Starflyer

Next step is to have your capture software running all the time, looking for a safe condition; darkness, clear sky, no rain etc. It then opens your roof, slews, focuses, plate solves and starts imaging for you

My experience of the skywatcher dual speed focusers isn't great, maybe good enough for visual but they have a lot of slop / sag in the drawtube. Moonlite Crayfords are again okay for visual, but repeatability when autofocusing just isn't good enough, they slip. Baader Steeltrack are cracking focusers, I'd rather drill new mounting holes than have to make do with a mediocre focuser that fits the existing holes.

The section on the right is typical of backlash. Set some backlash compensation, say 300 steps and test again.

Thanks for the very in-depth reply. I was planning to use the existing holes, I prefer the spikes at 45° to horizontal anyway. You seem to have it very nearly dialled in, I'd be happy with that. I've seen CNC machined spiders and thought about one of these but can't find one to fit the CT10. Zero adjustment, so it should be exactly centered, but if you need to adjust you're out of luck. Thanks again, Ian

Did you ever get the spikes tighter / to single spikes? I'm considering getting one of these for my CT10.

Hang for no apparent reason except you looked at the screen the wrong way. Sorry, couldn't resist

They were very good in their day, and I used to recommend them as a step up from a DSLR. You can pick up a used 294MC Pro for a bit more (~ £750) and it'll perform far better; less noise and better sensitivity. They also come up quite regularly secondhand as people upgrade to bigger sensors, that's where my money would go if I were upgrading from a DSLR.

All of the above, plus the hand controller kinda sucks, it's like entering commands on a Spectrum ZX81.

Your shiny new PC will depreciate far more than the £120 a year that PS costs, but if you have to upgrade anyway that's a moot point. I too am apposed to subscription software but I pay for PS because I see it as great value for money. Before the subscription model PS cost ~ £600 to buy, sure you owned the software back then but that was a huge outlay and no version updates unless you paid for them, what we have access to now is a bargain IMO.

The ASCOM drivers work fine for me in Win10 and SGP, have done for years.

Now sold, thank you Rob.

Still available

I moved to an FTDI based adapter, zero problems since.

I gave up trying to keep my prolific adapter working, I'd apply the the fix and then a Windows update would break it again at some point in the future.

Is this true for reflectors with a coma corrector?