PhilB61

Siril is excellent for stacking and has some good preprocessing tools, is free and available for Mac users, although I've only have experience of the Windows version. GraXpert and Starnet++ also free and available for Mac. Lots of good video tutorials on YouTube to follow for all

I like the later versions best. You are just starting to get some of the really nice dust but I feel the stars are a bit blown out and overwhelming it, not sure if this is in the capture or the processing. Perhaps try separating out the stars for processing, not sure how well this will work on this target though.

I would be tempted to just use the dslr you already have, it's a relatively modern sensor and in my experience the Nikon cameras don't suffer badly from noise, although that is in a UK winter! If you go down this route you could put the savings towards a guiding setup, no need to get an ASIAir if you have access to a laptop, it doesn't need to be new or fast to run guiding and image acquisition software.

A small lens hood may also help in addition, I have made diy ones for two telescopes and a camera lens using 1mm black craft foam sheet, really easy to cut and shape and glues well with superglue, can be doubled up if necessary.

How are you powering the dew heater when it's mounted on the telescope? Most PC type data USB ports can only deliver between 0.5 and 0.9 amps so won't be providing enough current to deliver the full heating performance. If you are using some other usb power supply check the output rating, it needs to be at least 2 amps to deliver the full heating performance and without potentially damaging the usb supply device.

I use a 10" Samsung tablet, seems to work really well with NINA flats wizard. I just have to remember to turn off auto dimming. I also do worry it will slide of though as the screen is very slick and totally flat

I use Windows Remote Desktop on my Galaxy S6 10" tablet to connect with my imaging laptop. Works really well for monitoring NINA, PHD2 etc but I think I would want to use a bigger screen for image processing though, I'm currently using a 22" and looking at going bigger.

My main setup is for DSO imaging comprising an APM 80/480 triplet mounted on an iOptron CEM25p mount together with Altair Hypercam 26c, guidescope, dew heaters etc. This is great for the larger nebula, closer galaxies etc but not good for planetary due to the relatively short focal length. For visual I typically use my Celestron 127mak on a Skywatcher Az-Gti and a surveyors tripod, this is lighter than the imaging rig and provides great views of the moon, planets and brighter dso when conditions are right. I would certainly try out the scope you have bought, you might be pleasantly surprised and if nothing else it may better help you determine what direction you want to take.

The EQ6 mount has a great reputation so I'm sure will be a good choice, the only caveat is that it is big and heavy. So whether it's right for you may depend upon how far you need to carry it from storage to your observing location, and also how much time you want to spend on carrying mount, tripod, counterweights, OTA, eyepieces, power supply etc and putting it all together. I use a smaller lighter setup, approx 20kg total, and carry it fully assembled so can be in use in a matter of minutes.

I think it's difficult to accurately determine indoors. On a very coarse level you could possibly set the mount up tracking, no guiding, for a number of hours and measure the RA angle change over time, it should be 15° per hour, not sure how you would measure that though (maybe an inclinometer app on your phone?). If that seems to be working fine then you need to start trouble shooting your guiding, but you will need to be under the stars to do that.

How are you using NINA to assist with focussing? In the imaging tab can you set it to take a Snapshot, select loop and deselect save. I would try say a 10s exposure and up the gain/iso significantly. In the image window zoom in on a bright star with NINA looping images and adjust the focus in almost real time, watching the shape and position of the spikes. Shouldn't really take more than a minute or two.

I was unaware that cash on collection was discouraged on eBay, I have bought quite a few items recently and sold one or two in the last twelve months, not astro or in the categories listed above, all paid for in cash with no issues. Although in hindsight marking them as paid and collected etc was not as straightforward as expected.

And yes that laptop should work fine for image acquisition only but may be a bit slow and too little storage for stacking and post processing.

Similar to Budgie1 I bought used from Ebay, as I didn't want to risk a new laptop left scopeside exposed to dew, dust etc. I bought it from Bluecybercow who seem to be an IT recycling company. I got a Toshiba i5 with 8gb ram Win10 Pro and 256gb ssd for approx £70 including next day delivery. Runs all astro software no problems with zero issues after more than 12 months use, I only use it for session planning and image acquisition NINA, PHD2, CduC, iOptron commander, ASCOM, etc I don't use it for stacking or processing. I remote into it when inside using Windows remote desktop usually from either an Android tablet or my desktop PC.

