WolfieGlos

Here's mine. I did have to hold onto the "black plastic" on the end of the front element and essentially twist them in opposite directions to loosen it, and it was a little tight, but the dew shield definitely comes away. I

Yes, you should be able to unscrew it separately from the front element.

For the 585mc, I used the ZWO UV/IR filter with my SF102 and it was fine. If I remember rightly, @AstroNebulee used an Astronomik L3 (maybe L2?) with his 72ED and ZWO camera due to blue fringing on the stars. It might be worth seeing what he says, or asking FLO to advise which they will happily do. With my modded DSLR, I've never used a UV/IR filter. Reading what @Elp said, maybe I should be ....

Well I think we’ve found the source of this constant cloud cover 3200 megapixels is incredible, I wonder how large a file a single sub would be 🤯

That's exactly what I did with my 72ED, and I still do now with my SF102 since it's too heavy to carry on the HEQ5 with the tripod and mount too. You can buy a wheeled tripod, which might be of use if mobility (injury or otherwise) is an issue, or you don't want to break it down. Like Lee, I also keep my rig setup, and I take the scope off of the mount and carry the tripod outside with the mount in one, and then attach the scope complete with flattener, camera, guide scope, etc, and connect it up. The only downside with this route is achieving balance in RA and DEC, so I actually bought one of theses clamps and clamp it to the end of my dovetail bar after I've found balance. This way, I know when I attach the scope to the mount, I don't need to worry about balance 🙂 You can just see it circled here, although I now have it mounted on the top of the dovetail bar, so I can just slide it in and it acts like a block to stop it sliding out whilst you tighten it all up. You can also attach a finder shoe to it, and use it to hold an ASIAIR in a similar manner to what Lee has.

Correct, you will need the rotator if you want to be able to rotate the camera. However, I believe it depends which model of the 72ED you have. There was an older version with a shorter draw tube that, if I recall correctly, could not use the rotator since it didn't have enough travel distance to achieve focus. If you have the later version (which TomatoBro shows in his image) - which is the version I have - then it will be fine. You'll know it because it has that handy black label saying to connect the 360 degree rotator I have both the Stellamira flattener you have linked, and the skywatcher 0.8 reducer with a rotator for each. They are the Skywatcher rotator and one from RVO , and I'll be honest with you, they are both terrible. Whilst you can rotate the camera, it introduced horrible tilt into my system which I had already spent an age removing (and not wholly successfully either). Rotating the camera undid all that hard work, since the they essentially acted like a tilt plate, and in the end, whilst I had the rotators, I gave up using them. I never got my tilt issue fixed again. Others may have had more success with them, but I really did not. I may have been unlucky with my versions, so if you've already got it, try it and give it a go 🙂

Well here's another attempt, processed from scratch using the same stack. This time I managed to keep a lighter background as suggested @fwm891 and @ollypenrice. This required a lot more processing steps than I care to count, but I managed to get more of the tail showing. Despite the hours put into collecting the data, I seemed to be hampered with a poor background and blotchy areas, which I suspect is a combination of high-level cloud and DSLR noise / noise reduction software. Whatever the source, I managed to rectify a blotchy background by using GIMP's gradient tool as a final step, which seems to have worked very well. Thanks for the input chaps, comments welcome as always 👍

Another Leo Trio, well done, and the tail is a pain right? I found exactly the same, mine looks very similar to yours in the stretched version but any form of NR just kills it off.

Superb image Wim.

Seems to be a popular target at the minute, but for an hours exposure that's really impressive! 👍

Many thanks Michael 🙂 Thanks wookie ! Thanks Steve, Thanks Steve, Francis and Olly. It must be my monitor, since the red wasn't so obvious when I processed it, but now I see you are absolutely correct on this (different) monitor. Moreover, it's redder than if I look on the phone/tablet (!) so will definitely look into this. Much appreciated. @ollypenrice regarding the black clipping, I did lower it right at the end of processing, previously the histogram was further to the right. Just prior to this, I removed some colour noise in the background (which I think came in from the noise reduction, as it horrific when stretched) using an LCH Colour Overlay, and this might also explain the redness in the image. It's not something I have to use often, and I did this at the wrong step in the workflow with hindsight.

