kirkster501

Only the individual concerned can decide if it's worth the premium. What is worth it to me may not be to you. It applies to anything; cars, houses, holidays, clothes, bathroom taps.... That's why we have choice. You alone must decide if it is worth paying the premium to have a higher end product.

Thanks. So do you focus with that Astromechnics thingy then and not an external belt mod? What F stop was the Sigma 105 at on this please?

I quite like Rigel in this pic and think you should leave it alone. Rigel is kinda bright, right, and that is reflected in this picture whilst retaining control of it.

Hi Peter, great image. How do you connect the ASI to the Sigma 105 (Canon type? ) and change the aperture/focus?

Happy with all my stuff but I have been on the lookout for a B1200/B1800 Ha solar scope 60mm and above. Rarer than rocking horse poo........

I would not be happy with that on a brand new scope and I would be seeking either a replacement secondary and/or a significant credit on the cost of the scope if you have to live with it to cover your resale loss that will ensue when someone notices it - as they will since it is a Fastar and is removable for Hyperstar. If they come out with the "manufacturing tolerance" BS, tell them that the nature of this defect, cosmetic or not, will effect your pocket when you come to sell the scope and it is unbecoming of a market leader such as Celestron to subject a customer to this. It is not acceptable you should have to put up with this, even if the secondary works perfectly, as I am sure it does. I would not accept a brand new scope with that defect. Any BS then go straight to Corey Lee, the head of Celestron. You can find his email on the web.

That scratch will make no difference at all to the views other than a minute amount of contrast. I saw this scope when it was for sale and thought it would be a great scope for someone. Had it been a Dob I'd have bought it myself to leave in Cornwall. Glad to see you are making some mods to it

Unless you have dark and clear skies most galaxies are tricky other than M31/M81 and the Leo Triplet. Photogenic ones like M33 and M101 have very low surface brightness. As others have said, I think you may be suffering from expectation vs reality.

^^^100% this, especially for astrophotography. What with seeing, guiding and everything else going on, there are already enough variables up in the air to be worrying if the scope is collimated. I use SCT for lunar photography and the planets because aperture is more important for that and the said variables do not apply. All that said, I have no fear of collimation and do so all the time with the SCT and dob.

I have seen this issue before too. In my case it was my anti-virus SW - Bitdefender - blocking the communications on the internal software port that is open between SGP and PHD. What AV software are you running? Maybe the firewall is blocking communications between the two programs - try turning it off.

It has in turn driven up the used market too. Anyone sitting on astro gear is sitting on money in the bank. A simple issue of supply and demand and many consumer items the same. Echoing Louis' point, my BMW Z4 35is has gone up by £5000. I bought it for £14000 in 2018. It is now worth £19000. How many times can you say that about a car? My Celestron C925 has gone up used by about £300-400!

People are emotive about collimation and approach it with fear. Why? You can't break anything and it is a mickey mouse job to do once you get the hang of it. If you are into reflectors, you need to get into collimation. Commit to yourself that, one night, you are going to master this, come what may. It's like repairing a puncture if you are a road cyclist; something you have to know how to do as part of the activity. To answer the original question, people want reflectors in one of their various guises for their aperture. Big, quality refractors are megabucks and become enormous when you get past the 7 inch aperture - assuming you have the funds for such an aperture which will be tens of thousands whereas a 8" reflector is a couple of hundred.

Nice images with good colour that has not been overdone. You are slightly over sharpening them in my personal opinion, especially the first ones. Your final one is much better.

...and nice pic by the way to say they were done with your phone. Overexposed though but hard to control that on an iPhone.

Every full moon now has some stupid, media assigned name now.....🙄. It was the blood, wolf moon last month I recall

Nicely done. Yep I’m a lunar guy too when she’s up. Great pic here. Well done, yes slightly overly saturated but who cares? Looks fab. I find the true challenge - especially in the UK - is more zoomed in pics of the moon and overcoming the UK seeing. That is highly challenging.

I like. Good job adding the moon to your repertoire of astronomy objects to image. Too many people curse it when it is a fabulous object to get immersed in.

I wouldn’t do that. Persevere with colour mate. There is significant colour on the moon in some areas.

Your disk is nicely done. The bottom two are much too over-sharpened/posterised. Good work all the same!

Nicely done. Not quite sure about the colours of the second one. The Moon, despite its proximity, can be a hard target to master I find. Very hard.

One has to be careful not to oversaturate the stars in globular cluster images. I have seen some where there are strange blue stars that looks unnatural. I prefer to be quite modest with any colour manipulation.

20 x 300s in each of R,G and B binned 1x1 with TEC140 and Atik 460.

Not dark enough to image now until 22:30. I had another 5 subs before then but had to chuck 'em away. Left rig running all night last night on several objects in Ursa Major. Hopefully be able to finish them off tonight.

A quick go at the HFD in Ursa Major with 8 x 10 mins through luminance filter on TEC140 and Atik460. It is amazing that galaxies 8 billion light years away can be captured with amateur gear. Not the kind of pic that gets people's pulse racing but it is astonishing what it represents. Link below to the NASA image and website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Deep_Field

Thanks. I will investigate.