morimarty

Just managed to capture both saturn & jupiters transit in the early hours monday 03-8-20. I was starting to pack away the scope when the clouds kindly parted. C11 Asi290 baader RGB filters.

Thats a lovely detailed image of saturn Craig. You have combined the IR to the colour data with just the right balance IMO. You can even make out the polar hex. Very Well Done.

Another cracking image Brendan beautifully processed. I'm currently trying to capture some Sll on this target.

Hi Alan I have a similar setup as you. Flt98 WO guide scope Atik 460ex and a AFR4 flattener/reducer not as much real estate as yours I know. But I had trouble getting the spacing correct to get a good flatfield, But when I did get it right it wasn't consistant as there was definitely some Flexure in the imaging train. It wasn't until I saw an old post article from Steppenwolf who by the way as a similar setup to us saying how he had tightend up all the little screws on the adjustable mechanism in the flattener/reducer to make sure its flex free. So I did the same and married it up to the flat4 adapter which has a 64mm thread and since then it as been brilliant. So if I was you I would certainly check out the movement of your WO68lll flattener. The Asi 6200 chip is massive so it will be asking quite alot from your flattener. The Flt98 as an image circle of 44mm. So you could get some vignetting. I think I would put the WO guide scope on top of the Flt and lighten the image train as much as possible and take short luminance subs say of 10 seconds to eradicate any guide issues and work from there. Once you get some consistancy you can start adding to the rig again. Hope you get it sorted I will look forward to seeing your images. here is my rig

I completely forgot about the Esprit. And have to say I would have one in a instant. I have seen hundreds of fantastic images taken through these scopes. I think in general all the imaging refractors of today are all very much on par with each other. Also Buzz I totally agree about the SW mirrors.

I have just seen the Hi Res image Brendan on Telescopius and it is absolutely amazing I could easily see abell 69 and the soap bubble. You have some cracking images under your belt Well Done.

Lots of detail on show in these images Peter. very well done.

I would go for the FLT98 or FLT110 if you dont want to pay Tak prices. The sharpness and colour correction of these scopes is very well known to be of excellent quality. They are also fast imagers F5 reduced. The latest FLT's have a 3.5" rotolock rack & pinion drawtube focuser the best WO have come up with to date, they really are excellent focusers. sadly if you want the FLT98 you will have to by second hand as I think they recently stopped making them. PS. mine is not for sale 🙂

I tell you what Simon, They are quite remarkable images of saturn considering the elevation. The detail in the IR is just Superb.

Hi Steve, I did mean to say well done on what you did manage to capture. I do love the C11's but even they cannot see through clouds🙂. Well at least your now set for that elusive window.

Three very nicely detailed planets you captured Well Done.

Thats a superb image Brendan, I know what you mean about seeing the crescent in the usual red/pink livery. Your pallette as really enhanced some fine detail in there, even the outer shell is visable which is usually more prominent in the standard Ha O3 rgb. I'm now going to pixel peep the hi res image in search of abell 69 and the soap bubble. Excellent work.

Typical isn't it, If it's any consolation the clouds have rolled in here too.

Your image looks very smooth to me, so I would'nt have thought you need more data although more data would never go amiss. The stars look nice and tight and very well controlled I'll look forward to seeing your full image.

What a great night, I saw the Comet for the first time and i'm still buzzing too. Your images have captured that night superbly.

I managed to capture 3hours of O3 data last night to go along with my 4hours Ha data I had collected at the start of the month. So I combined them to make a Bicolour image, just twiddled the saturation in CS6 to make to my eyes a rather pleasing pallette. I have not used any sharpening just star reduction and some smoothing. scope WO FLT98 camera Atik 460 mono filters Baader Ha 7.5nm OIII 8.5nm

Great image Ian, excellently processed. Lots of thought and effort have clearly gone into this image.

Wow just seen it for the first time, very impressive😊

Excellent Simon especially at such low elevation.

What a pair of cracking images Sime. love the natural processing very subtle. Did you use the ir685?

Hi kev Thanks for your reply, your findings are exactly the same as mine. I would love to know what thread size telescope express use on the orange upgrade counterweight shaft and collar they produce?

I'm currently in the process of making a new declination shaft counter weight collar for my neq6 mount. It's all due to suffering flexure having drilled and tapped out the original stock collar to take a 1 inch" counter weight shaft. So my problem is what is the thread size of the declination shaft threads? I know the o/d is 28.8mm and the i/d of the collar is 28.1mm and a pitch is 1.0 on a metric thread gauge. So I naturally assumed it to be M29 fine thread, but when I looked it up in a Zeus book there is no such thread size. So could this be a sky watcher only size, I know I could just reverse engineer the collar but having a standard thread size to work to would be nice. Telescope Express do a counter weight shaft and collar upgrade so what thread size do they use? if any sgl'ers out there no I would be most grateful.

What a great versatile scope the 120ed really is. Amazing detail in the first image in particular.

Great set of images Paul, lots of fine detail on show and very well processed too.

What a beautiful set of images Tom. They would grace any calander publication.