All Activity

All those great images made with CCD remain great images and many are still the best ever taken of certain objects. I'd say the cameras will only become obsolete when these images are obsolete and that won't be happening in the next ten minutes. What I would now regard as obsolete is the advice to start with a DSLR because used CCD cameras are incredibly cheap on the used market. I think they must be the best buy on the market, though some would-be vendors have yet to accept just how little they can expect to get for them. I do think that OSC CMOS is much better than OSC CCD but I wouldn't consider mono obsolete. The dual and tri-band fiters, however, have had a great impact on OSC flexibility and the small CMOS pixels play really well with short focal lengths. Very long focal lengths haven't become obsolete but you can now do great galaxy images with FLs of under a metre. Olly

Thanks Stevie

Hi Kat Thanks for your reply. Portability and a goto function is high on the list. The Celestron startsense looks appealing however I will check the skywatcher suggestions you mentioned too. Thank again Neb

Awesome! And thank you!

On a whim, I mounted the C11 last night intending to do a bit of a shakedown of the setup after adding a new focus motor and powerbox. I got carried away. 47 panels, 500 frames each. C11, ProPlanet 642 filter with the asi178mm Stacked in AS!4.0.11, Mosaic in MS ICE, processed PixInsight and PS Click (34mb just under 12000 x 12000)

These are not new in the world. Most resellers sell them as "Premium Flat Field" eyepieces. Look up reviews on the Astrotech PF eyepieces to see some comments about them. They are also sold by Artesky, Astromania, Astrotech, Auriga, Lacerta, Omegon, Sky Rover, Tecnosky, and Telescope Service. FLO has a good price.

No, you ideally adjust the primary, secondary and the focuser! But with a smaller chip like mine you can get away with mostly adjusting the primary.

Postie has been with a parcel from @FLO and one from @Giles_B

Argh! Another new eyepiece! These are the same eyepieces sold by many companies as "Premium Flat Field" eyepieces. FLO is selling them at a good price.

It is when curvatures match that you see a flat field. When curvatures are opposite, the edge is far out of focus when the center is focused. FC is always more of a problem with larger field stops, too, so FC will be less visible at the 3.5mm end than at the 8.1mm end.

Well @FLO that was faster than ever, thank you. Ordered yesterday and delivered this morning. Looks very nice indeed, watch this space on how it goes, does have an undercut, but a sensible shallow one.

Harmonic wave mounts are definitely here to stay.

You will see the benefits going from 8” to 10” 👍

Thanks, I’m looking to replace a budget 8 inch Dob with something still easily manageable and with better optics and a better focuser. The VX10 at 1200mm would be my preferred option I think?

Indeed, part of the reason I'd like a 5" frac in the armoury. Might be worth the sub aperture approach too.

If you have collimated before then you will not find the f/4.8 tricky to collimate, although the f/6.3 would have more latitude. But even if you have not collimated before it’s a learnable process 👍 The f/6.3 is more suited to planetary as it has a smaller secondary obstruction, but it’s a long telescope. Both are good 🙂

Hi, yes near Nottingham. Indeed, my previous attempts were like looking at a flare. But, I'm up for a challenge. After all it's the closest example of a white dwarf.

Dodged clouds for an hour to get this , just gone bananas ! Nick

When I take my ST80 camping, I usually take 4 or 5 EPs along. Maybe I should try one of these SVBs just to simplify my packing list. 🤔

For the past year I have been wanting to try out roof prisms as I have far to many porro prism binos. I did buy one pair, found that the objectives and oculars had not been blackened around their edges, and once seen can never be unseen! That pair I’ve since given to my young nephew. Now, Temu came along and offered a pair of waterproof 10x42 roofs for only £16 ( discounted) and I bought them. They arrived this morning and…well, those white bands are there too! Damn and blast! I do have a confession to make, I recently got to try out a pair of Swarovski’s 8x42 and hahahahaha! Why did I even bother with those cheapies? So there you have it, if you want a real good pair of roof prism binos, the Swarovski is the goal to aim for, sell them kidneys if you have too! Mine are on going on eBay shortly! Lol

I’m plotting ahead for My next telescope purchase…. OOUK do two versions of the VX10 a shorter 1200 f/4.8 and a longer 1600 f/6.3…. Is collimating the f/4.8 tricky? I can’t see any reasons not to go for it over the VX10L unless it’s a pain to collimate? (size and weight I suppose). Thanks Niall Also, if anyone has this scope or can point to a review on it for me it would be much appreciated.

I had exactly the same problem with my PST. Beloptick was able to re-contact the etalon and also replaced the ITF blocker filter: oliver.smie@beloptik.de Good luck!

I'd just try with the camera body and lens first. Depending on how good the internal tracking of the mount works will determine when you'd need to start implementing autoguiding. One of the best pieces of imaging equipment I've used isn't in fact a telescope, it's the Samyang 135mm F2 lens (imaging at this focal length will need autoguiding).

A while ago, I designed a tri-Bahtinov mask to aid in the collimation of my Mak-Newt. I even cnc-ed the secions of the mask. Since my cnc machine is limited to a 30 x 18 cm work area, and the telescope has a 20 cm tube, I had to make 3 sections of the mask. Before I had an opportunity to assemble the sections, other things got in the way, and I forgot all about it. (I wasn't happy with the final outcome, so forgetting was quite easy, and age helps.) A week or so ago, I came across the sections and finally glued them together. On a partially clear night, I put the mask on my MN190 and tested on Arcturus. For the first test, I only did a coarse focus and took RGB images. For the second test, I focused better and took an image with the L filter in place. Here are the results. When I did the second test, I found the mask not that sensitive to defocus, so I wonder how sensitive it will be as a collimation tool. Does anyone here have experience of using such a mask for collimation? Here is my design. Each third of the mask holds one section of the three zones, as described in this link. The mask is cnc-ed from 2 mm black acrylic. The slots are 4 mm wide and spaced 4 mm. The sections are glued together with epoxy (butt jointed). I have since designed supports to make the joints more stable, but haven't yet cut those. https://satakagi.github.io/tribahtinovWebApps/reports/improveSensitivity.html

Hi, Looking for some advice on getting a DSO imaging setup going. I'm really a visual astronomer - CPC800 is my main telescope - but I've been dabbling for a few years with a Canon 600D (unmodded), Sky adventurer and a few basic lenses, but now trying to have a proper go at dso imaiging. I have acquired an HEQ-5 Pro mount (with belt mod), so have an EQ mount ready to go, but no scope for it yet. I'm thinking I probably want to go for a skywatcher 72 or 80ED from reading the forums. Finally, I like tinkering, and making small upgrades bit by bit, and love to re-use second hand kit and feel I'm getting a lot for the money rather than buying everything new - but I'm also aware that a sub-standard setup could just get poor images and put me off for good. So, my question is: what is the minimum set of equipment I need from here - can I use my unmodded DSLR, or do I need mono camreas / filters to get anything good from a suburban location?; do I have to have a guide scope and guiding camera or can I add this later?; do I need an autofocuser or should I be able to do well enough manually to start with? Thanks in advance for the advice! Mark.