JonHigh

I’ve ordered the PP642 at a good price and comes next week at some point. Thanks again for the input! just hope this awful weather clears! Almost forgot what month we are in!

Hi Roy. Thank you for the info. Appreciated.

Hi Roy. Lovely shots! Very detailed and sharp! Hope you can advise. I have recently bought an EdgeHD 8” and I have be looking at filters for imaging the Moon and later in the year planets using my ASI585mc. I have a Baader neodymium filter that I have been using with success but I am thinking about maybe getting the Baader 685nm ir pass filter or the ProPlanet to achieve sharper and more detailed results? Worth spending the money on or maybe a different filter as there seems to be many to choose from!

The weather has been absolutely dire. Almost every time I think oooh. Its looks good but it’s not! Not at all. Indeed!!! M51 is one of my favourites but I do want to capture M63. Took it some time ago with my refractor and came out well but with the Edge it will look great 🤞🏻

Thanks. Yup this scope has definitely got me back into Lunar imaging. Need to dig the Barlow out! I did attempt to capture M51 as first attempt at DSO with the EdgeHD but the weather was not playing ball so PHD2 was having major issues. Only got a couple of hours in the end. Plus I’m waiting for a Bahtinov Mask to arrive. Posted it on SGL a couple of weeks ago. By all accounts what I did get was impressive so happy days for the future if only this blessed UK weather would start to behave.

Hi All. Just got round to processing the first lunar image taken with my trusty ASI585mc attached to the EdgeHD8 at prime focus. It’s a few weeks ago when I took it and wasn’t under the best conditions. Really looking forward to more opportunities and maybe Barlow it up?!

Hi. Sorry for the delay in responding. that’s great. I will check it out. I believe they are aluminium ones from RVO

Hi All, well being clearish out Sunday night, I got out my rig to capture M51 with the EdgeHD including the .7 reducer. Only got a couple of hours in before the clouds rolled in! Unfortunately I haven’t got a Bahtinov mask just yet so had to eyeball it. Slightly out but nevertheless I was still impressed of what this scope can do. Definitely need a focusing mask… Tried the star resynthesis function in Siril and work quite well at default settings but need to play with it!

The trick is to slowing approach the exit pupil of the eyepiece and try and hold it in place as you move closer. 🤣 Having only owned Frac's and Maks, I absolutely understand where you're coming from. This thing destroys my 6" Mak looking at open clusters even at f10. I do get that having an extra 2 inches aperture makes a big difference but it's more than that. It's a feeling or look, a bit like comparing a Canon/Nikon lens with a Leica lens. World apart. So glad I didn't get the standard C8 and opted for the EdgeHD.

Thank you. This was a quick hand held shot with held breath and surgeons hands! The Baader eyepiece makes it relatively easy. I did boost the contrast and sharpness a tad. It was a fantastic sight that night and was lucky to have caught it with that much detail. This EdgeHD8 is an awesome scope and I'm extremely happy with what I have seen so far, even just visually. Open clusters have most definitely had the 'WOW' effect! Trying to sell my SkyMax150. Might put it on here this weekend as well as the other sites. I have yet to get on with 'proper' imaging with it as I'm still working on fine collimation adjustment which is doing my head in. 🙄 and good enough weather!!!

Hi All, As some may know, I have been attempting, with some success in capturing DSO’s with my SkyMax 150 but the time came when I realised that I really need a faster SCT for what I wanted to do. Not looking for one but I found an EdgeHD 8” at a reasonable price and pulled the trigger and bought it. First light out the other night just working out balancing, visual alignments and working out collimation but the clouds started to roll in so aimed it to the Moon, and WOW! Looking at the Moon, my Mak was definitely more contrasty but the detail in the 8” blew me away. However with anything that's new there’s a learning curve and this is my first SCT having only owned Mak’s and refractors. I took this quick shot with my iPhone through a Hyperion 24mm eyepiece. Had to get a photo in before putting it away. Really looking forward to clear skies again!

Hi All Just out of curiosity, I have an assortment of M48 and M42 spacer rings but they are a little too shiny on the inside for my liking. What paint would you guys and gals recommend to get a flat or flatter matt black in there?

Wow! Lovely camera! Never liked the long winter nights so much! I had issues when I got my 26c. I was running it a bit too cold and the heater too low. Since then I have balanced it out and seems to be behaving itself now. Cooler at -10, dew heater on high.

