Neo_uk

Sure ..

Altair Wave 102mm triplet 

Planostar 3" .79 reducer 

Zwo oag

Asi1600mm pro

Zwo efw

Badder 1.25" filters 

All shot using asi air pro.

Gain setting 139 unity gain 

60s subs .

I had more or less the same artifacts using my starlight xpress h694 and sx filter wheel ...could it be collimation of the scope or reducer ?.

Many thanks Chris. 

hi David..

yes I have pixinsight but not too savvy with it which process would i use ? ...

I've just sorted my luminance data from  last night and with a quick levels and curves in photoshop it looks all weird ...are these reflections from something ?

Hi ...

I guess this may be a silly question but is it possible to convert images taken at 1x1 bin to 2x2 bin before stacking ? ..

I've made a rookie mistake where I have shot my luminance data at 2x2 and all my flats and darks for all filters as well ...only problem is all the rgb data I forgot to change the binning to 2x2 so all my calibration frames don't match in dss ...

So is there a way I can batch process all the rgb data from 1x1 to 2x2 to match the rest of the data ?.

Many thanks Chris.

No problem 😊....

Any help is always appreciated !.

Chris.

Hi callisto...

That's the adaptor I have ..and was just wondering if mounting it in that before the filterwheel was ok ?...

Many thanks Chris.

Hi...

I'm looking for some guidance on how to put a light pollution in to my imaging train for when I'm shooting lrgb images ...

I have just got a zwo 1600mm Pro and I was wondering  if I could use the ccd window adaptor to mount a astronomik cls filter in before my filter wheel ?... if there's clearance that is ?.

The cls filter isn't the ccd version but from what I've read the only difference is the ir cut properties...but my baader filters in my wheel do have the ir coatings ...so in my reckoning this should be fine.

Was just wondering if anyone had done the same ?.

Many thanks 

Chris.

Hi Anne...

Thanks for the reply...

I have the ccd camera screwed directly to the filterwheel using the sx adaptors so not really possible to get it any closer...

I don't think the spacing is 100% correct from sensor to flange of the reducer think I might be out by 7 or 8mm so maybe that's the issue ?.

Yes the larger sensor is appealing and I'm the same as you in the fact I've only ever had ccd ...I know it's a hotly contested argument the whole ccd v cmos theme ...but at ££££ second hand with filterwheel and lrgbsho filters ...although it being as new would I honestly gain anything for the money ??.

Like you've already said cheaper to get a smaller telescope.

Many thanks again for your advice 

Chris.

Hi Anne...

My mistake it is the .79 planostar 3" that I have ..

The image I posted was last night so shot in the dark ...and those are the clouds you can see ...( I was dumb enough to belive alexa saying I could expect mostly clear skies and so set up the rig 😆)

I only managed 15 mins of lumance all night and most of those had light cloud in the ...

I stacked what I'd got and did a quick levels and curves in photoshop.

I'm even contemplating getting another camera the zwo asi1600 Pro but not sure if I'd see much difference from the h694 to warrant spending the money.

Chris.

Hi ...

I've recently chopped and changed my imaging setup over the last month or so and I'm having quite bad vignetting issues ..here's a run down on the rig...

Altair 102mm triplet

Planostar 3  0.8 reducer

Starlight xpress h694 mono

Starlight xpress filter wheel 

Baader 36mm unmounted filters.

I would have thought with the size of the reducer and filters and taking the size of the ccd chip into account ..surely it shouldn't be as bad as this ?

Any ideas ? ... is it a spacing issue ?

Here's some nice pictures of clouds from last night that highlights the vignetting quite nicely .

Many thanks Chris.

I also own the altair 102mm f7 triplet..great scope both visually and for astrophotography...here's my latest image taken with the 102mm although it being my first narrowband image .

Really pleased with the scope and would recommend it to anyone .

many thanks dave

all up and running .

Hi ...

I've been out of the hobby for a while and I'm trying to setup my eq6 once again using a hitech astro USB interface that I used to use but I can't seem to find the drivers for it ? ..also I've upgraded my pc to Windows 10 ..will this still work or are drivers even available anymore ?.

Or is it time to get the newer version of the cable ...

Here is the type of eqdir I have .

Many thanks Chris.

As most have already stated first run of clear nights ..only to have a full moon hampering all the little faint fuzzies up there ..

So I thought I'd try my newly acquired narrowband filters on a easy to capture target ...the rosette nebula.

Gear  and image details are as follows..

Altair Wave 102mm + plano star. 79 reducer

Sxvr-h694 and filterwheel

Baader narrowband ha , oiii and sii

Heq5 pro mount.

