Sp@ce_d

Hi Been a while since I posted an image here. Life's had a few spanners thrown in the works last few years but now I'm (hopefully) committed to this imaging season. Feels like it's been so long, trying to remember how to process. This is a quick preprocess in Pixinsight.. lights, flats.. no bias/darks, a play in Startools and a quick finish back in PI. RC8, 314L+, Astrodon 5nm Ha

Yup, customer care is the key factor. I’ll exhaust all avenues & make compromises to be able to deal with my trusted retailers. It’s a symbiotic relationship after all in these niche markets. Always pays to do a bit of research and ultimately you should be prepared for worst case scenario of writing it off if you still want to go down the unknown retailer/new kit route! The old “Workman and his tools” saying is so true.. some who seem they could produce an APOD out of just about anything! Not me for sure... I seem to need more investment in my processing skills than my equipment. So, back to the scope in question. I’ve not found many images taken with it. Only really by one person in Canada’s link on CN to Astrobin & I tracked down their flicker Account for some more. They all look good (his other photography is well worth checking) but it’s only the one scope so no chance to compare consistency. Anyway, I may have tracked down an Esprit this side of Xmas fingers crossed 🙂

Aha.. you read my mind.. I added that to mine

Just when I thought I'd give my 8"RC a rest from it's 5 year tour of duty & go for an Esprit 150 they go and do this!.. That 10" looks sooo tempting! I've been very pleased (well its been on the mount on auto for 5 years!) with my 8" carbon Altair version. My only concern would be the focusser. Hard to tell from the pics, but they do have the same look. Hopefully these ones are all metal. Mine (Altair) wasn't very good at holding a FW OAG and a 314L+.. it eventually split as the bottom piece was partly plastic. The nice folk at FLO got me a Moonlite & motor which I totally recommend. Looks like the size needs updating for the 10" as its saying 2" at the top 3.25" at bottom.. another typo there FLO. Any option to have these bench check'd & tested?

😱... nooo.. this brings back memories.. I practically wasted a whole season trying to use mine for imaging years ago. I could never get it in.. I tried all sorts.. bobs knobs.. even got an advanced CT laser.. CCD inspector. Anyway gave up & got the RC.. around the time you did the Vids for yours!.. night & day!. So, I left it for a year or 2 & one night spur of the moment decided to do some observing to show friends.. well I amazed my self.. must have been well under 10 mins on a star with an eyepiece!

Yes the HEQ5 is a nice mount.. had one for years. I find my NEQ6 too heavy now to cart about. Of course it does depend what you are putting on the mount that will need to be considered with load capacity. The HEQ5 is recommended max 11kg for imaging.

Thanks.. it's consistency of quality I'm fussy about.. (had a few WO scopes some were great, some fell to bits!) I want a frac that I can just put on the mount that works and stays that way. The dual ED intrigued me but I don't want to mess about with something that turns up needing adjustment. Otherwise I wouldn't be thinking of taking the RC of the mount after it's 5 year tour of duty! Cooling, ie. air spaced or oil spaced I don't think bothers me as it will live in the obsy. There doesn't seem to be many images about & as far as I can tell this was announced in 2018. The Esprit 150 is proven.. my 2 80's I love.. guess it's why there's none in the shops 🤣 But this sounds quite tempting with the lure of f4.8 with reducer & a decent image circle if I sell a kidney for a full frame 😆

Hi Just wondering if there's any experience here of these scopes? I had my eye on an Esprit 150 but looking at everyones stocks it seems I've (literally) missed the boat on probably getting hold of one this year. So far I've seen one thread on here when they were announced & a few threads on Cloudy Nights. https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p11814_TS-Optics-Photoline-140-mm-f-6-5-Super-Triplet-Apo-with-2-ED-elements.html

Oh Brilliant.. didn't know about this.. thanks for the heads up. I'm just getting back into processing again having been fighting with life's "distraction techniques" for the last couple of years or so.. . I updated to the latest Pixinsight the other day and stared blankly at it trying to remember the name of the STF tool 🙄... so you can see how much I've forgotten!! Last physical book I got was Lessons from the Masters and while I do love the smell & feel of a good book I simply have no more room to pile them up.. as my Wife reminds me every time she knocks into one of the piles as she navigates her way into my study.. so digital version ordered & multiple large screens it has to be.

