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Interested in your decision, is this based on the quality of images, reduced noise etc from some back to back testing of various settings. I've generally left my AA26c in HCG and gain 100 more because I don't want to waste precious imaging time with experimentation, so am interested in your findings.

That close up, FOV is crazy David, awesome Is that still with the reducer? Hope you get something before summer arrives. Seeing it on the AZEQ6 has me reconsidering looking at one of these - it's (unsurprisingly) still a bit of a beast all in!

Yes, your right. That would be the correct method for perfect collimation, in an ideal situation high up in the Andes with plenty and more time to fiddle with Bobs Knobs! Back here in Gulf Stream Alley, the donut method is as good as I'm ever likely to get it. I doubt I will ever look through the scope until the planets come back around again. A couple of test images from the other evening. Single Ha sub of 5 mins and Lum sub at 60s. The Lum has a bit of guiding error it seems but stars are reasonably round. The Ha looks pretty good to my eye.

Ask and thou shalt receive (if available 😄) : 'Credintele taranului roman despre cer si stele_Otescu Ion_Bucuresti_1907.pdf (bcub.ro)

Beyond my abilities so far, but I've watched your YouTube channel quite a lot over last couple of months and it's been a great help.

Many thanks, most appreciated. It certainly does look to be a Kson. I explored Alibaba and found it matches another of the Kson mounts: Ekcentrik-Advanced ED80 which has a clearer photo and matches. Refracting Telescope - Buy Refracting Telescope,Telescope,Astronomical Telescope Product on Alibaba.com

See also 'salute'.

'Salutation' is an English word meaning a greeting, we did not escape the Latin influence.

It happens to the Sigma as well, but I don't remember how much it moves. I'll try to record the values bot for the Canon and astro-cameras.

@JamesF has not been on the forum since 2021 and I have not seen any updates to the oacapture program on https://www.openastroproject.org/oacapture/

Out and about in the van. Did some solar observations near Penrith then off to Kielder. Now at Bellingham. Lovely clear night but oh so cold. Solar this morning. Sun very active. Solar filter remains one of my best-buy astro accessories. Campsite is staffed by astronomers and has telescopes to borrow too!

I studied romanian as autodidact, I would like read this book in original language. Hi @Bivanus, I think that 300 years of Ottoman domination weren’t a joke, for the science there weren’t the ideal conditions not at all!

Excellent shout. I just presumed you put up with a reverse image. I look at stuff like boats and their names, so this is so much easier. Will have a look on here for second hand although Amazon have them at £20

I'd do a test without filters, then try a few different ones. I'm thinking a bodied camera has a few pieces of glass mounted onto the sensor, with the 2600 you may have less though this doesn't explain if you have MF capability why its still causing coma at the edges. I find with my SY135s, if I keep the backspacing consistent, different filters will move the focal point away from the infinity point on the lens significantly.

That doughnut image does not really confirm good collimation as it is too far from focus. Ideally you should perform final collimation at perfect focus, on a high star and at x300 plus power - you should be able to see a perfect airy disk if seeing allows…..

Am I right if I assume that any sensor tilt adjustment makes sense only if the camera is permanently attached to a rest of the setup and is never touched, particularly never rotated? Of course, I don't mean a case when the sensor isn't parallel to a flange and it 'accidentally' passed a QC which hopefully doesn't happen to more expensive cameras.

Cat's Eye / Croc's eye

Just as you say, Wim. I wonder if all I would do using the Tri-B mask would be to collimate out the camera tilt which is sometimes quite large according to ASTAP (I mis-typed above - it's ASTAP I use for SQM and tilt). I found a thread on Cloudy Nights (here) which referenced a Tri-Bahtinov grabber on Github (here) which, although a bit quirky, seems to give understandable results. Here's what it made of image 5 in the sequence above: I haven't worked out yet how to relate the channels to collimation screws (there is an assist diagram available but not sure how it works yet). Also not sure if I want to collimate for tilt at set-up every time (= lost imaging time) or whether 'close enough' is sufficient? Perhaps something to have a play with during the next two months of Astro twilight?

Nice target 👌 added to my getting longer all the time list of targets 😁

Uninstalled 3.0.0 and installed 3.0.1 and still doesn't work.... AI denoise still end with a error dialog message.

Just for the record, here's my first (nighttime) light image from a couple of nights back. Primarily bought for outreach purposes (or at least that's how we've justified buying it 🙂) , it's a great piece of kit. Set it up and then come indoors and watch the image develop over 20/30 minutes or so.

Another WOW! Not sure what advantage a moonless night would be, considering this image is killer.

🙂 Yes, it has. It's always switched to the manual mode, even if used with the Canon body. I used a Bahtinov mask earlier, but now I rely on an EAF.

I got an ADM saddle for the mount. Can slide the OTA a bit further up now so all balanced without adding extra weight. Managed to collimate it with a tri bahtinov mask as well the other evening. Close enough I think!

Lots of reviews online if you search, they are one of the major USA astro suppliers.