New Year, New Scope! - Unboxing Celestron RASA 11

I was looking for a wide field scope to compliment my deep space Edge 11 and decided to get the RASA 11.

The RASA 11 is a 11" Rowe-Ackermann Schmidt Astrograph designed for astrophotography. It has no eyepiece connection. The RASA has a camera mounting on the front of the OTA, and is ideally suited for dedicated astrophotography cameras which tend to be your round cylinder shape rather than a typical DLSR style.

The RASA has a 620mm focal length, and an F/2.2 ratio, meaning that it is a very fast optical scope. It is quite a large telescope tube, coming in at 840mm long, and 315mm weight, weighing 20kg.

The OTA has a fan assembly that takes a 12v supply, but the scope comings with an 8xAA battery holder. It also comes supplied with 2 camera adapters for connecting to the front of the OTA. One for T2 and one for 48mm.

Using the supplied adapters, gives the OTA a 55mm back focus distance, which is a common size used by many of the camera manufacturers, I will be using the ZWO ASI 2600 MC-P and it came with suitable adapter rings to make up the required 55mm, factoring in the sensors 17.5mm depth in the camera.  

I will be using this with my Celestron CGX mount which has a load capacity of 55lbs, so by the time I add the camera to the telescope, I will still be within the technical limits of the scope.

Below is the unboxing video I did, next up I will be adding a Celestron Motor Focuser.



Here is a picture of the Edge 11 next to the RASA 11.


Guaranteed to be cloudy for at least a month now!

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Thanks,
Dave

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