Tony Acorn

All came with a full compliment of clouds here!

Hello Hazel and welcome to a most informative corner of the universe! How lucky you are to be in a much less polluted location. do you also get a good proportion of cloudless skies? Do let us know how you get on imaging with the Samyang 135mm as I'm wondering about sticking one on my Nikon Z6 and mounting both on my SkyWatcher Star Adventurer (the older version, not the GTi). Tony

Useful info for very newbie imagers like me - thanks.

Hello and welcome Paul, That looks like a decent bundle to get your teeth into this hobby and there are many on here who will help if you ask. You mention that Prime Focus is proving a litte difficult. I live in a slightly less polluted area (Bortle 5 and getting worse) and I use a Bahtinov Mask to get my focus as sharp as possible. Here's one for 150mm Newtonians available form our sponsor. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bahtinov-focus-masks/starsharp-bahtinov-focus-masks.html You hang it onto the outside of your scope using two silicon-coated screws through the holes as seen in the image. The other thing to point out is that a guide-scope needs to be aligned with the main scope (I found out the hard way) and that is best done in daylight looking at distant objects. HTH and enjoy, Tony

I know I may be stating the blindingly obvious and one that has already been used but, whilst there are instances where a pier / pillar comes in handy, for better stability extend the tripod legs as far as possible rather than perch your equipment on a pier / pillar. My 3-Legged-Thing carbon tripod (on which I perch my heavy ZWO ASi and refractor imaging bundle) offers several angles of spread so I can set it out from a rather solid cast aluminium garden table or on the ground whilst retaining a wide base. So far I haven't needed to hang a battery under the mount on this one but a suitable camvas cradle might be useful. My SKyWatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro bundle is another matter. I agree that the wedge seems to be (shall we say) less than secure in this instance. In my case, the SW SA wedge sits on a Manfrotto 053 tripod and the Manfrotto comes with three screws arranged to lock the wedge from rotating - definitely worth tightening these so the wedge doesn't unscrew and spoil your PA. My SW SA carries a Nikon Z6ii camera and whatever lens I want to use at the time - that could be a 14mm wide-angle up to a 100-400mm zoom with a tele-converter. As the magnification increases, so does the wind resistance so a decent weight (SW PowerTank) hanging under the tripod is my chosen route. As it is an Alt/Az rig, there is no worry about the Meridian Flip tangling cables either but I do use the PowerTank to energise the SW SA and the Nikon. Those are just my experiences, hope it proves helpful. Tony

Yes, we were 3 miles from the edge of the town when we bought our place in 1986. By the time we moved 30 years later, Daaventry was less than 900m away and it still seems to be expanding - although never in the direction of any councillor. I wonder why??? The development plan made by 2-Jags Prescott in 2007/8 had 10,000 houses to be built to the east of Daventry yet not a single one has been built on this site. The same Public Examination said that the northern border of Daventry Town should not be extended across the Grand Union Canal - but that didn't stop the then Daventry District Council granting planning permissions beyond the canal and annexing (without any consultation) the necessary parts of our rural parish into the town to further their aims. 😂

Hello and welcome Johnnie81. Until 2016, I lived between Northampton and Rugby but the nearby town was expanding rapidly so our once seperate village became over-run with new urban houses and teh light pollution they broughtto our southeast, east and northwest. That is part of the reason I moved. I'm sure you will find plenty of inspitration on here and help on how to get more out of your kit too. Tony

Happy to stand corrected by Elp - his work is way better than anything I have achieved so far and now I have moved from DSLRs to dedicatwed Astro Cameras - much more expensive!

Hello you two and welcome, My journey was to buy a 200mm Dobsonian through which I could "see" planets as small as Saturn, The Moon and some constellation details (Orion's Belt and sword). I wanted to see more so I went up to a 250mm Dob with Alt / Az controls. This was simply too big to be considered portable and isn't much use in high Bortle sites like a city for deep sky objects. I still have it but haven't used it in years. I bought the SkyWatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro wifi star tracker bundle and this was good to track stars and take exposures up to 2 minutes long but this is not an EQ mount so it doesn't track accurately enough for 3-5 minute exposures that you will need to image DSOs. Can I suggest that you "learn to walk before you can run"? The 150 / 750 table-top Dob is a very good starting point. What you will see is dependant upon the range of eye-pieces you get. It comes with a 10mm and a 25mm Plossi eye-pieces and you can see the inner planets, The Moon, Jupiter and Saturn quite easily with them. A Barlow magnifies the image but also means the target moves across your view faster - a 2x barlow results in twice as fast, a 3x Barlow will be 3x as fast. To photograph anything will require a lens adaptor assembly to convert the camera body to fit in the telescope's focuser. I was able to do some reasonable images with a Nikon D5000, a D5300 and a D7200, all of which are available second hand. Hope that helps, Tony

