Building out a Versatile Combo

Back in 2022, I picked up a used Explore Scientific ED80. I did it because I was tired of looking at ugly stars in my images. I wanted an imaging rig that was color corrected, but more than anything, I was just after getting rid of ugly triangle shaped stars.

The ED80 is a great scope. As an apochromatic f/6 triplet with an 80 mm objective lens, it can produce nice images with good stars. The addition of the field flattener coupled with the correct back focus just makes it even better.

Fast forward to 2025 when I picked up the ZWO AM3 mount. I bought it to serve as a “spare” to the EQ6, but I didn’t realize it would play such a pivotal role in future plans. The AM3 is nice lightweight mount, and when the Lunt 50 came along in the summer of 2025, it was the perfect mount to couple with for solar viewing. Recently I took the Lunt 50 into the area of solar imaging as well using the ASI290MM mini. You can see the results in my image on this article.

So when I started looking at the SA-100 diffraction grating to use for spectroscopy, it was natural to use the ED80 for this role on the AM3, and that’s part of what I have been building on and towards. I’d like to use the ED80 with an ASI678MM camera for spectroscopy and then use the same ASI678MM camera on the Lunt 50 for solar imaging. Last weekend, I installed a ZWO Electronic Auto Focus on the ED80 (EAF). This will be nice to use for tweaking spectra image focus and allow for full hands-off operation of the rig, even remotely. That could become very useful.

And that’s not to mention that the ED80 can also be used with my ASI533MC Pro to serve as an additional deep sky imaging rig for those times when I want to move back to a more conventional approach to imaging, The ED80 AM3 ASI533MC Pro combination works.

More than anything, I like the versatility that all of this equipment working together can offer. I’ve got a lot of ways to do astronomy today as a result of some interesting purchases I have made in the past 5 years. It is a good stream to be on. Good lightweight gear that works well.