Jonathan_Shields

Don't have an iphone but the latest version of the Synscan Pro Android app doesnt work at all for me.

The standard Synscan app works if you don't let the phone lock itself and allow it unrestricted battery use in app settings. If the screen locks you have to make several attempts to go into it until the phone says the app isnt responding and do you want to kill it.

If you kill it it then works when you reopen it.

Skywatcher could do better here.

On 19/03/2023 at 23:47, Xio1996 said:

Hi Jonathan,

I find I use between 4s and 15s subs. I have an Altair Astro camera so my gain setting is 900. Which sounds huge to ZWO camera owners but this is just where the Altair Astro camera enters HCG mode on their gain scale. The enhancement features are good in SharpCap as are the background gradient removal settings. 

Have fun

Pete

Background removal is on my list of things to try. I also will try pushing up my exposure time as i think particularly away from the zenith people are getting no trails with alt-az at a lot higher times than i have used. 15 seconds is impressive.

5 hours ago, ONIKKINEN said:

The secondary mirror also greatly limits the available fully illuminated circle so a bigger focuser would not help you all the way here. Newts primarily intended for visual use already have an undersized secondary that will vignette at 1x with a decent sized sensor. Coma increases a lot with a reducer too so not really all that great an option.

If you really want to have a reducer for a newt the best option available is probably either the ASA 0.73x corrector or the Starizona Apex 0.75x one. Both are expensive and require a 2 inch focuser so also a dead end without modifications.

Interesting it makes sense. I use the 6 inch for EAA and without a reducer it works fine it would just be good to have the extra light gathering and bigger field. It was an experiment really it was just a cheap £30 reducer. I have seen the Starizona Nexus on the Dobsonian Power channel used successfully but yeah its too pricey for me. 

I would look at a tabletop dobsonian of the kind First Light Optics sell for beginners. At that budget its a reasonable option.

I would avoid anything else at that price point as the quality will be poor and result in frustration.

This is the kind of thing i would look at https://astrobiscuit.com/best-budget-telescope/

1 hour ago, Xio1996 said:

Hi Jonathon,

Those are really great images. I agree that the difference in detail you see between visual and EAA is quite amazing. Have you tried M42 yet? That usually blows your socks off! 😄

What settings were you using to capture your images?

Have fun.

Pete

 

Thanks. M42 is currently at the front of my house near lots of streetlights so i might save that one for early winter.

I used about 350 gain and either 2 or 4 seconds...4 for the galaxies. In Sharpcap I used the bilateral noise filter.

I have just started EAA with a 6 inch goto dob and a ZWO ASI 585 so this is very much a beginner view but...

I would say you can get some good results with that setup on smaller objects. The 224 has a small FOV but you have a quality mount and decent aperture. Astronomy tools FOV will give you an idea of how the targets will fit in your camera.

Recently bought a Heritage 150p Virtuoso and a ZWO ASI585 specifically for EAA and have been enjoying myself seeing a lot more detail than I could visually in Bortle 6.  I have had a battle with clouds and dew but I am reasonably happy.  I tried M97 and just couldn't see it so I was either in the wrong place or its not viable with 6 inches of aperture.  I am still getting to grips with Sharpcap so I am quite possibly missing something.  These are all just stretch/colour balance in Sharpcap during the capture and then crop only to remove the field rotation effects. M65/66, M3, M51, M81,M82, Hamburger galaxy NGC3628 and M53 (horrible noise/gradient on that one)

I tried this out with a 1.25 inch reducer on my 6 inch dob. The field of view was a lot wider but the vignetting was shocking and not usable even for EAA. I am talking a very pronounced whitened circle. 

Maybe if everything was 2 inch including the focuser (which i dont think is possible on the Heritage 150) it would work better.

My scope is Flextube so i can shrink the tube if needed. I have to do that by a couple of cm to get focus with the 585 anyway. Its quite handy as otherwise I'd have to move the primary up.

I am going to try this out for EAA soon ie when the clouds b*gger off.  I have a 6 inch goto dob, an ASI 585 and a cheap StellaLyra 1.25 inch reducer. I am a rank beginner but Ill give it a crack as i am after a bigger FOV. Tiago Ferreira in his Dobsonian Power Youtube channel uses a 2 inch reducer with the ASI 294 but does get some vignetting. For EAA thats less of an issue than full blown astrophotography for some I guess.

Thats a shame. I should have bought one while they were going. I hope the brothers are OK and are able to take it up again.

18 hours ago, Mike JW said:

Hi Johnathan,

Mike Wood here (Martin mentioned me), and as you will see in the EEVA thread I have used a variety of scopes for visual and then EEVA.

I used for awhile a 5" apo for EEVA and with my interest in going really deep I soon abandoned it in favour of my C9.25 that I had at the time. The C9.25 became C11 which reduced the time needed to collect the subs but my all time favourite is in fact my 15" Dob - quick at f4.5 (or at f3.5 when I use a reducer). The larger the scope then in theory the greater the resolution (but all the normal caveats apply), however the fov gets smaller so I loose out on wider fov that smaller scopes give. I have often thought that the ideal EEVA scope is somewhere in the 9" to 12" range and operating around the f4 mark. Thus I would concur with your thought of a 10" Dob.

Having said that a 10" is a good idea, look through what Martin M and Biil S achieve with their 8" Newtonians - really quite stunning. Their results sometimes out do my 15"!  Generally I can achieve better resolution and of course quicker but I have been fortunate to be able to own a large Dob.

GOTO is in my view the only way to go - manual is so slow and frustrating, especially when we have such limited clear spells. My early visual Dobs were manual and yes I enjoyed the star hopping but once I converted my current Dob I saw so much more visually and also using the EEVA approach. If time/money permitted I would run my 5" Apo on a separate mount and get the wide angle context for my Dob views.  (C9.25 with a hyperstar set up in an observatory works incredibly well but that is serious money and not where you are at).

