As you will have gathered from the web address or the title of this website, I did own a C14 EdgeHD, purchased in 2010, which I swapped for a 350mm F4.6 Newtonian in 2024. The scope was bought from Teleskop Service and I must say I am very happy with it.

The mechanics are German made, the optics Orion Optic UK (OOUK) and the focuser an American made 3″ Feathertouch. Being primarily interested in astrophotography, I choosed this scope because the sampling with my ASI 6200MC 3.76 micron pixels is spot on. I also ordered the scope with an oversized 110mm secondary to make full frame vignetting confortable.The scope seats on a sky watcher EQ8-Rh (more on that later). It came with a Zygo control report, showing the primary is accurate to λ/8 and a Strehl Ratio of 0.98.

In practice, I discovered the mirror has a downturned edge as I could see mirror clamps on bright star halos. So I cut a 340mm mask to cover the edge of the mirror.

The mirror cell is really well built and does not allows the primary mirror to shift regardless of scope position. The tube features 3 sets of holes depending whether it’s being used as astrograph or visual.

Coma is corrected with a Riccardy coma corrector which offers pinpoint stars right up to the very edges of the fullframe sensor Riccardy Corrector. This corrector keeps the F/D ration of the scope intact.

I also choosed an EQ8-Rh which features an encoder on the R/A axis, thus completely eliminating Periodic Error. It gives me outstanding guiding through a ZWO OAG-L and ASI174MC camera.

Guiding accuracy basically is as good as turbulence allows. At my location, the best I can get is around 0.3″ on a great night. All in all, I am extremelly pleased with this setup, which also allows me to piggyback my Askar FRA300, Sigma or Samyang lenses.