Registar is really good at what it does but for me once I’d got into Pixinsight I found I didn’t need to use it. That’s some 7 or 8 years ago since I last used it but I’ve not been mixing scopes for a while. I used it when I had a dual & triple shooter going between 60 & 80mm so not too wild and Pixinsight handled it fine. I hear Astro Pixel Processor is also good at this. I guess it depends on how much difference you’ll have between scopes & if mosaics are involved. Registar does one thing and very well whereas Pixinsight is a pretty big toolbox that will do everything start to finish. After 7/8 years I’ve only scratched the surface really. They are all different in workflow & interface & I’ve been evaluating APP recently (But not for mixed registration) but it’s actually sent me back digging deeper into Pixinsight.. which I wasn’t expecting .. maybe I’m just getting too old to learn yet another workflow interface 🧐 Most of these have trials I think so worth seeing how they suit you.

Is it registar? https://aurigaimaging.com I haven’t used it for ages as pixinsight works for me On the Mac but it does a great job

This is true... however there’s two things to consider, aperture and time. Ideally we want both, but if we can only have one, which one ? Not quite the same as a light bucket but I tried going dual and even triple frac shooting, even with a permanent setup that required too much messing about and no sleep. So l started looking at it from the other end... time. l automated the obsy and was quite surprised how many gaps in the clouds there can be while I’m actually getting some sleep and it adds up. Certainly in my case to a situation where finding time to process the stuff is more of an issue 🤣

Well.. that's the thing.. I got to a "stable" config at v6.11 & never updated "if it ain't broke". So, the guiding on a bad pixel thing I never had issues with.. did some darks & fed it them. I did see guide star lost on a few occasions.. very few & ACP just worked through it.. resetting/restarting as ACP controls the guiding. If if did give up it just moved on to another target, so I never lost out but that's ACP dealing with it. I use an OAG so multi star guiding didn't really cut it anyway.. hard enough finding one sometimes! I never had the repetitive issues others reported but I never really used Maxim on its own so maybe ACP masked a lot of that. They say its all in the past anyway. I'm looking at having to upgrade it if I want to upgrade ACP as the latest version doesn't work with mine... so it better work! There seems to be talk of it finally supporting multi imagers/scopes (master/slave) in the pipeline too which I believe could be supported with ACP. As an aside, I'm intrigued with Voyager but as far as I can make out it doesn't have a Scheduler which is the real strength of running ACP.

Yes.. Maxim (v5 & 6) has worked fine for me even with the guiding issues they went through a while back, ACP was robust enough to recover most of the time.. surprisingly. For those not aware.. ACP uses MaximDL for capture. So if you go ACP route you also need MaximDL 💰

I must have tried nearly all. I went with SGP for a while because of the promise of dual scope support but it never materialised. Trying to maximise the rare UK clear skies I got very frustrated trying to use a dual rig & then a triple at one point with different software. I'm lucky enough to have built my own obsy and it was the much missed Per who in the end persuaded me that ACP was the way to go.. eye watering yes, but then so are Astrodons & Chromas!! I had discounted it before because it only supports one scope at a time but the thing is once I got the hang of it.. & yes it may be "just a bunch of scripts" .. it made such a difference.. far out performing managing a triple shooter all night with no sleep for sky time!. So I fully automated the Obsy. I can go to bed with a cloud filled sky.. wake up to a cloud filled sky .. but checking the catch in the morning it's been opening up grabbing subs, closing with bad weather & then opening.. etc. For the UK's weather its ideal to grab those rare gaps. The scheduler will keep it going for months.. years even. I've literally not had the need to go into the obsy for months at a time. In fact, I still have data going back a few years now that I just haven't got around to processing! So yeah, I'd have probably given up through lack of sleep alone if I hadn't gone down the automation route with ACP.

