Tony Acorn

Thanks M40 and answering your questions, I am not thinking of a permanent garden pier as it would ony give me a rather limited arc of sky to observe - they build houses one on top of another round here 😪 and I can get around 75º arc between SSE and SW plus 60º arc between WNW and N from the best point but those do also have some significant light pollution due to street and garden lighting. I've been playing with the ASiAir Mini on my SW Star Adventurer and found it pretty good. The SW SA in itself is a pretty good starter for a portable tracking mount but I wanted more (funny how photography in general seems to come with Gear Acquisition Syndrome) and after finding the StellaMyra and guide scope to be at the very top of the SW SA's capacity, I spent yet more to finish up with the bundle in the picture. The AM3 arrived yesterday and it rained last night but I hope to get back home and out tonight to learn it's foibles. My HEQ5 has been gathering dust but I want to bring it back out in time for the Lunar Occultation 21st August although I'm sure my 150-PDS that is supposed to sit on that mount will need a good clean and re-collimating beforehand. I'm hopeful that event can be captured from my garden although I'm ready to travel to an alternative local site where I'm sure it will be - even if moving two rigs is going to be a right PITB. Tony

At last all the pieces of my puzzle seem to have come together with the AM3 mount arriving today. Of course it's cloudy outside now with rain forecast overnight but I need some time to learn how to use this lot.

I too bought a wireless programmable remote release but it was from Aodelan. It is really good as I can start and stop it without touching the camera or the tripod although I can only programme it to take up to 199 images where my older hard-wired Rollei would do 399! I hope you aren't intending putting a scope on that trripod though - I fear it would be too light to carry much more than a camera and lens, let alone a tracking mount. I'm hoping that I get the AM3 delivered tomorrow. Tony

I'm a satisfied user of the Samyang 14mm f/2.8 ultra-wide manual focus lenses. I had one for my Nikon D7200 and, based on my experiences with that one, I bought the same lens with a different mount for my Z6ii when I upgraded the camera. One point I would add for anyone using manual focus lenses is to buy a clamp (search for Zoom Focusing Follow Focus Handle Scale Lever with Gear Ring for Camera Lens on e-bay) and you can pick one up for a couple of quid. It makes fine manual focusing much easier when used in combination with your camera's display screen at maximum zoom. HTH

Hi RoryG and welcome - I would be very happy if I could demonstrate such great imaging and processing. Living in deepest, undarkest Hertfordshire, I have to travel 30-odd miles for even Bortle 4 skies but that doesn't put me off with my next target being The Lunart Occultation of Saturn early on 21st August - if only we got some clear sakies round here! Tony

I was in too much of a rush to add that variant to th eorder Stevie! I really ought to know by now 🤣

I should be able to tell you StevieDvd, I've just ordered one from our sponsors!

Welcome to a hobby that has a habit of causing GAS - or Gear Acquisition Syndrome - amongst its followers. I can concur with Woldsman's comments about a pre-owned DSLR camera and the Samyang / Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 manual focus lens as being a great and quite cheap starting point - it's how I returned to astronomy as it gives you a portable set-up that has other uses too. I went with a Nikon D7200 cropped sensor camera on a decent tripod and I know that the Nikon D5300 onwards and D7100 onwards all have built in intervalometers. I bought a separate intervalometer from Rollei as it can be programmed to run up to 399 exposures with the camera in Bulb mode so you set your ISO on the camera (ISO 800 or 1000 on the D7200 with that 14mm lens works pretty well) and the exposure duration to a maximum of 13 seconds to avoid star trails. Alternatively, if you actually want star trails, turn down the ISO and lengthen the exposure. There is a brilliant e-book by Royce Bair titled Milky Way Nightscapes that can take you from zero to intermediate MW shooter in no time! HTH Tony

Work / life balance is so important to your health. Now into my fourth quarter century, I find it amazing how many people seem to suffer from stress. In my working life, starting as a Marine Engineer, we worked 4 on, 8 off (if we were very lucky) 7 daya a week for up to 10 1/2 months at a time. When, towards the end of my career, I was working with German companies doing installations and commissioning systems around the world, 12 hour days 6 days a week were common-place. The UK has seen a continual decline in overall productivity and output for many years so I wonder just where all the effort people are expending is actually going? Something has clearly gone wrong. I do hope that you find peace and balance in Cork Emporer!Takahashi! and that it doesn't turn out to be another blind alley. At least you will have a cleaner environment than London (if Cork is still the city it was last time I was there). Congratulations and enjoy it. Tony

