OK Apricot

There's a 'tell' on CO for me. You can get an idea of the forecast accuracy by looking at the numbers for cloud cover for example. It might show green for a several hours with 6 being the cloud cover value, then it goes to red for another several hours straight to 100. At a few days' distance it's clearly very low resolution. I don't really pay attention to it until max two days out where the numbers representing cloud cover start to look more realistic. When it, MetOffice, Ventusky and Sat24 come to some level of agreement you know you're probably good to get the rig out 🤞🙂. The past 13 days I haven't so much as seen the night sky behind all the fog and cloud - it's been relentless! There's a signal of some clear sky towards the end of next week 🤔.

Thanks Olly, the dust seemed to show a bit more on my laptop. Mind you, I am only using an old refurbished faulty Thinkpad T430... Time for a new laptop 🙄

Have a look on Stellarium. It's a great planetarium app - you can use the observing tools to show you the FOV of different combinations of scopes and cameras, just need to put in their details, FL, pixel size etc. It overlays a little red box on your screen so you can see how your target will frame up. From that you can pick and choose appropriate targets for the equipment you have, or even plan ahead for scope or camera purchases suitable for the smaller targets.

The finished project of 8hrs 35mins throughout november. It's been a very frustrating month, forecasts changing constantly and for the worse, the few hours that I did get being less than optimal with high humidity and dew points, transparency, dew etc. If it's not that, it's the neighbourhood, Bortle 5 and halogen street lamps everywhere, with one session at a dark(er) site at Bortle 4, still with a lot of glow from LP and a nearly full moon. 105x240s HOO, 23x240s RGB with the Evostar 80ED/ASI533MC-Pro. Processing is coming along - It certainly looked better during processing before converting to JPG 😂

Hi all, Been happily using the Evostar 80ED and EQ6-R for a few months now with great results. Over the last month or so I've added the ASIAIR Plus and ZWO EAF to the rig. The air is mounted in the scope's finder slot with the EAF naturally out to the side on the focuser. This has obviously put the setup out of balance. I'm not too concerned here - the mount is more than capable of handling everything in this configuration being at only 35-40% of its rated capacity, but I'm curious to know how you guys have gone about making the best of balancing in this scenario. With the DEC clutch released the scope will settle pointing approximately 25° to the west of Polaris.

I can't comment on the mount - I use an EQ6-R - but a friend of mine uses a Rowan modded HEQ5 pro and can get good 3 minute exposures unguided with a Redcat, similar focal length to the 50ED. I have both the 80ED and the 50ED and the 533. You say you want a wider field - out of the two, the latter will provide the widest field. The lower the focal length, the wider the field - the 50ED focal length is 242mm while the 80ED is 510 with the reducer, so still more than double. For example, the North America and Pelican nebula will just about squeeze into one frame using the 533 on the 50ED, while you can only really fit the Cygnus Wall, or the pelican at a push, in the frame using the 80ED. Both very good imaging scopes! You can fit the 533 to the 50ED but you'll want the field flattener for it. I'm actually considering swapping the camera from the 80ED to the 50ED soon for a change of field. See the pics for the fields I'm talking about with these scopes and camera. Hope this helps 🙂. 50ED: 80ED:

I'm quite drawn to this event coming up with the opposition and occultation. I sold my eyepieces a short while back as visual wasn't really doing it for me, but I've never gotten bored of the planets. I have a Skywatcher 80ED - just wondering what you might recommend for one, maybe two, good eyepieces for this?

I'm no electrician by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems that it's fine in that case. I can't say mine really makes any noise with two straps at 100% and camera cooling at 35%. As the old saying goes, if it ain't broke...

It may be a sign of the power distribution being near its limit - I'm pretty sure it's only good for 6A across all four ports. Do you have anything else connected? Do you know what your power draw is with everything connected?

Ah, computer spec is a bit above my head, but I'll say my Thinkpad T430 is an i5 processor dual core, I think 4gb ram and no graphics processor but still manages StarXTerminator (albeit taking around 10 mins!). I think photoshop has a pop up window upon opening where it shows how compatible your system is?

I use StarXTerminator in photoshop. Very good plug in, does a great job of removing stars and leaves minimal artifacts if any. Really helps you focus on nebula, dust etc.