This is my first image for a while, helped by combining data captured in 2023 with some from this year 🙂 I captured just over 5 hours on this one with my (relatively new at the time) Starfield 102 in late May 2023, which was after the loss of astro-dark time. My intention was to return to it this year, gather more data and try to capture the tidal streams, especially from NGC 3628. Despite the weather this year, I've managed to capture an additional 13 hours over 4 sessions, to bring this up to a total of 18:35:00. Whilst I have managed to capture the tidal stream which was visible after "only" 12 hours, despite adding another 6 hours this weekend it's still faint and noisy. I wouldn't usually have the background this bright (to mask the DSLR noise) but it's the only way I can show it! Still, I managed to get the streams around M66 and some detail in M65 too. One of the hardest ones I've processed, primarily due to balancing the faint tidal streams with the bright cores of the galaxies. Numerous attempts lost the core details or ended up with a horrible background. Suspect I may be missing some tricks in my processing toolkit and knowledge - forever learning! - but I think I got there in the end. 2023 subs = 83x180s + 2x150s + 31x120s , 2024 subs = 247x180s, 29x120s. Different sub lengths due to some Moon affected nights. Starfield 102 with 0.8 reducer + Canon 800Da (no filters). Stacked in ASTAP, processed with Siril, GIMP, Starnet and Topaz. Comments / criticism welcome 🙂 Revised version processed with PI and Blur/Noise XT. Revised version below following feedback: Original version below:

You're welcome 🙂 Unfortunately, now you have the walking noise, there's nothing you can do about it for these images. As I said, I have had some success with dark frames (I actually found they were partially masking my walking noise before I learnt of dithering!), but they don't wholly remove it. You can try and take some if you can match the temperatures of the lights, but otherwise, that's it. It might get masked if you shot, say, another 10 hours of data...... The GTI and NINA should be fine for dithering with a guidescope. I use NINA, in conjunction with PHD2, the ZWO miniguider and a HEQ5, and have no problems at all. It's fairly easy to setup NINA to do this, just experiment with the settle time. Mine works with 30 seconds with a 102ED refractor. HTH

Great shot Lee, how lucky to catch a meteor too.

Remarkable image, superb detail in that core!

The first image looks like walking noise to me. Using a DSLR, I found that it can be partially calibrated out by taking dark frames, but the effect is still there. The best way to remove it, is to use dithering. This shifts the image slightly (say 5px) in a random direction, which will effectively "trick" the stacking software to isolate the signal from the fixed pattern noise generated by your DSLR. I didn't catch what mount you are using, but if using a guided setup with a mount with tracking in RA and DEC (i.e. not a Star Adventurer 2i), then dithering can be enabled and will be carried out by your guiding software (i.e. PHD2). With 3 minute frames, I'm currently dithering every 3 frames with my 800D and I get no walking noise. With 5 minute frames, I dither every 2, but if I shoot 6 minute frames, then I found I needed to dither every frame. This was found by trial and error for my setup. On this basis, if you're shooting 2 minute subs, then you might get away with every 4 or 5 frames. If you are not using a mount like this, then you can still dither, but you will need to do it manually by physically moving the RA/DEC ever so slightly. Just remember to stop the imaging run, and resume after you've dithered, and let the mount settle from the vibrations.

