fwm891

Congrats on the scope buy.

Use the stock eyepieces to start with. Until you know what they give you'll never know really what you want as an improvement.

First task though is to learn how to keep your scope collimated so you get the best possible views from it...

Join a local astro club. People there are usually more than helpful to beginners and can take you round most of the pitfalls your bound to encounter.

14 minutes ago, Mark at Beaufort said:

Very nice Francis you are really becoming a visual observer first a 16" Dob and now a 4" ED Frac - it must be the dark skies in the Golden Valley.. Hope you will be able to bring it along later in the month. 

Really hope to. I’ve got fingers crossed for tonight but there’s a building veil of high stuff…

The scope arrived about an hour ago, a day late (but that's another story) didn't worry about photos of unboxing the scope - there are too many of them anyway. Put up my iOptron CEM25P in the garden and placed the OTA onto the saddle. I used a Wiliam Optics 2" dielectric diagonal and a 24mm panoptic to first focus on a tree about 1/2 mile away. Balanced everything up - no power attached, I then locked the mount with it pointing at a tree.

First to get a feel for my widest fov I put a 35mm Panoptic in the diagonal (gives 20.4x) and focused up. Wow. Now a tree isn't the best optic test for a astro scope but the contrast (bright overcast weather here today) and sharpness of leaves, branches and twigs is visually striking. Ok other extreme my shortest eyepiece a 13mm Delite (55x) and suddenly I'm bringing into focus ladybirds walking along a branch, a spider repairing it's web and bugs just flying around the fov. If I ever get tired of astronomy I can take up bug watching!

The scope is quite light and very easy to handle on and off the mount's saddle. The CEM25P will handle this with ease. Principally for visual so I see some a shorter fl eyepiece  around 4mm in the near future. Possibly even a barlow.

Once i've had chance to expose the scope to starlight I'll update this first impression review.

Francis

I have a pair of Barr &Stroud ‘Savannah’ 10x 56 they’re not too heavy and that little extra bit of glass brightens the image nicely.

I find I use them most to find stars near my target when low down and the finder scope can’t find!  Also like to sit back and trawl down the MW while the imaging rig gathers photons.

+ 1 for a decent pair of bins

Taman,

Nice image, especially a first attempt.

You might find that a simple UV/IR filter on objects like this are better than a dual/triband filter. You will build your exposure more quickly and you will get more background detail too.

The dual/tri band filters are great with OSC cameras on nebulae with or without a moon. When the moon is down then I remove NB filters in favour of a UV/IR cut filter for objects like the Pleiades.

Francis

Frac. A 4.5 or 5 inch frac while smaller aperture wise than the 8 inch dob you will be using it straight off - no collie problems and images are good even while its cooling down.

If you have plenty of focus movement then just get an eyepiece par focal ring on the Hyperion barrel to act as a small spacer and lift the EP above the screw head.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astro-essentials/astro-essentials-parfocal-rings.html

I've used the two images in PS and treated them with layer masks after selecting, then cutting out the sky in one. Reversing the selection expanding the selction by 1 pixel and deleting the forground. Then getting as much as possible from each before flattening and rescling.

Hope you like

With an OAG the important thing is the size of the pick-off prism face. Some of the slimmer models have long/narrow prisms, best avoid those. Filter draws, check you can mount your filters so the correct side faces the ‘sky’. Baader filters are edge marked to show which side should face the sky.

4 minutes ago, Newforestgimp said:

It does thank you, I will initially be using a DSLR, I had read that the 2” and a 1” extension tube will give correct focus. If I introduce a filter drawer into the mix do I then have to remove the 1” extender and replace with a 6mm extension if using your 19mm filter drawer as an example ?

If using a dslr then yes. A dslr has circa 45mm of extra body depth so you need to allow for that. My asi533 only has 6.5mm so I need the extra extension tube to make up the difference.

Best thing is to simply mount the camera body and point it at the moon and focus it. What you want to avoid is having the focuser racked right out to get focus. If you find that add a 1” extension ring to bring the focus to about half travel or less. 