Interesting discussion, with a spring loaded worm block do both sides of the teeth engage at the same time, leaving little or no space for impurities to remain after being swept out by the rotating worm?

Very strange that the Skywatcher.com website and the SkywatcherUSA.com website list different specifications and descriptions for what appears to be the same mount. Maybe one or the other relates to a preproduction version or just that the advertising/marketing people got it wrong somewhere. I think I would be asking clarification from SW if I was contemplating this mount.

https://www.skywatcherusa.com/products/cq350-pro It's also stated further down in the specifications.

I'm happy to stand corrected, I was just going by what Skywatcher website says for this mount "Other special features of the CQ350 include a high-precision, 0.9° hybrid stepper motor, spring loaded worm gears, synchronous wheel and belt drive modes" etc. From the images posted earlier this certainly does not seem to be the case and I agree looks like an awful design implementation of this feature. For the OP I guess you can just follow the instructions and adjust the backlash to hopefully achieve acceptable backlash figures.

Doesn't this mount have a spring loaded worm block? by pushing you are compressing the spring and causing the worm to slightly ride up on the worm gear, hence the movement and why it springs back. A properly balanced load should not cause this to happen and I imagine it will track and guide well with no issues. My iOptron CEM has the same setup and will show exactly the same if I push on the OTA but guides perfectly. On the iOptron the spring preload and maximum amount of "movement" can be adjusted, not sure if that's necessary or possible with your mount.

The mount requirements for daytime wildlife photography cannot really be compared to astrophotography requirements even if the focal lengths are similar. For long focal length daytime photography I can't imagine your exposure lengths are less than 1/300 sec even with image stabilisation. For astro typical exposure lengths are 120 to 300 seconds during which time the mount must remain stable at pixel level accuracy. I'm sure there are high quality photographic tripods that can fulfill this requirement, and you may have one, but it's not just about weight bearing capacity. I have a light aluminium photo tripod which could technically hold up my astro mount and scope etc, but the vibration settle time is just too much for astrophotography, it's fine for a spotting scope and even for my Nikon DSLR with a 200-500 lens.

The snap port only controls the shutter all other camera settings have to be preset on the camera before you connect it. The camera needs to be in M mode and also possibly Bulb for exposures longer than 30 seconds. I presume you have ordered the correct cable for your camera model, there are at least 2 different Canon ones plus others for other makes. I've not used my AZ-GTI for a while for a while so can't remember all the details exactly.

Why not just try initially with the UV/IR filter and a filter drawer. You could get a 2" filter and it would be useable if you upgrade later to an EFW. I think though the bigger hurdle might be getting decent tracking and guiding for DSO imaging, much less of an issue for planetary imaging. You don't mention if you have a reducer or what mount you are using, just be aware that with an image scale of 0.3arc/sec per pixel (0.5 with a 0.63 reducer) you are going to need a substantial mount and very good guiding to get decent shaped stars and prevent trails.

Hi, the last input on this topic was 3 years ago. You may get a better response if you start a new topic.

This unfortunately is a consequence of a long focal length telescope which has a narrow field of view and the inherent mechanical tolerances of an entry level mount. With practice I'm sure you could "compensate" for the unwanted movement prior to final tightening. Even so objects will drift out of view within a relatively few seconds due to the mount not tracking. A better option might be to do a very approximate alignment process, perhaps on the moon if visible and then use the mount controls to manually slew to your target with the clutches already tightened. By altering the slew speed for your final adjustment you should be able to accurately centre the object in the eyepiece and it should continue to track, how long the object stays in your field of view will depend on the accuracy of the initial alignment.

In addition to the good info in the posts above, if you are using it manually and haven't done a star alignment then when you lock the clutches the mount has no idea where in the sky it is pointing so will be unable to track accurately, if at all. Also even after star alignment the "freedom find" manual function on some SW mounts only works when the auxiliary encoders are activated in the menu, for example with the SW AZ-GTI it is off by default.