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Fabulous as always 😎

When I saw the April fools post on Facebook, I laughed and thought who would want that. But after looking at the promotional banner and realising they are using the duo, you can see that they are combining three different pieces of astro gear together. Sure, you can't upgrade each item individually as they're integrated, but at least they're trying something new and I'm sure some users will enjoy the lack of cables and clutter. Time will tell if people buy into this or not.

Yours is quite nice too, those fainter spiral arms are a pain to pull out of the noise and here they are readily available. I think we could calculate an "equivalent time" between our scope/sky combos to see how big a difference there should be in SNR. Purely in aperture my 200mm is around 50% larger in area (roughly considering the obstruction and reflection losses from mirrors) but our imaging scales are almost the same (mine is 0.76''). The skies mine was taken from were probably around SQM 20.7 on average for the 7 nights i spent, some nights better than 21 and a few closer to 20, and integration time needed to reach some chosen SNR increases by roughly 2.5x per magnitude of sky brightness increase. So if you want to crunch the numbers you'd only have to figure out your sky brightness using ASTAP's sky quality measurement tool and then plot in the numbers to see how many hours would you need to reach what i got in 25h.

It's a nice looking product and it does makes sense. It would make for a really clean and much simplified setup. Dare I say it, providing a high end smart telescope setup with swappable telescope ability. What would concern me is that by combining the individual components you lose all if one fails. Look at the recent issue people have experienced with firmware updates on the AsiAirs. That said, I'd love to have one but the price/weather usage ratio is a bit high for my budget. Jim

No- I think it's important that you posted it, as you have demonstrated that you were sincere in your question. I hadn't interacted with the post, but when I saw the title I thought it perhaps an attempt to launch an argument, as this is a subject about which folks can sometimes become dogmatic and impassioned (although less so on this forum). I suspect the posts above made the same apparently incorrect assumption.

Ok here is one I cannot explain, and maybe a little of topics. I had a 105 mm and C11 mounted side by side. Observing Orion's Nebulae I can make out more nebulosity using the 105 mm then the C11. A 20 mm XWA in the 105 mm and a 30 mm UFF in the C11. The C11 is wrapped. I was surprised....

It maybe that your frequent open ended questions on “this vs that” become a bit tiring after a while. It might leave some to wonder if you actually want to know the answer or just engage in debate. Don’t get me wrong: there is space for debate - it’s what many of us enjoy, especially when it’s so cloudy much of the time 😊

Did I guess again? What will I do with two the same cameras? 🤔

Thanks so far to those of you who have responded so far. Can I just make one comment though. I refer to the SGL code of conduct, and the "Ensure a friendly atmosphere" part of it. I do not think this friendly atmosphere is created by attacking the poster of a question, with a comment from one user, saying they wonder why I posted the question, as supposedly I already know the answer!?, just because I said the question was 'deliberate,' in the way it was phrased. If I was so arrogant that I presumed to already know the experiences of every single person on this forum, I wouldn't have asked the question in the first place. I felt the comment was a personal attack and found it quite irritating, if I'm honest, even if it wasn't intended that way, and no poster should be made to feel that way, if this is supposed to be a forum with a friendly atmosphere. I'd hope we can all agree on that. I certainly wouldn't have said anything like that to a poster, or 'liked' the comment either, which effectively condones it, and adds to the non friendly atmosphere. Anyway, I felt I needed to say this, in the hope it might make us all pause for thought about how our comments might be perceived by the recipient. I imagine this post I'm writing now, may be perceived as over-sensitive, maybe it is, but I'm sure you would agree that it is the effect on the recipient that matters, regardless of the intention. At least that's what all the training I've ever been given regarding respect for other people, has always emphasised! Anyway, that's all I wanted to say.

Hello, have you had the ‘scope long? If there any whirring of motors? If you then press the cursor keys, I’m assuming nothing happens. If you loosen the locking mechanisms, can you slew the ‘scope around? If it finished up against one of the stops, it might be what’s causing the problem. I have an ETX90 and stripped it down when I had a problem without much trouble. Weasner’s Might ETX Site is still live, though inactive. It is a mine of useful info. 😊

Lovely captures there, so much going on with the Sun at the moment. Lots of sunspots too. I was imaging this morning with my Lunt, caught the same huge prom that you did on the bottom left 👍🏻

Interesting new development. The tease started as April Fools Day joke. But now appears to be introduced at NEAF. Below was shared in one of AP imaging groups. Nico posted this. It was a matter of time. I like the concept, if it gets to work properly (had to RMA my 2600MC DUO). I wonder how much memory will it have 32 GB or 256 GB. What do you think?

I have a Meade ETX 125. When I plug the controller in it does a "Test" then says there is a fault on the motor, has any one else had any experience of this ? Could there be a fault with the controller ?

One copy for me, as the winner, please. It looks like there are 4 USB ports. The Raspberry Pi rather cannot fit there, also it has USB ports in a fixed place. I would say that there is an ASIair mini and a power hub.

Well guessed. So the “waist” are the vents.

You need to put the above drawtube back into the focuser, marked below..

I just saw an eyepiece - it’s in the end of the draw tube….

End-users always generalize about brands, no different than you generalized about Astro-Pysics being a top tier brand. Have you ever tested a bad AP, Tak, TMB or TEC? I have. The problem today is end-users want what they interpret to be facts. Facts based on what experiences of the end-users themselves? What experiences do people or end-users with those concerns have to bring to the table other than just some more images of DSO's? Most of the end-users who insist on optical authenticity of quality struggle to even understand what they are looking at and since most of them don't even observe in the first place, it's going to be even harder. So in essence, they don't know what they don't know. There's also this idea by many end-users where they seem to believe that because they see something on a computer screen, that somehow means they are seeing hard facts. Just because end-users look through an eyepiece does not mean an issue is treated with any less care or can't be confirmed, in fact, quite the contrary. Some people are just horrible observers and depend on computer screens while others are excellent observers. Observing is a skill learned over time. For example, some people choose to look through microscopes while others choose to use digital screens. For refractors, both methods can achieve excellent results while both methods can also achieve bad results depending on the aberrations they are concerned about. Yes, there most certainly are differences with refractors better intended to be used for visual while others are better suited as astrograph's. Most of the confusion with that topic stemmed from the imaging community though, not the visual community. The reason this happened is because imagers were mixing their own concerns with the visual community. Most who were starting out, didn't know any better and huge amounts of misinformation were posted by the imaging community in particular. This is why I have advocated on numerous occasions in another forum that there needs to be two separate refractor topic threads; one for imaging refractors and another for visual refractors. Yes, with the increase in aperture, they inherit greater challenges that are pretty specific.

Sounds like an 8” F/5, mirrors look reasonable but hard to tell. Do you have any eyepieces with it like this - ignore the writing.

Haha, should I understand that I guessed properly (2600MC, not 6200MC) ?

Diffraction spikes on Jupiter really annoy me. Too much brightness also washes out planetary feature and colour detail to my eyes. I also think events like Galilean moon eclipses and transits particularly ingress and egress appear much better in refractors.

Thanks Mike.

Better planetary definition. Never seen an 8" Newtonian give sharper views than a good 5" refractor.

Right, so here is how the final version looks like with 1.2mm spacer. Before and after BlurXterminator, just 'Correct only' selected. I nearly forgot: it's F/1.4. I'm not going to kill myself, I think it's much better than an average 40mm lens.

Different flange distance in simple optical design lenses should make a difference only in infinity focus position. But with complex design lenses as the Sigma it will introduce aberrations. So my guess is that you need some spacers / washers so your focus (when focusing at stars) mark is similar as when you had the lens on the DSLR.