Enjoy the journey.

Mike

PS. Chelmsford is my home town but I now live elsewhere.

 

Thanks Mike i bet you have seen some sights with that 15"..a fair old unit as they say. I think a goto dob will be great for visual anyway as when you can only see mag 3 stars very faintly star hopping is a challenge. Chelmsford is Bortle 6 and they replaced the sodium streetlights with LED so CLS filters dont work so well. Plus everyone has so many security lights etc now the local stray light pollution is also an issue. With my 8 inch i can just see M1 and the leo triplet  and get a reasonable sense of m81/m82....hence the appeal of EEA to get decent views.

On 26/06/2022 at 08:01, Martin Meredith said:

I started off my EEVA journey with a good quality 2nd hand achromat (StellaVue Nighthawk, 80mm f/6) and, to be frank, I found the CA really annoying very quickly. It was fine for the first few months as the EAA bug bit (everything looked good!), but once I started to look deeper the bloated stars that were present every time in every image were a real turn-off. I went for a Newt and never looked back. Honestly, unless you already have an achro to try out, I wouldn't recommend buying one specifically for EEVA.

Thanks. I am seeing some used 10" Skywatcher GoTo dobs for reasonable prices. I am thinking this is the way i will go. Kind of like Tiago but with goto instead of eq platform. Whilst i can star hop if pushed its  more time when i could be observing something.

7 hours ago, Martin Meredith said:

Hi Jonathan

Welcome to SGL!

Some people do a great job of EAA with Dobs on eq platforms. Check out Tiago Ferreira's YouTube channel for instance. He's active on CN (maybe here too) so would be able to answer questions about tracking. MikeJW uses a driven GOTO dob and produces excellent results with an Ultrastar camera. 

Finding objects could be tricky with a small FOV. Being able to platesolve frequently while finding would no doubt help. 

Its a direction I'm planning to go down myself soon, as it happens, but using a push-to 10" dob on an Asperion platform. My main use case will be visual as I now have access to darker skies. My rationalise is that a platform brings its own benefits for visual too e.g. easier to up the magnification or study details, and if it also works well for EAA that will be a bonus.

Do let us know how you get on.

Martin

 

 

Thanks Martin. I have been watching Tiagos videos with interest. Im quite tempted by the dob + eq platform route as i keep what i have and dont have to muck about selling stuff. I have a diy push to arrangement on my dob with a printed setting circle and an inclinometer which normally gets me within a degree or two although some nudging and finding is still needed.

The only issue with that is that unless i fancy attempting to build one(no ta!), the number of eq platforms available to purchase in the UK appears to be 1..  the Asterion Ecliptica Light and i cant find any reviews of it. If FLO are selling it im hopeful its not a complete lemon at least. 

Also finding objects will essentially be manual but maybe i can.live with that...the thrill of the hunt etc. Goto would be easier though.

Ill mull over the two options which have been helpfully supplied and see what appeals.

7 hours ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

I use for EAA both a 102mm achro refractor on an EQ-5 Synscan with an ASI224MC camera, and also a CPC800 with a f6.3 focal reducer and the ASI224MC camera.  If I had to pick just one I'd use the 102mm setup.  The  CPC800 setup (which gives much the same FOV you'd get with an 8" Newtonian) is more suited to small objects like planetary nebulae.  

I basically used kit I already had on hand (except for buying the focal reducer. )  Your choice is whether to aim for a widefield or narrowfield setup, and how much you want to spend on a camera. The ASI224MC is a planetary camera but works just fine for deep space except that the chip is small, hence narrow FOV.  I also strongly recommend that you aim for a full GoTo, which will let you easily find faint targets and use platesolve & resync to confirm you are aiming at the right place.  An equatorial mount is not necessary for the short exposures you are likely to be using, but the choice of alt-az GoTo mounts is limited, and the equatorial gives you the option of trying long exposures.

Thank you Geoff. Its interesting that an achro refractor can get good results in EAA. Given the bargains out there for a Skywatcher 102 achro its tempting. I can see the CA might he a mild annoyance when looking at the moon etc but for eaa on dim galaxies im guessing its barely noticeable.

I can then source a used eq5 and sell the dob. As you say the mount then gives more scope for longer eaa exposures or maybe "real" AP if i ever feel the need.

Its an option worth considering.

Hi all,

I have an 8 inch manual dob (Orion xt8) and have enjoyed observing planets and dsos and taking some simple planetary videos with a smartphone +Autostakkert/Registax etc. With DSOs i am to be honest underwhelmed by the views from my Bortle 6 back garden, but the lengthy capture sessions and expensive equipment needed for pure astrophotography hold limited appeal for me as a busy employee and husband/father. I have researched EAA and it seems appealing. I can get better views and if i really want capture and process an image for the downstairs toilet wall (although i accept ive then crossed the line into AP)

I am considering either

1) getting the Asterion Ecliptica light EQ platform £269 from First Light Optics and using my existing 8 inch dob. I then still need to star hop but i can do that if needed 

Or 2) Upgrading to a 10 inch goto dob...£1200 new or find a used one. I like the idea of not having to mess about finding stuff but will the goto track well enough for short EAA exposures?

and with either path getting a ZWOASI224 and a focal reducer. I realise the FOV limits me to smaller dsos but i like galaxies and globular clusters so i can live with that. A zwoasi294 would be better i know but 800 quid on top of the other stuff is somewhat steep right now.

Does anyone have any comments on the wisdom/ folly of these plans...should i just accept i need to save up for an EQ5 and an ED80 or is there a path with dobsonians?