Thanks guys 👍

I like to cool my 533 to -10°C - it's not too hard on my battery and I'm not sure if, at my level, I'd notice any real difference in noise going any lower. I've built a library of dark frames at this temperature and noticed some were coming in -9.8°C, -10.2°C, so out of OCD and how easy they are to do, binned anything that wasn't -10°C on the dot. My gut says this slight temperature difference is not too much of an issue, if any. I'm naturally reluctant to delete an otherwise good sub just because it's 0.1c different in temperature to another, but it did make me think and to ask this question - how critical is sensor temperature when adding your calibration frames to a stack?

If using Stellarium you can overlay an equatorial grid which gives you the cardinal points as thick red lines. Search your object and fast forward the time to give a more or less accurate idea of meridian transit - that's how I do it 👍

Feels like months 😣, I so need this!

To all intents and purposes, you sort of can. I've marked my 80ED focus tube, but it's really only to get me in the ballpark - I fine tune using a bahtinov every time, run a sequence for an hours worth of exposure and check the focus is still spot on. I wouldn't rely on a marking alone without using the tools we have at our disposal like masks.

Interesting - I visit a couple different Tescos for the weekly shop and check the magazine section for these (or any other astro related material) every time but I've never seen anything like that for sale 😒. I have a subscription to S@N but like to get AN as well, which the newsagent takes care of 👍

I would guess Baader fluid to clean up the bulk and another healthy dose of the sun's finest ultraviolet to put an end to the mould's miserable life 😂

+1 for idiot proof. You connect to the unit and open the app, activate it, put in your imaging and guide scope parameters and that's about it! It detects your cameras automatically, so with your focal lengths inputted plate solving is a doddle, and very reliable in my short experience with the Plus. The rest is just fiddling with autorun settings to set them to your needs. Guiding rate, pulse lengths, dithering, meridian flips, power outputs etc all adjustable but works well enough out of the box. Must say I've been very impressed so far - money well spent.

Ah, I guess I should have mentioned that. It was indeed with the 0.85x FF/FR for the 80ED.

I was there in June this year, but never managed to repeat the jaw dropping clarity of the sky at night over there from back in 2015 and 2019 - It was just after full moon and high hazy. Driving down towards the lighthouse at the southern tip of the island and national park, opening the doors and getting out... I miss that sense of awe and the utter beauty of it! You're just lost even with familiar prominent constellations. Andromeda, M81 & 82, M51, orion, easy naked eye objects. It's just incredible and gives me butterflies thinking what it will be like next time 🤞. "No honey that's not cloud, that's the milky way, our galaxy".

I'll bite with one of the "celebrity" targets 🙂. Taken pretty much from midnight on the night of 01/11 - 02/11. First of many sessions on this to come as this is one of my favourite targets. First real test of the new ASIAIR Plus as well including meridian flip. Went well for the most part except for some well known bugs. This is also the first time I've taken flats and dark flats for any of the pictures I've spat out so far. Seems to make a noticeable difference in image quality. Just 40x180s lights, 20x darks, flats and dark flats. Taken through the Skywatcher 80ED and ASI533MC-Pro at -10°C with UV/IR filter, on an EQ6-R Pro, guided by the Evoguide 50ED and ASI120MM-Mini. Guiding between 0.4-0.5", seeing and transparency pretty average but quite breezy. Processed in Photoshop CC. It's nothing to shout home about, but I feel like I'm starting to get used to the general workflow and recently starting out with a trial of StarXTerminator. Processed nebulousity without stars, stretched, added contrast, a bit of saturation, some noise reduction, then blended stars back in, minimally processed, at 85%. Cheers for looking 🙂

A decent few hours last night, albeit windy. The mount seemed to handle it no problem though with the air guiding it at 0.4-0.5". First session of many to come on this target and the first time I've taken and used flats and dark flats. Why didn't I do these earlier? It's a huge improvement on the quality of the image. Still learning how to get the best out of StarXTerminator, but otherwise I like to think my processing skills are settling in? 40x180s with the Skywatcher 80ED with 0.85x FF/FRand ASI533MC-Pro, UV/IR filter, EQ6-R Pro mounted, guided by Evoguide 50ED and ASI120MM-Mini from my Bortle 5 garden.

This is a good point actually. I had this thought a couple of times recently. I use my guidescope to plate solve but it is always ever so slightly out from the main tube (being a portable rig I can't get it perfect). I get guide figures similar to yours and haven't had to toss any subs yet except for clouds or satellites etc. As the old saying goes, if it ain't broke...

I never had issues with dew on the primary of my old 200P. Do you mean the secondary? Either way, you can get straps for 8" scopes and secondary heaters like this. Would need a 12V source, but something to think about. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dew-prevention/4tronix-secondary-mirror-heater-for-8-12-inch-newtonian-telescopes.html