wuthton

This morning I stumbled across this relatively new and superb Youtube channel and I thought I'd share.

Buy a wedge..... I'm sorry but the fact remains, cameras belong on EQ mounts. Your mount is tracking on both axes so double the error before you even get to field rotation. In EQ mode have it slightly unbalanced and polar alignment slightly off and it should be tip-top.

I'd be tempted to make the face plates out of mild steel or aluminum and butcher some spacers for the T2 threads, then 3d print the carcass and filter wheel.. Two metal faceplates bolted together through a printed carcass should be pretty stiff, there's no way I'd hang a camera off a 3d printed thread.

You might want to upgrade to Win 11 Pro as you can then connect with Windows RDP which is far superior to the likes of Teamviewer as it works over your local network rather than bouncing around servers. You only need Pro on the remote PC.

If you do go down the on mount PC route, get one with plenty of usb ports as USB hubs are nothing but trouble. I use a Zotac CI320 in the obsy and a Raspberry Pi on my portable setup.

No, I was wrong at native pixel size and binning just increased my humiliation. I'd like to say a thank you to the contributors on this thread, I’ve never seen a comparison of different systems with the same field of view, it’s been fascinating. But with that said, I own an 8” RC and for a moment I was looking at it in a different light but the bottom line is… it’s still slow when not binned.

Focal length has the big effect on field of view, more aperture (at the same focal length) gives you more speed. Larger pixels on your camera also give you more speed. This is certainly an interesting example as an F6 at a lower sampling rate should be faster than an F8 at a higher sampling rate but this is the same field of view, and the ASI16200 has larger pixels which leads me to think that I might be missing something.

Colour me confused, my apologies if I've misread your post but isn't the LZOS 130/ASI183 (F6, 0.63"/px) significantly faster than the 10" RC/ASI16200 (F8, 0.38"/px), regardless of the aperture?

In the spirit of friendly debate would you mind explaining to me (like I'm five) the advantage of a 80/600 over 80/480 of similar price and quality when used with a DLSR?

I'm sorry but I thought we were having a debate about pixel scale vs mount guiding accuracy. I never asked for your advice, but you are very welcome to an opinion. Both sides of the debate are correct but I'm saying the cheapest route to a great image is pixel scale over guiding accuracy. This is firmly a debate, please don't think I want to argue.

I'm sorry but I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. A mono CCD is easier to use in almost every respect apart from channel combination but that's hardly difficult(comparatively). At +4"/pixel just a few minutes will be plenty for a narrowband sub, my AZ-GTI can easily go five minutes. I agree with @vlaiv, it's not I mount to recommend to a beginner which is why I've lingered on the EQ3 which I refuse to believe is worse. I fear you're never going to join me in my heresy. But out of interest what would you recommend to a beginner with £1500 to spend? My vote is in my original post and I'm fairly sure I'd have enough budget for a finder guider too.

My apologies, as usual I'm being overly brief and unclear. I pointed the finger at the HEQ5 because it's often the most recommended mount, but I think it's fair to say that SGL and any other astro forums' advice to AP newcomers is "get the best mount you can afford and work from there" But I think this advice should change to get yourself a cheap, mono CCD as it blows your mounting options wide open. What I was trying to say with the above post is that, that same camera with some cheap narrowband filters also allows for much cheaper optics that will give excellent results under light pollution. Could I take an Atik 314L+ with a baader 1.25" Ha filter and an ST80 on a guided EQ3 and take what could be considered a good image, yes, I could. With some patience buying second hand, the whole lot would cost less than a HEQ5 (new admittedly). It'd be fairly likely though that I'd need some counselling after spending a night with "that" focuser. Obviously it's not a scope I'd recommend to a beginner, I just used it to make a point about mono narrowband being extremely forgiving on the optics and therefore, the cost.

If I've said something to antagonise you, it wasn't my intention. I'm quite light hearted in person but I'm very aware that my writing style can be blunt and for that I apologise. If were talking about the quality of the optics then I can't help but think of Narrowband. If I bring out my trusty standard bearer, the Atik 314 and put a Ha filter in front of it then the quality of the optics matters (almost) not a all, as long as you can flatten it and focus it. If you put a decent focuser on a Startravel 80 you'd be hard pushed to tell the difference between what you can achieve with that vs a Takahashi. Then there's light pollution. This forum is littered with great images, taken with DSLRs under light pollution but it's difficult and the fact remains if you take your kit to dark site, you can take a better image with less effort. With narrowband and a cooled camera, the effort-reward ratio with light pollution is much, much higher.

You're going to have to explain to me what is more important than the speed of the system in the context of this discussion?

I think we posted at the same time and it sort of looked like an answer to your question. What I was saying is you can you can now pick up a good F6 for what a F7.5 cost, pound for pound for 15 years ago. ------- With large pixel cameras and fast, short optics available for comparatively little money is the "work from the mount up" dogma getting old? I very much think so.