juno16

It's probably right in front of me, but I cannot find a button to preview a post. I am a deep sky imager and would like to preview a post/image or see if an inserted link (such as astrobin) shows up as a thumbnail or image in my post. Any advice or help is appreciated! Thanks, Jim

That is a great solution. I would have been happy to pay for a machined part and Rowan doing that free of charge is great. I did the belt mod several weeks ago and with the great advice from @Padraic M, adjusting the DEC backlash made a huge difference in my mount reducing the DEC backlash from 3000ms to <200ms measured by PHD2. I will tackle the RA worm soon. Excellent mount performance so far. Best of luck and keep us informed. Jim

That is a beautiful image. Nicely done!

Beautiful capture and process. Very nice work!

Beautifully framed chain. Super image! RASA’ s are amazing scopes. Nicely done!

Cool it is! Lovely wide field David! I love wide field images. Jim

Absolutely beautiful images Mariusz! Even with the weather difficulties, your hard work paid off with an excellent result(s). The Dolphin Head is truly stunning! Jim

Very nice! Your stars are nice and tight! The Tadpoles stand out very well. I like your color! I definitely would try to separate the colors in PI and maybe use a Hubble palette process. Could really make nice image into a smashing image! Jim

Thank you! I too really like wide field views. The swap to the ED102 might be short lived! I appreciate your nice comments and I’m looking forward to your upcoming image! Jim

It absolutely is a fine camera. When I grow up (I’m 66 now), I’d like a 2600 MCP for even a wider field. Thank you for you nice comments! Jim

I just posted to David wonderful M106 Wide Field thread and thought that I would toss my M106 image up. This was imaged for about 7 hours with the Sharpstar 61 EDPHII and ASI533 from my Bortle 7 backyard. I’m getting ready to swap to my Explorer Scientific ED102 and this image is the first since Rowan Belt upgrading my Skywatcher HEQ5 and adjusting the DEC worm. PHD2 measured the DEC backlash at 69 ms compared to the pre upgrade/adjustment +3000ms DEC backlash. Thanks for looking! Comments welcome. Jim

Wonderful image David. I have never seen an image with so many annotations! So, you annotated in PI? Interesting. I’ll have to give that a try.

Very nice image!

That is a beautiful image of the Whirlpool! I really like the coloration and the details are really nice. Using mostly the L and Ha was an excellent choice.

Absolutely beautiful! Coloration is spot on to my liking. AE Auriga Is perfect and the blue reflection nebulae is very prominent. Excellent capture and processing!

That is a brilliant image! Probably the nicest M1 that I have seen! Beautiful capture and process. Jim

Beautiful image. The coloration and details are wonderful!

I use an inexpensive Sybony uv/ir cut on broadband targets with my ASI533 in Bortle 7 skies. No complaints. Haven't noticed a green cast, however dynamic background extraction would probably have taken care of it. Jim

I just want to report back on results that I have seen after the Rowan belt upgrade so far. The moon has been blowing out the sky the past few days, but after doing the Rowan belt mod and then adjusting the DEC worm I also added a "back off" of the DEC bearing collar to allow easier DEC balancing. There is still a good bit of RA worm backlash, but I did not want to introduce too many variables. I decided to give it a go with the new changes. Very pleased with what I have seen so far. I set up tonight just to test things out. Total RMS guiding error averaged between 0.5-0.6 no matter what part of the sky I was guiding in. I would previously get numbers like this only in the northern part of the sky and only after awhile of settling down. I tried north, east, and southern targets with the same 0.5-0.6 average total rms guiding error in PHD2. PHD2 reported backlash at 200 ms compared to 3 seconds previous to the adjustment. Huge difference! I hope to get out later this week to image the Markarian's Chain, then on to the RA backlash adjustment. Just want to report the substantial improvement note so far.

Absolutely! I can’t imagine imagining broad band with that amount of moon glow, but you did very well ay producing a very nice image with pleasing details. Well done!

I really appreciate your input KP82. I did the upgrade this morning. Took 2.5 hours and some of that was loosing some parts due to droppage. Also, the DEC idler shaft was extremely tight in the bore and I had to drive it in and out many times so that it was movable by hand. Other than that, it went smoothly. I have only adjusted the DEC worm so far and I tried many times to get zero backlash ( I used a long dovetail bar to check it), but never got it to zero without binding the axis. I hope that it is as good or better than before. I also backed off in the DEC collar to still allow zero up/down clearance, but to release some friction on the DEC axis to allow easier balancing. Still need to adjust the RA worm and give it a trial run. It is really nice and quiet! Thanks for everyone’s input! Jim

@Padraic M @City9Town0 Thanks to you both for the guidance. I hadn’t considered the backlash and thanks for that too! Need to go over the backlash adjustment procedure a few times first. I did order the pinion gear puller. Photos are a great idea! Thanks for the tips! Jim

Good day all, I plan to upgrade my HEQ5 soon (possibly as early as tomorrow) with adding the Rowan Belt kit. I’ve watched several videos and the process seems fairly straightforward. I have also read post on astro forums about upgrade problems Seems that I need to be careful with belt-pulley alignment and belt tension. Also, I read that good neutral balance is necessary. I am sure that there are some here on the forum that has performed this modification. Any tips or guidance? Thanks, Jim

Very nice! Your 21 hours paid off nicely. Very effective work with the color channels.

Super clean image. Very nice!