Unboxing and FIRST LIGHT! ASKAR 200mm F4 Lens - the new RedCat? 

Your French accent is perfect when you say “Pièce de résistance”. You must have watched the movie Ratatouille 😜

I have this apo lens. It works with QHY168C. Petfect, round stars without any color fringing, no coma, practically no spherical aberration. My congratulations to the optical designers!

I’ve been waiting for an astrotracer video by one of the top AP youtubers! So happy you were the first to step up!

Can’t wait to see what you do with this! I love my 180. 🙂

10:45 🤣 you're so awesome cuiv! Thanks for everything you do in the AP community

Hi Cuiv, great video - love that you have come back strong! On this rare occasion I am going to disagree with you though - I think those star shapes peripherally would annoy me eventually. I am still struggling to find a camera lens that will truly do full frame (even APS-c would be ok). 4/3 is the best I have been able to achieve. Perhaps I need to try harder! Thanks again for everything! Simon

Nice upload. Thank you for your enthusiasm and effort.

I totally love the ACL 200, have done a few projects with it ;)

Thanks for the review! I have the Redcat 51 and shoot modified Sony a7s and unmodified Sony a7rii. Based on your and others reviews the Askar 200 F4 seems like a strong competitor

I enjoy your enthusiasm

Hi Cuiv glad to see you posting regularly again. Are you happy with the build and optical quality of the Askar 200 lens I'm anxiously waiting delivery of my Askar FRA 600/5.6 astrograph later this month and hope it performs well Glad your feeling better

Thank you for sharing this!🙏👍✌

Astro tracer feature seems to be good for those who like to do wide field night scapes without the bulk need of a tracker. Pretty cool

A great setup. I have the Pentax K-70 with the GPS Module to use the tracker feature. I also have the Canon EOS Ra and the Redcat.

1/4”’& 3/8’’ camera thread which at least has been a universal standard across camera history.

I have that lens and am delighted with it.

I have managed to get 50sec exposures with my K-70/GPS and a 200mm f4. Went after M51, it’s a challenge to find it and keep it in the FoV, but what a rewarding experience when you manage to do it. I also use my Pentax Da*300mm, both with the K-70 and my ASI533MC Pro on a mount - it’s a pretty decent lens for astrophotography.

Ah! I remember seeing this lens-- the old version, without the top saddle-- at the Astrophotography showroom in Tokyo the other day! They let me hold it, and my god, was it heavy, but the build quality was just absolutely lovely.

I have the Pentax K1 MarkII and have had very good very sharp results with an "old" smc PENTAX-A 1:4 300mm and the Astrotracer. at 90.0 s at f/5.6. If you can find one, second hand, I am sure that you will be thrilled as well. I would recommend that you use a cable release, please.

Great unboxing and very good looking lens. As you mentioned I am a bit doubtful for the weight. I read 1.8kg which is close to the 2.1 of my petzval AG70/350

Thanks for posting this Cuiv! 👍👍 I'm pleased to see that your purchase was an "Askar", not an "Arse-kar". 😁😂 BTW, I'm wondering about the source of the elongated stars in the image you showed. 🤔 I suppose that it depends on how the Pentax camera attempts to compensate for the motion of the stars...does it slowly move the sensor up/down and left/right? If that is how the Pentax system works... and if I understand things correctly...then - in a sense - the sensor is attempting to track the stars like an alt-azimuth mount (assuming the camera is perfectly leveled). In that case, the final image would show some level of field rotation, and the amount of field rotation would be dependent on (a) how far from the celestial equator the camera is aimed, (b) what the focal length of the lens is, and (c) the length of the exposure.🤔 If there is field rotation, I would think that we would see stars that are elongated perpendicular to an imaginary line joining the star to the centre of the frame, and the amount of elongation would be larger as one looks further & further away from the centre of the frame. (i.e. it looks like the stars are rotating around the centre of the frame). However, from what I seen the elongation of the stars all point towards the centre of the frame, which would seem to be more indicative of field curvature, or coma. Finally, if it is indeed optical aberations, not field curvature, I would think that the elongation would be observed if you mounted the lens & camera on one of your equatorial mounts.🤔 Obviously, my understanding is incorrect, so could you explain the star shapes you are getting? Thanks Cuiv! 👍👍

I was as excited as you , new stuff mmmmmm

Hey Cuiv I've seen this here in Australia so interested how you go with this. I also have a Samyang 135 and old Canon f4 70-200 so very interested to see your shots with this. BTW I love how your opened it like a kid, we are all big kids at heart. It's always Xmas day when you open a box. Have fun with that beast of a lens.

Hi Cuiv, like you I have done the full journey of starting with a small APO then progressing to larger telescope only to find them too cumbersome and returned to the smaller scopes. I am interested in a small wide field scope like the Aksa ACL200 or the WO RedCat 51. But I am puzzled, I always thought wide angle lenses have very narrow focal ranges compared to long focal length telescope and lenses. I suspect this characteristic also means sensor tilt is more of a problem for wide FOV lenses and telescope. If that is the case why do these types of lenses and telescopes have helical type focusers? I would have thought these instruments would benefit the most from Crayford type focusers? Am I missing the point, are these small compact scopes grab and go scopes best suited to a DSLR or OSC and paired with something like a SkyWatcher Star Adventurer as simply portable mounts that are light to transport but may need a bit more manual intervention to keep in focus?

