Starflyer

The black thumbscrews are for collimating, the threaded studs next to them is for locking. My brother had a similar experience to you, a brand new reflector arrived with a screw loose in the tube that had obviously scratched the mirror in transport. It took a few emails / phone calls to get OO to agree it wasn't right and to take it back, when it was delivered again, took a few weeks, they said they'd found no problems even though it was clear they'd either swapped the mirror or recoated it. My £0.02, get them to fix it, I'm sure you paid a lot for your new scope, if it isn't right keep insisting they fix it.

Your welcome Ali, let us know how you get on with the rebuild.

Is that bearing all the way in, it looks high in the casting to me? Maybe a tiny piece of swarf or other muck underneath it. They're designed to need some shim, I've stripped and rebuilt a few and I've never seen or heard of one not needing a shim. If it were me I'd pull that bearing out, check underneath it for crud / damage in the journal, if all looks good measure the bearing thickness against the old one.

Just my £0.02 I stopped using a separate guidescope over ten years ago after a couple of years of fighting differential flexure and not being able to get round stars on either my newt or small frac. They're simple to setup in the daytime or at night pointed at the moon, yes you may need a slightly more sensitive camera, but the benefits to me far outweigh an hour of one-time setup time. Loads of people have no problem with a separate guidescope on a frac but I never cracked it and always had oblong stars to some degree. My camera, filterwheel and OAG are always stored bolted together, I just swap out a coma corrector for a flatenner to use it between my scopes, so beyond the initial set up there's zero time spent setting up the OAG each session. I've never had problems finding a guidestar, PHD2 multi-star often guides on a good selection of stars.

I'm looking to reduce cable clutter and set up time, and have decided on one of these, but which one. I'm hopefully moving towards full automation later in the year with a mini pc and one of these gizmos. I already have the mini pc and am a long term user of SGpro, I also have N.I.N.A and Voyager installed but I've not used them in anger yet. I'm after real use case advice, has anyone used either with any of the software above? I feel I'll end up using voyager as it seems to offer the most with regard to automation and fine tuning, but I hear that N.I.N.A is becoming more competent all the time. I'll be running a CEM60 EC, QHY268M, FW, OAG, Lakeside focuser and a dew tape or two. It's possible that it'll become a duel scope setup in the future. I know the Pegasus unit has a USB3 hub Vs the USB2 of the HitecAstro and this is pushing me towards the Pegasus. Are there any other pros and cons of either I should consider, any sign of a HitecAstro v5 with a USB3 hub? Cheers, Ian

Are you getting them in all channels, I'm not near my PC at the moment so can't split the image. Do you have your filters fitted the right way round? What make are they? Hold a pencil above the filter. One side will show a single reflection, the other a double, the double reflection side should be towards the camera. If this is the way you have them fitted try flipping them over.

You could pick up a good, used HEQ5 for around £450 a couple of years ago, how things have changed.

I recently bought a Mele Q2 fanless mini PC, it's tiny, relatively powerful and runs off 12v. It gives me flexibility to use whatever make of gear I want and runs N.I.N.A / Voyager seamlessly. I moved to a QHY camera a year ago and their dedicated FW just works and I have fewer cables to worry about. The camera bolts on to the FW rather than using a dovetail type adapter so there's no tilt. A new mono camera and all the associated gubbins is a big investment, if it were me I'd rather have the better build quality, less chance of tilt from an adapter, the flexibility of not being tied to one brand of cameras and fewer cables to go wrong than a slight advantage of an easier learning curve initially. I've bought a fair bit off Bernard at Modern Astronomy over the years, he's an extremely knowledgeable chap and one of the good guys, I'd rate him up there with FLO.

Okay I found it, it's 62 x 88, probably the 63 x 89mm on OO's site. It's in not as good condition as I remember, or perhaps the coating has degraded somewhat while in a drawer. The coating isn't terrible but I can see quite a few small patches of light through it from the back when I hold it up to a window. Not as good as I made out but you're welcome to it if it'll help. Do you have accidental damage cover on your house insurance? Maybe better to claim to replace the whole scope?

