Sypha

Great image, love the foreground very outer worldly

Managed to capture this one last night

Unfortunately I've had to return my SW star Adventure GTi and a replacement is going to take a while to come in. Rather than waiting for the replacement I could get a different mount, which made me look at the iOptron GEM28 or possibly the HEM27. Would the HEM27 be a better choice over the GEM28? Are there are any other lightweight mounts I should be looking?

I'm going to have another go tonight, using the reducer and adjusting the 61R to 4mm to give me the required 56mm back focus. I'm using an ASIair mini to capture my images.

Thanks. Should I get a another extension tube to bring me closer to the back focus distance?

I'm not getting anything on the screen when outside. I've just done a test shot inside and I'm getting light in the picture. Monday I used an IR cut filter and Tuesday I put an empty filter holder in. I tried 5 sec, 10 sec and 30 sec exposures last night and didn't get anything to show on the screen.

I have both the flat 61R and 61A flattener. I'm using the Askar filter drawer. Monday night I tried out the flat 61R with 3mm back focus and couldn't get any stars to focus on. Tuesday night I tried the 61A flattener with 15.7mm back focus and had the same problem. My camera is connected to an ASIair mini, but I'm using a shorter 3rd party cable to connect the 2, I read last night that this could be an issue.

Thanks for answering this, explains a lot for last nights issues

Last night I tried to use my ZWO ASI585 for the first time without any luck. I've put this down to completely getting the back focus wrong. Before I try again I'd like to make sure that I've got this correct. William Optics Z61 Scope + WO Flat 61R reducer + 16.5mm spacer + 18mm filter drawer + ZWO ASI585MC I had the back focus adjustment on the reducer at 3mm and now I think it needs to be 15.7mm or 15.9mm, which of these is correct? Would this explain why the camera couldn't pick anything? I also have the WO 61A flattener, does this have the same back focus distance as the 61R reducer? Any help on this would be much appreciated.

Thanks for the replies and suggestions. The SAGTi is probably fine on rechargeable AA's for the time being. Spitting the dew heater power from the mount/guiding makes sense. Just need to get a powerbank for the ASIair, much easier than expected

Hi all, Over the past month or so I've been gathering gear to go with my Sony a7iv to step into the world of astrophotography, after having a few mixed results with trying my hand at shooting the milky way. First was the mount, Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi which I've used for a couple of imaging sessions with my Sony 200-600mm. I picked this mount to keep my setup reasonably light so I'd get out to sites, and also figured having GOTO would be better than not. Since my last session a few weeks ago I've picked up a Williams Optics Z61 scope and an original ASIair and ASI120mm mini for guiding; now I need a solution to power this along with a dew heater or 2 (does a guide scope need one?). What would be the best way to power all this, while keeping it reasonably light weight? I've looked on Amazon and the array of portable power stations is mind boggling and are any of them suitable? Would going for something like a Celestron PowerTank Lithium Pro be my best option and would it provide enough power for around 4 hours a session? If I stick with AA batteries in the SWSA GTi, what other options are there for powering the ASIair, guide camera and dew heater(s)? Thanks