Peds

The 10u mount is a (big) notch above the Paramount, and if you can afford it is a much better choice. After sky modeling, you'll easily be able to go unguided with your 80mm refractor or a 130mm refractor in the future. You'll also find integration with NINA to be a lot better, as there is a dedicated plugin for 10u mounts in NINA.

One scenario I see is when you send your gear out to a remote hosting location and wish to switch between a reducer and a flattener. This often happens during galaxy season. A tech on site can usually switch adapters for you, but adjusting tilt perfectly is slow, tedious and typically not something they will do.

I have been trying to image this target since November 2023 but weather conditions have been quite poor, as you all know. This large supernova remnant was originally catalogued as a planetary nebula by George Abell. I had not realised how faint this target is, especially in OIII, which is mostly located on one side of the outer shell. There's some more cyan nearby, but too faint to catch with 5min exposures. I'll need to revisit this at some point with more data to see if I can reveal anything else in the area. Now that it's below my available imaging horizon, I've decided to call it quits for now. The exposures were unguided after running a model with the Mach2GTO-L from my light polluted backyard in London, UK. 11hrs total integration (Ha and OIII) on my 130mm refractor. More info on equipment and exposures on my Astrobin here.

Not really. I have a mono setup already. This will be a travel setup for dark skies, so I'll do mostly broadband imaging and only the occasional dual band.

I haven't played around with it much but 50 seems to work well.

I posted my first image with the Altair Ultra 4nm filter (Ha + OIII) here. First impressions are positive, but only one night with it so far. No halos seen yet. I've not tried it on very bright stars.

I set the temperature to -10C, gain to 100, offset to 50 and took 300s exposures. Ha! By the time I realised the camera was on sideways, the wizard was already deep asleep.

This was a test image for a camera I just purchased mainly for travel, the ASI2600MC Duo. As much as I'd love to carry all my astro gear (filters, rotator, etc) with me on trips, luggage space is at a premium when traveling with the family. The simplicity of a OSC camera with a built-in guider was too appealing. This camera will live on my AP Stowaway. Rather than do the usual unguided imaging run after creating a model, I wanted to see what I could get with only a rough polar alignment (a single pass with Polemaster), no model, and a 4nm dualband filter in front of the guider. I'm impressed! PHD2 was able to find stars to guide at 1s exposure (note this is with a 4nm filter and at f/7), but I chose to guide at 4s. I suspect that with a proper model and "bump" guiding, results will be even better. After I dial in tilt, I'll also need to test the Duo guider with my 0.8x reducer (f/5.3), which has a smaller image circle - at 40mm - but should be even easier to find suitable stars to guide with. I suppose now I need to go shopping for a lightweight/portable mount. The Rainbow Astro RST-135E seems to have everything I want, except the price! Anyway, here's the Wizard Nebula, taken from my backyard in very light polluted East London, UK. More info on Astrobin here.

I like that they are bold and are trying new things but I'd prefer having something like a powerbox built in and purchase a separate mini-pc. Computers and software evolve rapidly and age quickly...

Thanks Adrian! Definitely different, but I’m starting to like it.

We had a full clear night last night and I took advantage of it to get some OIII data for my Elephant's Trunk. In the end, I was able to get about 4hrs 45' of OIII and another 50' of Ha, which I added to the 3hrs 10' of Ha I got back in July. I'm still on my quest to find an HOO colour scheme I like, but I really wanted bring up the blues this time around. Taken with the 130GTX (13035FF) / Mach2GTO / PlayerOne Poseidon-M, unguided with a dec arc model in my backyard in very light polluted London, UK. More info and starless image on Astrobin here. Thanks for looking! - Pedro

That's very nice Gary, I love the colours! - Pedro

Really nice Dave! How do you like the ASI2600mc + 135mm Samyang combination and how have you mounted it? P

Remember that the mount is the most important piece of equipment for astro-imaging. Consider the Samyang/Rokinon 135mm f/2 ED UMC lens, if you're sticking to that mount. This lens is very good, inexpensive, and used extensively in the astro community. As a result, there are a number of mounting/focusing accessories available for it. If you get the EAF focuser along with it and the Asiair, it will make your life a whole lot easier!

I like the colours Adrian! Can you tell us a little more about the filters used? Is this SHO?