Welcome and enjoy!

Yes Elp, I will only buy a prime lens for Astro to go alongside my SY 14mm f/2.8 although for the shoot I imagine / hope for around the end of October, the 85mm f/1.4 SY produces the FOV I want. At a wide-open f/1.4, I can stop down a bit if I want too. Those two lenses will have cost me around what I paid for my 80mm ED f/6.25 refractor - which is really a tool for different purposes, mounted on the AM3 with an ASi585 camera. Tony

I live in what is called a "One and a half storey" house. The pitch of my roof is a tad under 40º so the panels would not be at optimum capturing angle (51º) and there are trees growing to the southeast of the house The amount of my roof that faces south and isn't obstructed by bits sticking out (creating shadows from sunrise to sunset) is not sufficient to mount more than 8 panels. Our electrical supply to this village is already strained by a 20% increase in the number of houses over the past 7 years, and that is before any consideration to the number of electric and PHEV vehicles in the village that require charging. We therefore have frequent power dips and even blackouts as it is. I have been considering the purchase of a 5Kw back-up diesel generator as we are so reliant upon electricity these days and that may get worse if national policy is to cut gas-powered electrical generation whilst our nuclear plants exceed their lifespans whilst relying on sub-sea cables from around Europe (what happens when they don't have spare capacity?). I am also very averse to a Smart Meter - I actually know (not hearsay) instances of co**-ups by energy suppliers that caused stress and in some cases financial loss to people with these dastardly things. We have all been charged a premium on our bills for years to cover the roll out of smart meters yet there are still many that are ineffective and must be replaced if you move your electricity / gas provider - what a state con that is/was! My diesel car is comfortable, practical and runs very well - and probably will for another 125,000 miles (more than I will ever drive) so I don't see a need to replace it. Having had a raw nerve exposed, I shall now crawl back into my candle-lit cave and await a clear night sky 🤣.

Thanks Elp, If imaging against a narrower background landscape, I'm thinking that perhaps the Samyang 85mm or 135mm lenses are probably a good choice to sit on my Nikon Z6ii. I'm more than happy with my Samyang 14mm f/2.8 MF for wider field astro work but am considering how best to shoot Comet C/2023 A3 against some coastal chalk stacks later next month. This month's Lunar Eclipse will be best shot at 70mm from my chosen location to capture the event with an old water tower in the foreground. Unfortunately my 70mm lens only opens to f/4.

But of course you will not be able to travel to any dark skies locations as your (mandatory) electric vehicle will have to be plugged in tp feed the grid! 🤣 🤣

Of course we should be patient regarding light pollution - with the rush to solar energy (only powering us half the day), wind (anticyclones and depressions sit over the UK quite often) and an aging National Grid that cannot cope with the intermittant supplies from those sources, the lights will be going out all over the place. Make sure you keep your lithium power packs fully charged! 🤣

I wonder if Dunstable Down would be good, probably nearer you than me. It has an elevated position (O/S Ref005185) with potentially better views from SW to WNW. A site that I want to try is at Little Paxton, to the north of St Neots (O/S Ref 635195). This is an RSPB nature reserve where the car park remains open through the night and was recommended by a bird photographer that we were talking to in the Rye Meads RSPB site. It has good views between NW and NE and is Bortle 4 I think. There are three good sites to the west (2) and to the northwest of Grafham Water but a fair schlep for either of us. HTH Tony

Welcome Incognitos - glad to hear of another one returning to the astro fold but MK is not an ideal area for observing, its pollution is even detectable where I am in NW Herts. I too have a raft of older "stuff" that hardly ever gets looked at now that I have a ZWO Asi-based rig. In my case that is an ASi-Air Mini, an 80mmED f/6.25 refractor on an AM3 mount, an ASi 585MC (with ZWO EAF) and 120MM cameras. I can concur that it is easy to get buried in software processing stacks etc. but I think that what we can achieve now is amazing.

