AstroKriss

Thanks, now looking forward to some clear dark nights of the UK winter (fingers crossed)

Crikey, what a beast... I can't begin to imagine what that must cost lol....

Thanks, only recently finished building my DIY observatory... If you want to take a look: (https://astrokriss.com/observatory-build/)

I'm pretty chuffed with my current setup pictured) but what im drooling over at the moment is between an C11 Edge HD SCT, and or a large 120mm Triplet Refractor...... (might need to sell a kidney to get either).

It's very exciting, hope they can corroborate and confirm v.soon, and we need to get more advanced tech to be able to get probes out on thier way to explore. Anyone finished building a warp drive yet?

This looks very sleek

Wow, impressive with a 4" Refractor, I thought you need much higher focal length to get that sort of image.

This is awesome, thanks sharing, I’ll be sure to give this a go

Looks amazing, great image. That’s the sort of result that makes me want to give mono a go

So I fir this one stacked the lights from each panel in SiriL, opened the stacked fit file, cropped out the edges dithering, then only performed histogram and asinh transformations. Save the resultin fit file and as a jpg. Then just used the jogs to stitch together with Hugin. overall not too difficulty a process.

Hi Paul, do you have link or details on steps to do this in ASTAP? Would like to try it, but not clear on how to. Thanks

Sure I’ll do an update in a few months with progress using it and likewise do share yours as you build it.

Hi John, yeah I found that yesterday too, seems to be a good option although had to covert to JPEGs first but seemed like I got a good result from it: https://astrokriss.com/my-photos/galaxies/ The top image of m31 is the result which I’m quite pleased with.

Ah that’s a shame will try and hunt down one for the original.

Hi @aleixandrus Im not sure 2x3m would be enough for a second Pier, I think you'd likely want a bit more space, you might get a small portable ring in there but would likely have limited space to use it, but again I'm no expert. I think If I had lots of room, I'd have made it 3m x 4m, which I think would be plenty of room for 2 piers and some storage.

Awesome thanks, will have a go at this

Does anyone know if this will work on the original EQ8, not the new ones?

Hi all, I recently attempted my first 4 panel mosaic image capture through my ASIAir. I have I have stacked all the images from each panel, and cropped out Dithering artifacts so I now have 4 stacked FITS files. But for the life of my I have no idea how to merge the Fits together into a single larger FIT files. Can anyone share some experience on how to this on macOS software? I know I could just convert them into TIFF or something and try to manually stitch them in PhotosShop, but was hoping to find a way to stitch the Stacked FITs files together before processing them all as one single image. Any tips or advice? I currently stack and process my images in SiriL. Thanks

That's awesome, I'd love to get a good solar scope to get some Ha images of the sun

Thats an excellent first image, well done

I tend to turn them off when capturing where I can, and I’ve not noticed any specific issues so far. I’ll keep an eye on it though for sure.

Hi, thanks so far I’m really happy with it. So as I installed the pier before deciding to build it, the pier is lower than I’d like. The walls are about 1.6m high before the roof, so currently I am loosing quite a bit of horizon, but as I’m in residential area I lose most of that already due to other houses and surrounding trees. I don’t know pier height to be honest, but I am looking for ways to raise the height of mount by about 20cm but can’t find any specific pier extension for EQ8, so might have to be something custom at a later date. at the moment yeah the roof has about 8cm clearance from the scope so can open and close with telescope in home position. Considering a larger scope in future that will need a special park position. As I use ASIAir at moment I hope they add that feature before I need it. in terms of size it perfectly compact for the one pier and scope with a bit of room for growth, and I was limited to size I could build in my garden. of course if I had room I’d definately like it bigger with room for 2 piers

Hi folks has any had any experience upgrading the azimuth adjustment bolts on the original EQ8? I’m finding it hard to adjust with the mount being super loose, but want to tighten everything up more but still be able to adjust without using grip wrench. any suggestions and or links would be greatly appreciated thanks

Thanks, yeah it’s going to be a total blessing for the upcoming cold winter nights not frosty pack down in the early hours.

So I've got a SkyMax 102 and the biggest issue I've had with it is that I found it extremely hard to focus manually as even the slightest touch causes so much wobble I found it almost impossible to focus by hand. I fitted an electric focuser and the helped a lot, but I've not had much luck with it myself. This posts has reminded me to go back and give it another go some time. I bought an old Skywatcer focuser of e-bay and my father-in-law made a great mount for it on his 3D printer: