Is it worth upgrading to a SW quattro 150? Sky-Watcher Quattro 150P · Menelaos · ... · 4 · 388 · 0

Hey guys whats up?
I need opinions on this. I own a SW 150/750 explorer. I tuned it for astrophotography quite well and i am kind of happy with the results i get. I was wonderIng though is it worth upgrading to a SW150 quattro?? I know this one has bigger secondary mirror, faster focal ratio, and with a reducer i will get even faster, and i plan to cannibalise the explorer to hypertune the quattro. But! My question is: Is this worth? Will it make a noticeable difference from the explorer? I mean they are both very similar in design. Should i just go with a completely different scope? Of course i dont want a refractor i am a Newtonian guy i love those scopes! Shoot your ideas. Thank you.

Hi Menelaos,

I've been using a 150 Quattro for a while now and I have to say that I'm pretty happy with the results.
As you've mentioned, with its coma corrector the focal ratio goes down to f3.45, which makes it much faster than the f5 Explorer.
Although on paper it sounds good, but its less forgiving. I mean your collimation has to be spot on, your guiding has to be precise.

I modified my scope quiet a bit. I feel som of them are mandatory, some of them are nice-to-haves.
The three mirror clips produces some weird artefacts around the stars so I replaced it with a 3d printed ring with the proper height and the holes in the appropriate positions. This reduces the aperture slightly but I was willing to make that sacrifice.

I also changed the secondary spider for a billet aluminium part, which is rock solid and while the scope was in peaces I also flocked the inside. Than a round plate was added behind the primary mirror cell to reduce light leaks.

The reason I'm writing all my struggles is to let you know that this scope has some potential to be great (at least in my opinion anyway), but out of the box state is a sort of budget scope.

if you like to thinker with things and not bothered spending significant amount of time collimating it after reassembly and also not bothered spending extra money on upgrades I say go for it.

If you plan to use it as it is, you might want to look at some better built, more premium unit (a Carbonstar 150 or a 15028HNT from Sharpstar) or go bigger if your mount can handle it.

It's the same aperture so it's not that much of an upgrade. You'll gain some speed and the FOV is larger but that about all. The cost will be a more finicky OTA and if you go beyond F/4, you'll need to replace your narrowband filters with high speed versions.