I don't know that much about this stuff but which is better this lens or a Sharpstar 61EDPH II f/5.5 Triplet APO Refractor Telescope

Hi Cuiv, where do you think this sits compared to the FMA230- I am about to get one or the other- for an AZGTi EQ mode mount. Is the weight significantly more of a problem do you think? Will I really se much between the F/4 & f/4.5 for the worse tracking?

Many thanks for this informative review. I've been reading about this lens on "Cloudy Nights." It looks like a winner! Am currently using a Rokinon t/2.2 and finding it excellent - fully manual. Hope to make the ASKAR my step up to a longer focal length next year. Also interesting to learn more about the Astrotracer. I've wondered about using the Astrotracer in combination with say an EQ mount. Would Astrotracer help smooth out some of the imperfections in a conventional EQ mount, possibly reducing the need for guiding for all except very long sub-exposures? I'd be very interested in your thoughts on this topic. I am so looking forward to seeing the fruit of your work with this ASKAR lens in the coming months. Merry Christmas!

Great video as always! I would like to buy one to match to an ASI533 but when I do the calculations the pixel size comes out to 2.31 arcsec/px a bit to high for my liking, I like to keep it .7 to 2 max. What number do you get with the Pentax camera?

Pièce de résistance😂😂 ça m'a tué😂 mais very nice lense!

Sharpcap? Redcat? Sharpstar? so much to remember. :)

Can you compare a 10 and 20 seconds frame without the Astro feature of the Pentax?

the sensor moves? or is it using a ROI thing...?

Can I ask where you got the pentax K-1 astro-modified?

I'm going out on a limb, and say that you really like that lens.

You should look at the Canon 200mm prime lens. Open it up to f#2.8 and then put a filter conversion ring on the front to stop down to f#3.8. Perfect stars across a full frame chip and no diffraction spikes (like a refractor).

Just bought mine from AliExpress

I tested the Askar 200 with a 5DMIV and $2000 Canon 70-200 L lens and the Askar won hands down in sharpness, sharpness from corner to corner (the canon lens had a ton of blurring towards the edges) and also the Askar showed zero vignetting on a cloudless daytime sky with both lenses at f/4. The color was surprisingly similar, too. It’s been too smoky for me to test it on my dark skies, but that’ll happen soon.

Let us know what you think once you get some time with it. I have a Redcat that I don't use much but I really should. I have that same samyang too. Love that lens!

Where and how much did you get this in Tokyo? I guess someone's no longer getting the Rokinon pocket rocket hahaha (but f2 though XD) when he gets back to Japan XD. That coarse and fine focus mechanism reminds me of what we had in microscopes years ago in high school bio lab. And I love the focus locks. That said - lemme get this straight: this can accommodate 2in filters regardless of the camera behind it? Because if yes, I guess I can now pull off a double-headed setup on the iOptron SkyGuider Pro, one on each end of the DEC bracket. HMMMMM. Imagine two similar OTAs (same FL and cameras) pointed at Orion, with M42 in one corner and the Horsehead in the opposite corner. One camera is broadband, the other with at least a dual narrowband filter. That'd be a blast to process hahaha PS - if the Pentax has focus peaking, that can be used as a poor man's Bathinov mask. Turn on focus peaking, zoom in a small star with the screen magnifier, and focus until the stars are at their smallest.

Hello😊

How coincidental, but I was imaging with my Pentax K70 just last night, although I didn't use the astrotracer - which is an extra gadget for the K70 and I have it , but I have mixed results using it. Sometimes it seem to work as it's advertised, other times it acts like it's not even there, no matter how carefully I calibrate the GPS sensor. I was told on the Pentax forums , please try it out away from civilization, in the cities it gets too much magnetic interference that can throw off the gps. On the other hand, the camera produces very clean, noise free and sharp images, and as unmodified it seem to allow more H-alpha through than Canon cameras.

After a lot of reading, trial & error, I dicovered that my Astrotracer performs best with a

With this item I am worried about two (related) things: one is that Askar/Sharpstar has not proven that it can correct colors on OSC with its scopes - they don't use FPL53 and it really makes them iffy with broadband (and by iffy I mean terrible CA). Decent for mono work. The other related issue is that selling Redcat is easy and you recover your investment while Sharpcap and Askar have poor resale. Redcat is simply a proven product.

Damn boi. You should change your youtube channel name. Sounds to me more like "Cuiv, the on fire geek".

as a 50/50 terrestrial vs astro photographer...terrestrial 'togs call that dovetail a lens foot :)

USA seller?

advantages over the RedCat are?

still miss your real RU-vid videos. Others are advertisement we know

I can't believe you have a Pentax. What a handicap. No wonder why you dive deep into your investigations. You need to with Pentax - lol. I have a K-5 which is great but I can only control it with Kstars. What did you use? (I gave up and bought an astrocam.)

Red Cat is more affordable 🤓