gave me wider fields than the TV-85. For months I have been looking at Canon/Samyang/Rokinon lenses, but couldn't decide on one. I kept looking at the AT60ED, but the cost was out of my budget. The Rokinon 135mm or 85mm prime focus lenses that are widely recommended for astrophotography can be had used for much less than the AT60ED. I almost jumped on one.

Good fortune smiled down on me, and I found myself with some excess disposable cash - very rare these days. Not only that, but the AT60ED scopes that were out of stock for so long at Astronomics were now in stock. Well, nobody had to twist my arm behind my back. Three days later, the box you see in the picture showed up at my house.

What a nice little scope. The first thing I thought when I opened the box is how cute this little thing is. It is a purpose built imaging scope. For the past week I have been trying it out and figuring out how to best fit it into my imaging life. The day I received it I shot the Orion Nebula to test the scope, using the ATR8 focal reducer/field flattener.



This was a quick setup and test, without trying to produce an 'award winning' image. I wish you could see the above image full size. It blew me away how sharp, contrasty and detailed the image was. I also like the size of the field and how it includes the star clusters in the Sword, as well as other stars in the field.

Last night I imaged M42 again, this time to adjust my field flattener distance to the sensor. Without the field flattener the images looked like they were taken from the star ship Enterprise, Next Generation, just as it was about to go into warp; the stars elongated from the edges to the center. I read one post online that said a 3mm spacer between the ATR8 and the T-adapter got rid of the field curvature, the poster using a Canon T3i like mine. I used a spacer (a T-2 lock ring I had in my junk box) measuring 2.7mm thick. I took images last night without the reducer/flattener, with the flattener, and the flattener with the spacer. At 2.7mm I only have a little bit of curvature around the corners of the image. I can only see it in the full image on my screen.



That's good enough for me, especially being a retired government employee. I can crop slightly if I want a perfectly flat field. I can't see it in these images I'm posting.

One thing I like about this little scope is that it has a Vixen-style finder shoe where I can mount my green laser finder. It's much easier to put the scope on target compared to camera lenses.

The light gathering of the 60mm objective is way better than the kit lenses I have been using. Three days ago I was playing around with dithering and took this image of M45, the Pleiades.



This is an unprocessed image, but you can tell I captured a bit of nebulosity around the stars Merope and Maia. Keep in mind I'm imaging a reflection nebula from a severe Bortle 9 White zone, so it's not going to look like images taken from darker locations.

Can you tell I like my new little friend? I'm going to be trying emission nebulae other than M42, and maybe some clusters and star fields soon.

Ed D