That is really something Brian. I'm just starting on a similar path with the StellaMyra 80mm ED f/6.25, an ASi585MC camera and the AM3 mount. I am trying to get to grips with the APP software because I'm a Mac person and, if I can get anywhere near your beautiful image without filters / filter wheel, I'd be flabbergasted (or words to that effect)! Tony PS - I bet those images weren't taken in downtown Northampton either!

Hello TwoManyTrees and welcome. I was another whose interest in astronomy was rekindled recently having dabbled earlier. Those "dabblings" included navigating the world's oceans 50 yerars ago using a sextant to fix dawn and dusk positions when in the Merchant Navy. A more recent period of interest was curtailed by medical issues and now I've got back into it - and the significant amount of my savings that seem inevitably to head in the direction of this site's sponsor 😂. The advances in imaging and processing over the last few years are mind-blowing (well, at least to me). Clear skies and keep posting, Tony

How easy is the conversion to Rowan Belt Drive to do? I have the HEQ5-Pro but it is geared rather than belt-driven. I amm rteasionably handy and have a wide assortment of hand tools. Tony

Hope this info is of use to your Roger - I may get clear skies tonight so could be taking lots of kit outside???

Hi Roger, I couldn't afford (in my wife's view) two cameras so I sold the D7200 (wish I hadn't now) and gradualy changed my lenses from the F-Mount cropped sensor sizes to full frame as needed on the Z6ii. The SW Star Adventurer 2i-Pro is a good mount if you just want to track with a camera but it is NOT an Equatorial mount, unlilke the GTi I think. I managed decent 30s exposures with no star trailing but to get better, I chose the ZWO route rather than buying cheaper and wanting to upgrade later. Certainly a trip to The Canaries (if locals let you in) sounds good and the SW SA GTi wouldn't take too much of your baggage allowance. I'm off to the Isle Of Wight later in October and I know I can get down to Bortle 4 on the southwest side of the island. I'm hoping to grab some images of the next comet then too. Tony

Welcome Roger. West Sussex I think has some decent Astro locations I believe, certainly more than Hertfordshire offers. Your journey sounds rather like mine although I started with observing (6" Dob -> 10" Dob -> 6"Newtonian on an HEQ5-Pro mount rather than imaging before a bout of Big-C got in the way. After that, I am determined to make the most of every opportunity so I went with a Star Watcher Star Adventurer 2i-Pro on which I mounted un-modified Nikon 7200 and Z6ii cameras with Samyang 14mm f/2.8 and Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 lenses. The results from those raised my interest further and set new challenges. Now an ASi bundle including mount, focuser, guide and main cameras and have increased FLO's profits significantly - I'm sure I am / we are not alone in that 😂. Tony

Suggesting that local bureaucracy should be increased to address light pollution is an anathema to me because Councils, Councillors and their employees are people living in a rarified environment, dreaming of how extend their little empires, impliment another layer of control on the residents / businesses who believe that these people / companies will continue to pay even more to support schemes - many of which are hair-brained in the first place! We also live in an age where residents will form a vociferous body to oppose any reduction in street lighting levels or operating times on the basis of "security" which could and perhaps should be resolved through more effective policing and a justice system that offers real deterrents. In order to trim our costs, our local council (and I was part of this) wanted to cut the street lighting between 01:00 and 05:00, saving significantly on the energy bills even after installing the necessary timers. A few (and it could be measured in 10's rather than hundreds) started a campaign bombarding the council leader, their local councillors and even their MP with their opposition - arguing that women and children walking the streets after 01:00 wouldn't be safe. Having had a decade of involvement at local and county council levels, I think I can speak with reality (the example above) born of experience. Tony

Excelent set of questions Chris and I will be interested to see what the learned body of SG reply as it will be informative for my bundle too - even if that has an ASi533MC-Pro rather than my ASi585MC (not pro) camera. Thanks for asking and hope we both get some more frequent clear sky nights! Tony