This is a heartbreaking read 🙁 I have a secondary in my parts box, it's from an OO VX10 that I swapped for a bigger one, it's been a while but I think it's a similar size and was in decent condition. I'll dig it out tomorrow and measure it for you, if you want it it's yours. Ian

I've used both SKF and skate bearings in the past, the skate bearings perform better, look for ABEC 7 or 9, something like this will be super smooth.

Use a fanless mini-pc bolted on top of the OTA and use remote access. Shorter USB cables, no flaky USB hub, much reduced cable drag or snag risk.

Isn't the skywatcher flattener/reducer threaded to takes filters on the end that goes into the focuser?

I don't wish to hijack the thread but I was looking at one of these today, I'd prefer a fanless mini PC over the Beelink for example. The USB C power concerns me as I'd want it mounted on top of my scope with no other cabling apart from a single 12v feed and single USB cable going through the mount. Is there any way of powering one of these from 12v? I've seen bulky, relatively expensive, 12v to USB C laptop adapters, is there anything lighter, cheaper, more elegant, for powering these? Cheers Ian

I don't know the mount but are you using EQMOD as the ASCOM driver? I know with SGP and EQMOD there should be no pointing model and sync in EQMOD should be set to Dialogue Based otherwise plate solving will fight with the pointing model, you get all sorts of odd results and the mount will never centre successfully. I guess NINA's centering functions in much the same way. I'd clear out any pointing model, check your location, time and timezone in all places. With this done, a decent polar alignment and a decent zero position your first go-to should be close and plate solve / centre should work as expected.

These are due out later in the month and if they perform as well as the listing on @FLO shop they'll be a strong competitor to Chroma / AD filters. The only image posted is from their OIII filter and looks to be halo free. I'm tempted to buy a set but I'm worried there aren't more of Optolong's test images anywhere, or maybe I just can't find them. Optolong say they've carried out extensive testing, yet there's just one example image, has anyone seen more, different camera / scope combination images and also images from the Ha and SII filters? The OIII example image is from an f/2 scope, does this mean they're only suitable for / optimised for, super fast scopes? The technical info so far is sketchy yet they're on preorder already. Thanks, Ian

Could it be the OAG casting a shadow, or perhaps a light leak? That's a fair old gradient with what are very similar cameras.

There's definitely a gradient on the Risingcam stack, were both stacks fully callibrated?

The images say it all, those aren't particularly bright stars but the halos are worse than I get with my old style Baader OIII filter.

Anderson Powerpoles are used in amateur radio, they're rugged and ultra reliable, although not the cheapest. I haven't had a power glitch in over 10 years of using them for astro imaging. WINDCAMP AP-8 8 Port 40A Connector Power Splitter Distributor Source Strip 8 Output

I ran power to my pier from a leisure battery that was charged with solar panels in my shed. The run was 7 or 8m and I went with 4mm armoured, buried under the lawn, I was getting a drop of 0.1 to 0.2v and never had a problem powering similar kit to yours. Armoured cable into a small plastic box and that feeding an Anderson Powerpole distribution block. Over engineer it and whack a big cable in there 😁

1mm to 2.5mm filter thickness will give you problems, I'd suggest moving to a 2mm UV/IR filter and setting the OAG focus half way between the two. I had this with the difference between an IDAS LP filter and my Baader filters and focusing the OAG between the two solved the problem. It's not perfect, but good enough, I have no idea why IDAS chose a 2.5 mm substrate 😶

I lived in Hitchin until seven years ago and was a member of LDAS, as Malc says they're a friendly and helpful bunch of people.

@prusling and anyone else having centering issues with SGP and EQMOD, have you followed this page? https://help.sequencegeneratorpro.com/UsingEQMODwithSGPro.html Ignore the version requirements, the important section is to set the sync to Dialogue Based and to clear out any existing pointing model. Any pointing model will fight with SGP's centering and will result in the symptoms you see.

If I blink I miss ASTAP solve, should solve (😜) your issues Martin.