Cool. Thank you for your advice. Offsets are okay and not clipping the blacks however I do definitely agree that I needed a much longer exposure times. The last ones I took with the SkyMax were 4mins but due to the issues I was having with the laptop and PHD I didn’t want to push it. Plus the weather a was turning which didn’t help matters and living under Bortle 6 skies. I’m seriously thinking about selling the Mak, a used C8 is looking on the cards!

Yup. It works fine in every other program under its native driver. What’s odd is that the camera worked fine in PHD using the native driver but for some reason it just stop working as it should. I believe there was an issue with the laptop re. the two instances but even after a complete format and reinstall of Windows (although the instances issue are now resolved) PHD still didn’t want to loop and only applied to the 290! This was the same plugging it into three different computers! The ASCOM driver has resolved the issue.

Thanks Roy. The hazy skies don’t help but when it’s hardware or software that just doesn’t play ball it's incredibly frustrating. Everything is work perfectly and I sometimes wonder what the benefits are in dong updates. What camera are you having issues with?

Hi all. Skies became awful, PHD playing up, laptop playing up. Issues with my guide camera and only 20 usable subs before I almost kicked the tripod over and threw the laptop down the garden!! 🤪😂Just another reason why I love this hobby!!! Anyway this is all I got for my battling efforts with my Aa26c attached to the SW SkyMax 150. 3mins subs, gain-100(HCG), offset-150. Not sure about the horizontal banding that I’ve not seen before?

Altair support came back to me this morning with a solution! Downloaded the Altair Ascom driver. Done and all working now. Thank you for replying and hopefully this will help others if need be. Download the ASCOM driver. 🙄

Hi again. I have just loaded all the software on a fresh install of windows 10 on another laptop and the two instances are gone. Just one appears now. Off to a good start! However just opened PHD2 up and went through the setup wizard, did the Darks and the Bad Pixel Map. Great it works then went to start looping and that’s it. Just says ‘Stopped’ and that’s that. Massively frustrating. Can’t find an aux camera in the drop down list if that where you mean?

Thank you for your reply. Yup I have tried everything including a full computer reset annoying. However what’s more annoying it’s that after reloading the Apps on the fresh install of windows 11 it’s still the same! I have in the meantime dusted off an old Windows 10 Dell laptop and going to see if that works. I’ll post again once that’s done. If you remember how you fixed it I will be keen to know as I like my Lenovo! Wondering if it’s Windows 11?

Hi All. Hoping someone can help? I have an Altair GP-Cam 290M camera which works fine in APT, SharpCap and AltairCapture albeit it the apps see two instances for some reason. Not sure how to sort that out? However my main issues is with PHD2. It will connect to the camera but will not do anything else just says “stopped.” Started a new wizard and ran the darks and get a message “Operation Failed - no changes have been made.” I know the camera works but PHD doesn’t! Loaded with the previous version of PHD and just times out. I’ve used different cables with no difference. Running on Windows11 everything is up to date as of yesterday. Does anyone have this issue or do you know how to fix it? Help would be appreciated! incidentally my AA178M works absolutely fine!

Came today. So much better. Thanks.

I polar align my AzGTi with sharpcap as my cameras are attached to my scope, nice and easy. I did pop a camera on for PA then replaced it for an eyepiece for a quick setup for observation. I have changed it to AltAz mode although it gets confused re its orientation. Eg. Down is up and left is right! Slightly off topic but since it has been mentioned and I have a wedge. I was in two minds in buying the SeeStar for my daughter as she has shown interest in AP. Would the SW wedge support the Seestar? Personally I think it’s a great idea although I still think there’s still a way to go with Smart Telescopes. I have seen some good images but still in no way as good as a regular setup. i wonder if they will come out with an 80mm version and stick 585 sensor in it. I might not be sitting on the fence then!? However. Perhaps someone can shed some light on using it on a wedge as I don’t see how it can be run equatorially if the software is in AltAz mode only. You’re fooling it I guess but the motors will still track in both axis rather than in RA? Unless ZWO comes out with an upgrade like Skywatcher did for the AzGTi?

It is a fantastic camera. It has taken a while to understand it and I still need to do some experimenting with it. I just wish we had clearer skies more often so I don’t feel like I’m missing precious acquisition time! The fun of AP!!! I think Robin has done that so it’s more akin to the automatic switch over like ZWO cameras so you don’t have to think about it. I quite like the variability in having it fully manual. Enjoy your new camera.

Thanks for the compliment. Looks good enough that I might actually print this one out! 👍🏻