Alan Gee Mark II Telecompressor for SCT

We are sorry, but a reducer will not have the desired effect. It does not only reduce the folcal length, but it also reduces the image itself. The Alan Gee has an ideal image circle of 15mm and works fine with cameras up to APS-C (15x22mm sensor size), where some vignetting can be removed via flats and post-processing. You can see an example image in the manual. Even if you use a 1.25" eyepiece like a 32mm Plössl, the eyepiece has got a field stop (image circle) of ca. 26mm, so that the image of the telescope with the Alan Gee will be smaller than the field of view of the eyepiece. A 2" eyepiece will gibe you an even wider field of view. The best way for a wider field of view is a 2" eyepiece which has got long focal length and a large field stop - about 45mm are possible with 2" due to the diameter of the field stop, so our 36mm Hyperion Aspheric 2" # 2454636 and a Celestron Omni Okular 2" 56mm, 47° fov # 810248 will show the same part of the sky, only at different magnifications (and thus different apparent fields of view). For visual use, you are better of with an eyepiece with a long focal length instead of a reducer, the result is the same. A reducer is mainly helpful for cameras with a rather small sensor, when the telescope without reducer has got a much larger image circle than the diameter of the camera sensor. With an eyepiece a reducer will give you a brighter, but smaller image and not a larger true field of view when compared to a longe eyepiece (which is also much easier to handle than a reducer)

Unfortunately this is not possible, the Off-Axis-Guider has no cap nut to hold the Alan Gee in place. One solution could be using this: https://www.baader-planetarium.com/en/qhy-miniguiderscope-mount.html https://www.baader-planetarium.com/en/baader-standard-base---for-mqr-iiiandiv-for-witty-one-and-for-v-bracket.html Anyway, it is also rather critical to find a guiding star in the outer area behind a reducer because of the much higher vignetting. Also most software like PHD2 works much better with smaller focal lengthes like mini guider scope.

The Alan Gee has got an ideal image circle of 15mm and can be used with up to 18mm, so it fits to the 16mm diagonal of your camera at least at 0.59x. Of course, taking flats is recommended. It can be used at higher compression rates, but then the image circle will shrink, too. We do have some example images in the manual (under the tab "Downloads") which should give you an impression.

Yes these are available. Please write an email to support@baader-planetarium.de with your complete adress. We will let you know the price and how to proceed

We are very sorry in this case we cannot give a recommendation because our reducers are designed for SC telescopes. We never tried them with ACF telescopes. Please ask the manufacturer of your telescope which reducer works best.

The optical design of the Alan Gee goes back to the 1990s. But the actual products which we ship are freshly assembled every approximately two months, so they are new.