Orion ED80 Diffraction End Cap

thingiverse

This is a custom end cap designed specifically for the Orion ED80 telescope model, engineered to produce a distinctive "cross" diffraction pattern on bright stars that's ideal for astrophotography. Unlike other telescope designs like my 10-inch reflector, which inherently create this pattern due to their design, certain targets benefit from the short focal length of an APO refractor. The Pleiades and Orion Nebula are perfect examples. This end cap should also fit other ED80 models, such as those manufactured by Sky-Watcher, but I've only confirmed its compatibility with my own ED80. I've included some sample images taken using this custom end cap. Both the Pleiades and Orion Nebula were captured on November 9, 2019, without guidance, using an unmodified Canon T3i (600D) camera attached to my Orion ED80 telescope on a Sirius (HEQ5) mount. APT was used to manage exposure times, and the images were quickly stacked using DSS. Basic adjustments were made in Gimp, but I skipped more advanced post-processing steps like dark frame subtraction, flat fielding, and bias correction to get these examples up quickly. Please forgive any noise in the images; they do need some refinement.