willcastle

Every time I read your messages I get too distracted by how cute your dog is 😂😂 but hm... we have the manufacturer then OVL then the retailer. I would say that first and foremost, the manufacturer needs to make sure they are making high quality and durable products that are carefully transported from China. I guess I think of OVL as the main point of contact from the UK..... so I guess manufacturer is most important.... then any issues have to be resolved by the supplier. I guess by your logic that OVL could re-QC the items before sending them to the retailer?

Yeah I replied to that in a private message.

Ah how exciting. You have the dream set up there: a terrific scope for planetary imaging and a superb scope for DSO imaging. And an unbelievable mount. I used to have the NEQ6 but had to sell it a few years ago. But I have just returned to the hobby with my evostar 80ED and a HEQ5. If you have any questions, drop them my way; we can work out some of this stuff together 😆 I’m still a noob too but have a little bit of experience with all of this.... even if I have forgotten a lot

Here is the video I was talking about: If you go to around the 22 minute mark, he talks about the difficulties balancing the scope. Then in a follow up video the same guy did, he shows the scope on a much much longer dovetail bar whilst also discussing the balancing issue :

Hahaha ouch. Kinda funny and also made me want to cry :’) is this your first scope?

Yeah I would def consider that because mine was like dream quality smoothness. This is my 5th (and most expensive) scope and this has by far had the nicest focussed I have ever seen. I honestly was blown away by the smoothness. Particularly of the fine focuser. The larger wheels were a bit stiffer / more imprecise (as you would expect), but otherwise fine.

I would literally go and do it right now if I was home. Also, I just boxed it up. Due to the glue on my lens, OVL are collecting it tomorrow to (hopefully) replace it. When I receive the new one I can totally check for you though. I am fairly sure that I might have read on another thread here that some people have struggled to balance this scope due to the weight at the back. Ohhhhh no hang on I think it was in a YouTube video . Let me see if I can find it. Just a word of caution: it was a little bit tricky to find the right bolts and to make sure the holes were correctly spaced to attach a new dovetail bar. It’s not thaaaat hard, but more fussy than it needs to be.

That’s strange.... I managed to get perfect balance with mine by pushing the scope forwards and moving the dovetail bar. I had even more weight on the back because I attached a DSLR. I wonder if my guidescope on top helped to somehow balance the weight towards the front?

I don’t know if you have been following my post about “glue on my lens” or what ever I called it, but I have literally just received mine and it came with a few issues. The two dobs of glue were far more messy on mine and they had actually got glue on the lens itself. See my attached picture. As for the focusser: mine is super smooth... I couldn’t believe how nice mine felt 😕 so i guess others above are correct: they must vary in quality. As for the schott logo, I emailed OVL and they confirmed that the logo has disappeared because the advertisement deal with schott has ended. They did ignore me when I asked them to clarify if the scope still contains schott glass however. I will press it again after they replace my current scope ( unless someone else asks first)

Hi Steve, It was definitely a new product that arrived because it was out of stock when I placed the order. It arrived with the retailer and they sent it out to me the same day they got it from the supplier. As for the glue, yeah mine looks exactly like that photo you shared in the link, but far more messy. And then there is obviously the glue on the actual lens. This is undeniably a manufacturing issue. I took a new photo and highlighted it to show more clearly what it looks like. In red are the bits of glue that I suppose are meant (?) to be there, but are clearly poorly applied. In green is the glue that has gone onto the glass of the lens (it didn’t show up very clearly in the photo). But yes I think this will all be resolved just fine by the end of this process. I think the issue has been HOW I have been spoken to. As a loyal customer, who has spent that amount over the years, what I wanted was a sincere apology for the situation; not to feel like I was under suspicion, or being accused, or simply like the retailer couldn’t care less if they had my custom or not. I think the true measure of how good a company really is, is how they handle a situation when things go wrong, and how much they truly value their customers. Sure they handled lots of other orders just fine, but to be perfectly honest, if this had of been my first order with them, it would have likely been my last.

They are stunning! Far better than anything I have ever achieved. And those top two with a fairly small scope too! But wow thanks. You are my new favourite person on this forum :') When I get back out there I will ask for your help! What imaging camera do you use? I used to use the SPC900NC (which I still have), but I am thinking of upgrading to a ZWO ASI 224MC. It sounds more tricky to capture LRGB in such a short time period and I have seen some amazing results from people just using the 224MC. Plus it will cost me more to get a filter wheel and set of LRGB filters....

Amazing! Thanks so much. I hope you don't mind but I am going to follow you and ask you further questions as they arise. Which software would you usually use to carry out de-rotation? (just for future reference) And did you have any thoughts on sharpcap? It has been such a long time since I got the scope out and imaged. I assume you do planetary imaging to be this knowledgeable ? What do you use and what results are you getting?

Okay I have been out of the planet imaging game for a while (7+ years!!) but I want to get back to it. 7ish years ago, the free standard was sharpcap and registax for stacking. What should I be using now? is there any reason to not keep using these? I liked the simplicity of sharpcap back then. I have heard mentions of PIPP and AS2 for processing? But I don’t know what they are i also don’t know what de-rotation processing is? i have so much to learn (and relearn)

Great. Thanks. I guess you took that on your c9.25? It’s a great image. Clear surface details and a nice Cassini division. That’s what I want it for; planetary imaging and maybe occasional auto guiding. What made you go for colour cams over mono?

Well I guess it’s okay. Just a shame there isn’t any surface detail 😂😂 (joking of course, it looks stunning)

Wow! I haven’t even seen this planet yet! Well done, it looks great

Looks great to me!

Did you use an IR filter and a Barlow?

Look great to me! I like the IR filter image best I think

I see you also have a 224MC. Got any thoughts to share on it?

I am thinking of getting a ZWO ASI224MC. It is a usb 3.0 camera. I think my laptop has usb 2.0 ports. Will the camera still work?

Here was my best result with an SPC900NC, also on a skywatcher explorer 200P. It was about 7 years ago, in fairly poor seeing and only about my third attempt at capturing Jupiter. Not as good as Olorin’s but still a picture I was pleased with

I find it interesting that people are saying the SPC900NC is outdated. Sure it is old, but you can’t argue with results. Here is one of many astonishing images captured by a user on here called olorin. Not only was it on an SPC900NC, he also managed this on a skywatcher explorer 200p!!!!

Yeah you make a good point. When this is sorted I will have a beautiful telescope and amazing set up and I can focus on enjoying the hobby with the knowledge that there are plenty of other good retailers out there

I will check them out. But yeah that is the kind of service I would expect from a company. They sold you something with a fault so they should be apologising