OK Apricot

For me it would have to be the kit I have already, I couldn't go any larger without it being permanent - EQ6-R and 250P Quattro. All in all it weighs in the region of 65kg, and I have to lug that from our small 1 bed bungalow out the door, down a step up and step, then up a few more steps then twisting at the hips for a hard right onto the Astro Podium. Perhaps a simple enough task for a relatively fit and strong 31yr old, the bulging L5-S1 however......

Forgot about this thread until quoted. I went for one of the side awnings that @M40 suggested and it does the job. Thrown together for now but I will come up with a more aesthetically pleasing solution. I didn't realise it doesn't have a base plate so had to work with it and use some right angle brackets and wood screws... But, Blocks light nicely (both ways, equipment LEDs don't show through) and is large enough to obscure even the big rig, the 250 Quattro on the EQ6-R. It's given me security enough that I can sleep at night now while it runs a sequence. I don't know if it really is my area, or if I'm actually more paranoid than most.

Love to share my views of last night! Mrs Apricot was rudely awoken by an overly excited astro partner and dragged outside to share the view with me . This is the first time I've ever seen the Aurora Borealis, and goodness me were we all spoiled stupid or what!? It really was awesome. Seeing those streamers and tendrils, pinks and greens so prominently naked eye was just unreal! You could see the changes in shape, colour, brightness both real time and yet not at all. And the silence... That eerie silence! Wow wow wow. These are all straight out of my Samsung A52S, various 1,2 and 4s exposures at ISO 640...

Mine would be straight on the phone to the police claiming torture and abuse due to never coming out of the cupboard... 👀

@michael8554 threaded connections from the corrector backwards. The corrector itself is secured by the standard SW focuser thumb screws. 55mm backfocus is where I've started, though I'm fairly happy with the stars at this point so won't fiddle just yet. I guess I was surprised that I'm not even getting a fully illuminated 11mm image circle, seems kind of strange. I dread to think what each sub frame would look like from a larger sensor - you'd assume the scope practically unusable. I'll gradually chip away at blackening mirror edges, corrector edges maybe(?), mirror clip mask etc and see where it ends up.

As I understand it, being a reasonably small sensor the 533 is quite forgiving in terms of field illumination, star elongation in corners etc, so why is it that I'm getting vignetting, or at least what looks to be vignetting? I'm just getting started with imaging with a newt so there's plenty to learn, just wondering what I'm seeing here and why. Using the SW 250 Quattro, SW Aplanatic F4 corrector. I checked collimation, while it's not perfect it's not far off, a smidgen of secondary rotation required if anything, the rest done by collimated laser. Seems to be calibrated out with flats. The screenshot was taken at 2200 so around 1.5hrs until astro darkness. Please could you help me understand and remedy?

I've read somewhere (CN I think) to aim around the one dither every 5-6 minutes of exposure. So if I'm doing 5min exoposures I'll dither every frame. It costs some time on the mount settling but is what it is. If 2 mins I dither every 3.

The Mrs recently had a job offer in a private hospital in Brisbane and I've been looking at the whole southern hemisphere gig. Darkness never too far away, great weather and a MW core at Zenith! Unfortunately due to a rapidly developing health condition she has had to turn the job down, and my astro hopes and dreams have had to follow

Wow wow wow! New to the Newt Club, I set up last night in the hopes of just a few hours as the forecast was a bit hit and miss for my area, but really wanted to try and make a good first image, not just a test image. Ended up setting the big rig off for 5hrs worth of imaging and went to bed. Woke up with the scope parked and the entire imaging run complete including flip. Happy days. Checked the data when I got back from work and only had to toss 2 subs out of 150, looks like it was due to not settling after a dither. Guiding averaged 0.81" over the whole run, moderately balanced and there is some backlash developing in the mount, so happy days again I took flats this time as well in the hopes of it calibrating out that nasty halo, and job done Cropped in the edges where it didn't quite flip and frame itself properly, and here is my result. Bearing in mind I'm yet to fit the EAF, properly collimate the scope, and properly seal it against light leaks, I'm very pleased with this indeed. Criticism welcome! It's 130x120s sub frames for 4hrs 20mins of exposure. Shot with the ASI533MC-Pro, UV/IR Cut, SW 250P Quattro @F/4, mounted on the EQ6-R Pro, guided OAG by ASI290MM-Mini, manual focus and sequenced by ASIAIR Plus. Stacked in DSS and processed with PS.

That honestly looks absolutely spot on! Reasonably priced enough to give it a go, and not a tragedy if it doesn't quite work as intended. Easy to install and then put away, maybe a bit of an eyesore but we will get it past the Mrs one way or another lol. A couple of those would do nicely. Thanks for the suggestion!

Despite the time and effort I put into making The Astro Podium, The number of opportunities to do some imaging that I miss is growing. With work and real life, not to mention the appalling weather the past year, I am finding that I just haven't got the super powers needed to pull a 12+hr shift, cook for the Mrs, do housework then set up in the garden knowing I have to stay awake to tear down again before getting some morsel of sleep, only to feel dead on my feet the next day. Unless I'm lucky enough to get a clear night on a Friday or Saturday, a lot of the time I have to pass. But I was thinking, if I could leave the scope outside safe enough to put my mind at ease, I'd surely be able to increase my imaging time. I feel like I live in a rougher area. I had a van broken into within 4 months of moving here after all! Our garden backs onto the public footpath in what could be considered a high footfall area (there's a streetlight above my garden - it must be, right....😒) Last year I decided to use some savings to get a fence installed. A bit of neighbourly tension helped to justify another reason for a fence, which was to raise the height needed for anyone to be able to look over as they walk by. This has helped somewhat, but it's not enough peace of mind for me to leave my kit out overnight. With limited space and certainly limited funds until the wedding and H-moon are done, I was thinking of something along the lines of a "portable" observatory. Think of a windbreaker at the beach, then four of them...? It would help hide my scope from the people that I don't want to see it, and with a 250PQ I need to try to shield even gentle breezes. Has anyone made something out of say PVC piping and black tarpaulin? If so, is it as easy as I envisage? Is it practical? Am I wasting my time building a cube lined with dark material within which to place my rig?

Naturally I'm going to struggle to bring my whole rig inside to point it at the telly, it's got to be in the region of 60kg, don't fancy that with a bulging disc. Could I use the t-shirt and the street light? It's a bright light source albeit more "orangey" than white?

A3 tracing panel it is - eye-watering prices for flat field generators at FLO! I'm wondering if this is reflection of stray light, well when doing flats the panel will then block that light and that light won't be there to correct, and instead will have the opposite effect in stacking... If that makes sense? How best to do flats in the mean time with this? White t-shirt over the aperture and pointed at a white light?

No flat frames taken for this, nope. If I understand the cause of the ring I can understand how to remedy it, but at the moment I'm not sure. This cam has been used many times on my smaller rig from the garden and I've always managed to produce something decent even without flats. I guess the only thing to do is try things and see what happens.

I did try a few different combinations of Gradientxterminator and reverse vignette in camera raw filter but no real joy.