16 x 300s ha 

12 x 300s oiii

5 x 300s sii

Had a few issues at the beginning of the imagine session were the mount did a meridian flip and you can see in the image on the left hand side a line and I really should have weeded the bad frames out .And only 5 subs in sii before I started getting images of the roof ! ...

The processing was a learning curve too !

But all that said I'm quite pleased for my first attempt ..

Thanks for looking Chris.

Hi ..

Many thanks for the replies !

This has helped me out alot ..as we know clear skies in the UK are far and few between and last night was a complete wash out ...

Found a excellent tutorial on here about apt so going through that now ..

I always thought of my self as tech savvy but the older I get ...the worse it is 🤣.

Many thanks again Chris.

Hi...

I wondered if any of you kind people could tell me how to calculate the focal length of a telescope using a focal reducer ? ...I.e native focal length 600mm and a .85 reducer and 715mm using a .79 reducer ...just struggling to get apt to plate solve and I think it maybe because I have the telescope native focal length entered instead of the focal length while using a reducer. 

Any help would be greatly appreciated..

Chris.

Welcome to the forum.

Thank you ...for your insight ..as samandrew said £500 is a big difference for not alot more apature..

I did read that some wo scopes suffered from focuser problems ...how do you find the focuser on the new gt71 ? ...

Another side of the coin is if I went for the gt71 for the £500 difference I could get the flattener and matching guide scope and still be in pocket .

On 08/02/2021 at 16:33, Astro Grandad said:

Hi, I think the table you are referring to is only for DSLR cameras including mirrorless, (the one with the extra 2mm.), the first table with diagram is for dedicated astro cameras.

I have a WO GT81 with flattener/reducer quite a good scope but not amazing and your right with the confusion over focal distancing, I set mine to 5.2 + 1mm but still have minor trails but only on one side which suggests tilt not focus, I use a Altair Hypercam 269C. I don't get why your measurement is nearly 90mm though ! as you should be looking at 55mm from the face of the camera to the face of the flattener I think !!!, also why did WO make the flattener a reducer as well - no need.

 

Cheers  Neil

Hi Neil...

Just wondering why you refer to the gt81 as "quite a good scope but not amazing" ? .

The reason I ask is I'm considering buying one and just thought I'd ask your opinion as you have this scope ..have you had any issues with it ?.

Many thanks Chris.

I guess I'm happy with the ed80 ...I was just thinking of a bit more flexibility with the f.o.v ...but I think its down to the chip size of my ccd camera ...throw in the modded dslr and the field of view of the gt81 widens quite considerably...

Hi ...

I'm looking at upgrading my imaging system ...currently I'm using a skywatcher ed80 Pro (gold tube) with the skywatcher .8 reducer/flattener with a starlight xpress h694 mono camera and filter wheel .

I'm really torn between the gt 71 and gt 81 from the respect of the fov both with and without the flat 6 reducer and my current ccd camera ...

I know that apature is king but there is about a £500 differance between the two scopes .

What would you do ??? ...

Also if I did push the button on either of these scopes the ed 80 Pro ( gold tube version) and flattener would be surplus to requirements and I'm not sure how much to advertise is for ...it has some marks on the ota from guide rings and the rubbers on the focus knobs are missing...optics are excellent and has the aluminium case finder ..diagonal and eye pieces .

Many thanks for looking and any advice would be much appreciated..

Chris.

Thank you ..

For the advice...think I'll order some of that then ! ...

Many thanks chris

HI ...

I was just wondering what the best method of cleaning filters and lenses is ... ie .. what fluids and wipes/cloths to use ?.

Many thanks Chris.

1 hour ago, malc-c said:

I use an original QHY5 as a guide camera on my setup, with windows 10.  I still have an original ASCOM driver which hopefully can be attached to this post which you could try, along with the test application.  As far as I can remember this was this driver I used, however I would need to open up the observatory and check that, but if there is a later driver it will be on the observatory PC and I'll get that one for you as well if you find the attached doesn't work.

I did find a link for the QHY5 driver and Updater software https://www.qhyccd.com/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=show&catid=29&id=1  which may have been the driver used (it was some time ago when I put this machine together and I've slept since then !)

 

QHY5.zip 6.09 MB · 1 download

Hi Malc...

Thank you so very much ! ...

All up and running ...

I've spent hours searching for drivers and what have you to try and get this working ...all sorted now thanks to your help.

Chris.

Hi Malc...

Thankyou for the driver I will give it a go ...just drives you bonkers at times trying to get something up and running that you know works perfectly well ...

Hopefully it will do the trick ..

Many thanks again Chris.

Yeah I've tried that and phd2 just vanishes ....

I would buy a new guide camera ...but I've hardly used this one and its as new so seems a waste ..that something that's perfectly good is no longer viable just because of drivers ..