I'm very much in the same boat as you @900SL, no image that I've seen from this thing is "astounding". In fact, most of them are of a quality that I would deem "needs more subs" and would never be shared anywhere. However, it's great for what it can do, but it is limited and it certainly doesn't appeal to me. I can think of a lot of things £500, apparently a "small amount of money", could do. However, there is clearly a market for it...proved in it's sales! Anything that progresses this hobby has got to be a good thing, so for those that want it...go ahead 🙂 Right now, with the early success of it, I'm going to compare it to when phones first had cameras built into them; the quality was nothing compared to a DSLR (or even SLR at that time!). But 20 or so years down the line, fewer people have a traditional camera, and photos captured on phones are of good quality, and simple and easy to use. Other than professional uses (IE wildlife, weddings), a DSLR will still blow a phone photo away, but that's because they are more specialised for said use. This is the generation the Seestar is aimed at, and I bet in a time period that is less than the DSLR/phone camera changeover, the same effect could be said for the smart telescopes. Affordability will come into it, but until such a time, they will remain a fad to me, and I'll jump aboard the train on the last carriage.

What Phil had said is spot on. But just to take it a bit beyond the flattener and T-ring; I personally would also look into a bahtinov mask, this will enable you to get your image into focus a lot easier. Backfocus is simply the camera position from the back of the flattener to the camera sensor for round stars, which Phil has described perfectly. Achieving focus is different. Personally, I used to use this combination and at 420mm focal length with the scope, the star adventurer is kind of limited. With perfect polar alignment, you could be looking at maybe 10 second frames? Bearing in mind images are often comprised of hours of data…that’s a lot of shutter actuations, and files to store and stack. I would suggest looking into autoguiding if you want to maximise the abilities of this mount and scope, I used to get 2 minute subs with ease, 5 at a push with a high scrappage rate. This would require the use of a laptop or AsiAir (and so more cost), but it will benefit your output vastly. Of course this can be added in time. You might also benefit in having a red dot finder, with no GoTo on the mount, it can take a good amount of time to locate a target. My worst was over an hour. HTH, and good luck 👍

What a superb image Goran, there is so much going on here. Great that you have old data to tap into to make the large mosaics like this. I suspect it lies in that dual RASA and a SY135, it’s just greedy…Goran the Greedy 😂

Attempted to capture this one last night with some promising early clear skies and a 58% Moon. After a quick setup before dusk, everything aligned and the comet located, of course the clouds started to roll in after only 3 minutes of 20s frames 😫 Although it was still visible through passing clouds for another 25 minutes or so, each frame consisted of moving cloud so it required some brutal and patchy processing to try and get anything out of this. Large black streaks which I mistook for both tree branches and poor flat frame calibration, turned out to be artifacts from the passing clouds. I clone stamped a lot of them out, but some remain in the tail which really annoy me. I was nearly going to throw the data away, but I managed to get something out of it. Not my best image by any means, but happy to have captured the Comet. Hopefully some clear skies present themselves soon so I can have another attempt. Starfield 102 + ASI 585MC with Astronomik L2 UV/IR Filter. 66 x 20s frames, with darks, flats and flat-darks stacked in Deep Sky Stacker. Comet and stars stacked separately and combined.

Well I really like it Dave, better than my effort that I also nearly didn't post! Nice detail in both galaxies, granted about the green star, why not just crop it out? Are you more annoyed at losing a lot of subs from the cable snag or the processing?

Did you catch it? I packed up at 10, it looked to be mostly clear by midnight to my dismay 😕

Great image, and nice details in the galaxies. I had the same thought as Olly, I have the stream showing in 12 hours (bortle 4) on my work in progress image, but it’s too noisy to bring out to an acceptable level, so it’ll be good to see if you can get yours to appear 👍

Attempted to capture an image of 12p/Pons-Brooks with the 585mc tonight with some early evening clear skies, but the clouds put a stop to it after about 20 minutes 😒 Still, it did leave the sky with a spectacular Moon bow captured below on the 77D. The line to the right that coincides tangentially with the bow (and another one at the bottom just visible), makes it look like the beam of light calling for Batman 😂 Aimed up now to get some views on the Moon, almost the only thing left visible so might as well make the most of it.

Personally, I always used the liveview on the back of the camera with a bahtinov mask, zoom in 10x and adjust the focus to suit on a very bright star. Then connect the cable to the camera and use Nina to control the imaging session. Now I use an EAF, which takes longer, but is a bit more accurate and useful if focus changes mid session (ie due to temperatures).