So various comments regarding AM3 vs HEM15 on this thread suggest there ain't that much in it. Could it be that the ZWO fans vs the iOptron fans are the difference? A near neighbour (and imaging friend) has an iOptron tracker with iPolar amd WO Wedge and is likely to upgrade to the HEM15 for a full GoTo with his new WO SpaceCat, ASi120mm guide-scope bundle and ASi585MC camera. We both started out using our star trackers for DSLR imaging and both set-ups are good enough for that. Of course once we got into imaging, we wanted to do more! I bought a StellaMyra 80mmED F/6.25 with ASiEAF and ASi5895MC camera plus a ASi120MM camera on a 50mm F/4 guide scope. This seems to be right at (maybe even above) the top end of the Star Adventurer's capacity with the counterweight installed as it seems somewhat wobbly. I am leaning towards the AM3, even if it is more expensive, because I have a Star Adventurer 2i which can't carry much load and the EQ Wedge in that setup seems to be the issue. I was considering going to the (cheaper) Star Adventurer GTi but would I be repeating the same errors in buying cheap and frequently? My carbon fibre tripod from 3-legged-thing is rated for 22Kg load so I'm not expecting that to be a problem. I am more concerned about not repeating purchasing errors. I need something that is portable, quick to set-up and easy use which will see plenty of use. Further house building around here is only going to produce yet more light pollution and we're at Bortle 5 already!

How have you got on with that rig Bargy? Q1 - I see that you have routed the power and data cables together, do you get any interference? Q2 - You have that all sitting on a carbon fibre tripod I believe, which one is it? I am assembling my equivalent at the momentm, not quite as expensive and I have the SW SA2i-Pro mount carrying a StellaMyra 80mmED f/6.25 main scope with ZWO EAF and ZWO ASi585MC (not pro) cameras with and without a 0.8 reducer / field flattener, and an AstroEssentials 50mm f/4 guide scope with ZWO ASi120MM guide camera. I have yet to get a really good focus with either camera and I am trying to picture objects 2 miles and 7 miles away against the skyline in daylight to find the best settings - even as a retiree, life seems to get in th eway of hobbies.

On a related topic regarding tidying cables, for years there has been a spiral wrapping product available in the electrical panel assembly business. You can find one version of it called Pliopspire on a supplier's website "SES(hyphen)STERLING dot com" and here is the data sheet for their four variants. Once applied, you can create a tree trunk with branches to suit the location of each terminal. It is reasonably flexible but I've never tried using it outdoors on winter nights. It is relatively easy to apply but you need to take care not to strain the original connectors when bundling the cables together. I would suggest using a few disposable cable tyes initially to determine where the branches join and exit then wrap your bundle without any cable being plugged into a socket. Do this in a warm environment to make the process easier. I've just bought some to tidy up my (so-called) portable rig that includes two ZWO cameras, a StarAdventurer 2i Pro mount, two dew heaters, a ZWO EAF and a ZWO ASi-Mini. Unfortunately it isn't available in short lengths of say 2-3M so a fellow local astro-nut and I have something of a surfeit! Pliospire.pdf

That one is for my Dob. I did another triangular version for my HEQ5-PRO tripod but I made sure the castors were at the contact points for the tripod legs and the jacking screws are inside that circle. Those were both made out of some 12mm plywood I had knocking around but I think you would be better with the 18mm for greater stability and strength. If your EQ platform is heavy, think about using 12mm rather than 10mm eye-bolts. BTW - I always dismount the OTAs before moving to avoid vibrating them out of collimation, our driveway and back yard have a mixture of cobbles and rustic slabs.

Hi Shashwat and welcome. Yes, this is a fascinating hobby BUT you can easily buy "stuff" that doesn't really do what you want it to - as others have already posted. I hope you are in, or have access to, an area with limited light pollution as most cities tend to be something of a problem. Binoculars are very good in dark sky areas whereas they won't reveal that much when used in cities but if you buy a pair, don't go for anything too powerful and look for something that can be steadied on a tripod or similar.

I'll do that for you tomorrow. And here they are: edge view shows the castors and the dome nuts I put on the bottom of the eye bolts to protect the threads underside shows the castors and the eye bolts offset by 60 degrees topside shows the castors bolted from the underside upwards With the disc diameter being 10cm larger than the Dob's frame base diameter, the eye bolts are accessible and quite adjustable. HTH Tony

Enjoy the holiday Kon, I was thinking of using my ASi585MC on the 80mm ED f/6.25 refractor with the ASi120MM attached to a 50mm f/4 guide scope to guide that - it all sits on a Star Adventurer on a Manfrotto 055 tripod and is certainly "carryable". I could use the 254 Dob with my Nikon camera to take videos even though it is a big bundle to move around to get a clear sight of the occultation. I hadn't thought about that so cheers for that suggestion too. A bonus for me is that, if successful, it might help sell that 'scope later.