4 hours ago, Newforestgimp said:

Think I’ll give the 50mm a go first, good tip about underslung and out front mounting, I will look to do this.

Do you use the reducer or straight through ? Filter wheel/drawer ?

keen to understand what spacers I might need if I were to filter drawer &/or OAG

I use my RC8 with and without a reducer (0.67x). I use an ASI533MC Pro as my imaging camera. Filter wise when there’s little or no moon I use. Baader UV/IR cut filter for galaxy’s star clusters or globulars, for nebulae I use an IDAS NBZ.

I have  homemade filter draw which allows me to keep the correct face of the filter to the sky. I no longer shoot mono, so no filter wheel. I use the 2” and a 1” extension tubes my filter draw (19mm) and the standard focuser. I also have a motor focus unit as it’s difficult getting that last fine adjustment manually.

I hope that helps.

I use a TS 60mm as Guidescope on my TS RC 8. OAG’s are great but can be very restrictive on fov. I have my 60mm guider mounted under the main ota and forward, that really helps with balance as the RC 8 is back heavy to start with. TS do an 80mm guide scope which would be better still. I use an ASI120mm as  guide camera on the 60mm.

Great report must have look too

Superb build - well done both 👍

16 minutes ago, RobertI said:

Very nice, some of these must have looked superb through 16”. 

They sure did. Panning through the North American Nebula especially the gulf area was superb. Other than imaging it .

This past week or so I’ve been buying and selling bits through the classified on the forum. I’ve picked up four TV Panoptics:15, 19, 24 and 35mm focal lengths which I felt were a good basic set.

Couple these to my 16 inch Dob and a darker near new moon night and I’m a happy boy.

I’m new to the observing lark so last night was to soak up starlight by just panning round. I found m57 (ring neb) easily well before it was dark. Then m27. At this point using the 35mm as a finder I tried using a 2” IDAS NBZ filter as a visual OIII Hb it worked a treat. M27 stood out superbly. I got the NBZ tri band to use with my OSC camera. I fitted the filter to a 2” to 1-1/4” step down adapter so I could  use the other eyepieces with the filter. The 19 and 24mm ep’s were fine, showing the dumbell  shape and after watching for a while I noticed mottling within the bright pats and quite extensive wings - all shades of grey of course. The veil eastern and western parts jumped out with the filter. Took me a good while to locate ngc891 not what I expected, (probably not it then!). Ngc 281 the pack an nebula also yealded to the NBZ filter.

m31 it’s companions and m33 all found through growing high cloud. Switched to a gap between house’s and bagged m’s 81, 82, 97 and 108. Plus a few globular clusters. Went to bed really chuffed. Bring on the darker nights.

7 minutes ago, BobInYorkshire said:

Hi Francis,

Please forgive my ignorance but what is APP? When I put that into Google it comes up with loads of “apps”.

Regards

Bob

Astro Pixel Processor.

https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/

There's a 30 day trial

Great image by the way...

Try APP trial. Great thing with APP is you can basically throw all your lights, darks, flats, bias.... into it press integrate and let it do it's stuff. When it spits out the image you can tweak it with its own processing tools to correct backgrounds and star colours.

Like most processing programmes once you get into it you can play with settings. I don't now use it (PI man now) but I wish it had been around when I started AP.

Francis

Not a lover of the Moon but that is superb for a WiP.

I've had the TS/GSO 10 inch dob - really good value too.

10 hours ago, faulksy said:

that could be good. might be interested in a shroud

thanks Francis 😀

Mike, https://ukfabricsonline.com/

They have a waterproof section - I found the tent fabric in there (2 oz technical fabric 3.99 mtr)

3 hours ago, faulksy said:

are you leaving your u.t.a.open ?

@faulksy Mike, yes I am. Reason being I’m having a rear light shield covering 180 degrees made from a waterproof tent material (black) very light weight and opaque. From UK Fabrics, and cheap too!

That will clip on the cage and extend well above and below it.

I may order the same for a shroud if the shield works and doesn’t absorb moisture too much.

Francis

You can do a custom white  balance in daylight and save the settings - check the manual/menu settings.