I think it was Kirkster ?.. did some videos a few years back.. I also added one of these to mine.. https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p4272_TS-Optics-M90-Tilting-Adapter-Flange-for-astrophotography.html

+1 for the RC8.. I pretty much wasted a whole season messing about with a SCT. My RC is the same as the carbon one you linked to. Got mine from Altair before they stopped doing them. I use it with an Astro Physics CCDT67 0.67 reducer. The stock focuser split and fell to bits early on as partly plastic & not really up to the job of hanging much off it. I replaced with a Moonlite & motor. It will have been on the mount (EQ8) for 5 years next month! I keep thinking of replacing with a large frac just to simplify life even more as I'd like to improve on stars & contrast but having said that.. glad to have anything under UK skies!.. it's mostly operated unattended via ACP

On paper these have looked enticing but even with a permanent setup as you have, I was put off with the sheer size and flex worries with fast optics. Even in a ROR I’d be worried about gusts catching it. I guess if you have the time to invest in it & enough clear nights it can be rewarding. In the UK you know how that one goes 😏 For me I wasted enough time trying to image with the C9.25 to learn that lesson. I’m even thinking of going from the RC to a similar FL frac to simplify. So I guess the answer is probably that.. it needs patience & high maintenance. Considering my hard won subs are mostly grabbed while I sleep by ACP opening & closing the obsy several times a night, it is probably considered too high maintenance for most automated imagers at least.

Hi and welcome to the forum. The mount is the foundation of an AP setup. More important than the scope! You never want to push it to it’s weight limit really either. As a general rule with AP the majority of your budget should go towards the mount. Personally I wouldn’t be considering anything less restrictive than an Heq5 Pro really. Yes there are lighter travel setups but you may find it frustrating working at tighter tolerances if you are starting out with little experience. You haven’t indicated the type of targets and I’m assuming DSO rather than lunar/planetary. The other thing you mentioned is guiding. You will very quickly realise that at over 400 focal length without guiding you are very very limited to exposure length & that will quickly frustrate you too. So, let’s work on the type of targets you want to go for and an idea of the budget so we can get you off in the right direction.

Are you going to use it for imaging? I've had my EQ8 Pro in the Obsy since 2014.. never use the freedom find encoders.. ok not comparable to the Renishaw. The point is, if imaging with it then once the balance is sorted for the offset motors & encoders are disabled, then it guides fine. The new ones have re positioned motors so I'd hope they're easier to balance. Personally if I were looking to change it & I was looking at the load capacity & a 6 grand budget... for Obsy based.. I'd be looking at the Mesu. I can't see what the extra 2 plus grand would do for me. Probably why there's been very little discussion!

😮 Oh my!! That is really starting to look very very nice indeed. I love this.. I do like a good Ha monochrome but this is starting to leap out! I didn't expect you to come back straight away with such a teaser.. no way you can stop now!.. Is that with all Chroma 3nm filters?

Wow.. that's nice to see.. puts things into perspective.. well done for sticking at it.... You'll be looking forward to adding the colour then.. 🤣

Yeah it is possible.. I guess it depends if you are wanting to automate the imaging process or just checking each time you change filter.. temp fluctuations etc.. bahtinov mask would do you for manual perhaps? There's some interesting stuff going on here... Just for Canon lenses so far. https://astromechanics.org/ https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/astromechanics-ascom-aps-c-m42-to-canon-lens-controller-mark-ii.html and the Samyang 135 F2 thread is a great read If you've already got some nice lenses why not try them first anyway. You could rig up a motor & belt drive fairly cheaply.. less than investing in a scope.. to see if it suits you. https://www.motionco.co.uk/pulleys-belts-c-25.html There's a rather expensive pre cooked one for the Redcat here..(bearing in mind you also need the controller) but you get the idea.. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/focuser-controllers/starlight-instruments-redcat-electronic-focusing-system-si-rcef.html

NIce one!.. This is the classic target that got me into AP in the first place.. sadly I can't get to see it from my obsy

After trying a few hubs in the obsy I went over to Startech a few years ago. I've got a few.. 4, 7 & 10 port & they've been great.. very stable. I also use various Lindy active extensions. If you're not aware already, as its not really documented, if you are providing external power to the hub (and you really should) there's a jumper in the hub that allows you to select whether the power for the USB ports is passed through from the computer USB port or not. By default it is, however I disable this as I power the hubs with the obsy regulated & conditioned 13.8v supply. I've found this much more stable than relying on the dubious quality of the various computer ports I've used over the years. My obsy setup also allows me to remotely cycle individual hub's power. Having the USB pass through disabled this has the benefit of simulating unplugging & re plugging a cable should a connected device lockup or disappear, my EFW2 has had a habit of doing this & it's saved me a few journeys out to the obsy just to unplug and reset a cable!