Those are lovely images Kon - well done! Did you take a series of images and stack them to create a composite or are they individual shots? I'm just starting on imaging and. although I have a flex-tube 254mm Dob (somewhat cumbersome) and a 150mm reflector (nice but a bit heavy and not that mobile with its HEQ-5 Pro GoTo mount), my latest toy is an 80mm refractor with guide scope and a 585MC un-cooled camera that I hope to be knowledgeable enough to capture the August occultation of this planet by The Moon. Tony

I'm getting old (and crotchety, grumpy and a few other adjectives I'll admit) so moving my 254mm SkyWatcher Flex-tube has become a pain in the posterior. It therefore doesn't get anywhere near the use I expected to give it when I bought it. Consequently I made my own levelling arrangement for it comprising: 2 off 650mm dia x 18mm plywood circles, each marked at 60deg. 3 off 50mm furniture casters with rubber wheels and ball swivels, 12 off M6 x 30mm set bolts, nuts and washers. 3 off 10mm dia x 100mm threaded length eye-bolts each with an M10 nut. On the lower disc, I drilled three 15mm diameter holes just 8mm into the disc at 120deg from each other. I then drilled through those indentations with a 10mm drill and also drilled through the upper disc - which I had screwed onto the lower disc. I separated the two discs and then put a 10mm bolt with a washer and M10 nut on it through the lower disc from the underside (the 10mm hole side). I added a second 10mm nut onto the bolt over the 15mm hole and then tightened the washer-fitted side whilst holding the nut over the 15mm hole steady. This resulted in the nut being pulled into the 15mm and made captive by the plywood. I then clamped the two discs together after running the eye-bolts from the top side down through the captive nuts to keep them aligned. I screwed these discs together quiet close to the eye-bolt holes using 4mm diameter x 35mm long csk woodscrews. This kept the upper disc aligned and held each captive nut in its hexagonal hole. I then fitted the three castor wheels at 120deg intervals with M6 through set bolts. A coat of wood primer then two coats of exterior gloss finished the job but do avoid getting paint in the srew holes or on the eye-bolts - that's easier than trying to clean everything after. This made a trolley that allows easy movement of the Dob and it can be levelled by adjusting the three eye-bolts to raise the trolley wheels above the ground. I use two 200mm spirit levels in two directions on the Dob's base to achieve a fully level position, ideally done alongside polar alignment if you have an automated Alt-Az Dob. After use and when moving the trolley, raise the eye-bolts well up to avoid damaging your door sills and weather sealing strips (don't ask 😂).

Welcome Antonino and, like others here, I also think that Florence is a beautiful city. I hope that you find everything you need to inspire you but be aware that all this inspiration comes at some cost. You will become infected by an illness we call GAS - this stands for Gear Acquisition Syndrone 🤣 which can mean your wife has to go without some of that lovely (and expensive) stylish Italian fashion in order to pay for all the new Astro equipment that fellow Star Gazers will talk about. Tony

That might be an idea for the Occultation of Saturn on 21st August!

That's been really useful for me Lee - many thanks for sharing. I have just about got all my toys together now: StellaMyra 80ED f/6.25, ASi585MC main camera, AstroEssentials 50mm f/4 guide scope with ASi120MM guide camera and managed by an ASiAir-Mini, all sitting on a SW StarAdventurer 2i wifi Pro mount. It seems I'm a little short of counterweights but I won't be playing with this until after 25th so hoping for some clear skies then.

Lovely and very inspirational - I'm going to be down on The Lizard in late September and I'm hoping for some clear skies and maybe a comet?

The histogram is a very useful indicator when doing any processing - but of course there are times when I forget to look at it 😂

Thanks again Kon - I didn't know anything about, or the existance of, Crossover until you mentioned it.

Thanks Elp, I have licenses for Adobe's Photoshop and Lightroom (both versions) and Topaz PhotoAI and would say I'm moderately comfortable in Lightroom and Topaz but not so in Photoshop. I fear it is too easy to over-process images and then lose what was actually captured. I also own StarrySkyStacker and StarryLandscapeStacker that I bought for MW processing. All those programmes run without issues on my Macs. As you say, photo editing is wider than just astro but I was thinking that there are programmes more specific to astro work when I raised the initial post. Now to investigate what Siril can do....