cacophonist

I think I can fix that by lowering the resolution. Still sounds like I need a much bigger focal length though, and a suitable adaptor.

I've read that the small pixel size of the RPi HQ camera is an issue when used as a guide camera. Is there anything I can do to adapt the HQ camera to this purpose? I use Stellarmate OS on a RPi 5 and Stellarmate are now saying they support the camera which does seem to be accurate as the driver loads well. I have a 16mm telephoto lens attached to the camera. Focal ratio is about 11.4 at minimum aperture. https://www.adafruit.com/product/4562 I could buy a cheap guidescope. My main scope is a 72 mm refractor so this limits the requirement for a 'big' guidescope, right? Is switching to a lower resolution on the camera likely to work? My next best option apart from adapting the HQ camera would be a new guide camera and I guess I just don't want to see this little nifty RPi camera go to waste while spending extra on a single-purpose guide camera.

Thank you both, that's really helpful! I'll of course upgrade the mount in time but at least for now I won't spend more than a few hundred on guiding when I have such a basic mount.

So what's the difference between a great autoguiding setup and a functional one? If I was going to spend extra money I'd certainly look at kit that is lightweight because I use a SW EQ3-Pro and it won't a load of extra weight. My initial understanding is that it corrects for movement error in the mount which in my case is not a great deal. Would any guiding make a great difference on my mount? But assuming I should get at least a basic 50 mm guide scope and a dedicated guide camera what's wrong with the cheapest of the ASI models or is there nothing at all wrong (perhaps at my aperture it's perfectly acceptable to have some error or lack of precision??)

I suspect my vision is going to be a problem if I rely on it much. To be fair I didn't let my eyes adjust to the dark before looking. I was using a computer screen a few seconds before so perhaps some time in darkness and patience would do!

I'm v new to star gazing. I got a cheap Celestron travel scope several years ago for viewing the Jupiter, Saturn and Venus conjunction around Christmas here in the UK and a pair of binoculars last year but I finally bit and got a sky watcher 72 ED 72mm aperture 420mm fl) this year on an eq3 pro mount. I'm happy with the photos I'm taking now with a mirrorless Canon. See attached, 180 second exposures x45 stacked of the Iris nebula very roughly processed and a single 90 second exposure of M5 globular cluster. However, straight after aligning on M5 and taking the attached photo I swapped for a 20 mm eyepiece from the old Celestron and refocused using some stars in view and I could only see a blurry distortion in the middle where M5 was, I tried the 10mm from the same kit and same result. If I thought this was what astronomy was like I would definitely forget about it. I can't overstate how disappointing the view was. But I'm completely satisfied with the photos which is my primary aim. So do I try a better eyepiece or something?

Thank you both. It's really good that the forum has active participants and I'm super grateful. My camera is a bit different to the regular EOS. The Canon EOS M50 has this Canon EF-M lens mount: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EF-M_lens_mount I take it I need a T ring adapter then but maybe not the one mentioned above?

I have managed to buy: Sky-Watcher EvoStar 72ED 0.85x reducer for said telescope Canon EOS M50 Mark II Does anyone know how to combine the telescope and the camera? I don't mind returning the reducer if it's not needed. The reducer does says it should be used in conjunction with a DSLR-M48 Ring Adapter but the Canon EOS M range do not match M48. First time on the forum, first time looking into astrophotography, if I made a dumb choice you can tell me I did and I won't be offended!