kirkster501

Just clarifying Olly..... You mean that when you calibrate your lights you use the master bias as the dark to calibrate the lights with? And you also use exactly the same master bias file as the, well, bias? So you use the same master bias frame on both steps?????? You also do some odd trick with flats as well I seem to recall? I have Atik 460 and the darks are very clean. Conversely, the 8300 chip in my Moravian has filthy darks. I feel as long as I keep my dark library up to date then I see no issues in continuing to use real darks and bias frames

The RPi5 will have the ability to chase off clouds for an optional subscription.

Brilliant, serious dedication there! Chapeau to you sir. Now for the colour version ?😂

Mine has sat permanently in my obs and run perfectly for the last two years. It currently has the Meade 14" ACF and TEC 140 in a side-by-side arrangement. Very heavy approaching 100kg with counterweights. Seems fine for visual and imaging. Some day I hope to have two mounts in my obs so I can do two different things. Would I buy another Mesu 200? Yes.

....sent before I finished. I use Moon Phase Photo Maps. similar to Derek's website. You can match the view through the scope and have red light view to protect your eyes.

Useful info here, many thanks guys for sharing.

Drove past you guys the other day past Marsh Barton. Next time I do so I'll stop for a cup of tea

I sorted this out last night. To get to focus you need to have the extender - that comes with the ASI120MM-mini - screwed into the front of the camera to push the sensor back a little bit more. A very nice and robust set up. I am very pleased with it.

Yuri will want a deposit of - I think it was $1200 when I ordered mine - to get on to the next batch list. He does this because he builds to order and can sell all his production runs multiple times over and does not want time wasters. The £/$ rate is not favourable either at the moment. When I bought mine the rate was about $1.55 to a £sterling.

Go on do it! You only live once and you have all that great kit in your signature. I wish I would have done now, even a 180. The 160 has extra aperture and even better colour correction than the already superb 140! When I am - god willing - a youthful and fit 58 year old retiree in six years, I am going to get a as a present to myself a TEC200 from my lump sum. I already nudged Yuri !

Thanks. My Guidecam is actually the ASI120MM-mini, so slightly different to your set up. I see you have the extender that comes with the SW ED50 still on your set up. Interestingly, if I put my eye to the back of the guidescope and point it at some distant trees in the daylight, the trees only focus when my eye is almost 8 inches away from the back of the focuser..... Surely the focus point of my eye and that of the camera are different, otherwise I'd need unfeasibly long extenders on the back to achieve focus.

I bought one of these to guide my wide-field rig. It comes in a bundle with the ASI120MM. High quality indeed. However, I spent two hours trying to get the blasted thing to focus last night to no avail and gave up in frustration. With or without the included extender it will not focus. I will have to try again later.

Posted in wrong thread. Apologies.

Go for a TEC 160 if you can. The TEC140 is so good that you wish you would have done.....

Balance in one plane is trivial. Balance in multiple planes is much more difficult. Not impossible but difficult. For example, you could get it all balanced east of the meridian and then after the flip it is unbalanced. You compromise to get it to balance both sides and then when pointing to the zenith you become unbalanced again... aaaagggghhhh!!!!! You might need to develop some counterweight system that you can attach to the sheet with the holes.

You'll do well to balance three telescopes. I could not get this to work in my set up, to balance in all orientations. I wanted to get my Meade 14" (lunar/planetary/visual), TEC140 (small scale AP) and FSQ85 (wide field AP) simultaneously mounted. Hours and hours of fiddling and I could not get it to balance so the FSQ has been sacrificed off of the permanent set up and I just have the Meade and the TEC140 permanently mounted. The Meade simply has to be permanently mounted, it is far too heavy to keep taking off the mount. I am going to try again at some point with a saddle arrangment like the one Davey-T has. I did not try three side-by-side, I tried Meade and the FSQ atop the Tec140. No way, Jose.....

Sorry I am only just back online after being away for two weeks. Did you get what you needed? Any measurements you need?

Yeah he is a top guy is Ian. He has even talked me out of buying stuff before because he wanted to do the right thing. He knows Takahashi scopes inside out, back to front and upside down, with their myriad of different adapters!

Great news, I have the greatest respect for Ian. He has helped me out no end of times.

Sorry for slight thread hijack but does the title thread reflect this special sketch? So funny...

I have the AstroPhysics CCDT67 for my 14" ACF. I have yet to try this reducer since I bought it off of ABS two weeks ago due to other projects and cloud out. Others have used this same reducer on the ACF 10" scope successfully. I can't think why the 14" should be any different so I have taken a punt on it. https://astrojolo.com/gears/acf-10-and-ccdt67-telecompressor/

You may want to investigate the CCDT67 from Astrophysics. I plan on using this on a F11 Meade 14".

What app are youy guys using on your phone to do this? Wow Geof, you get a 2? In England????

I'm Bortle 5. On a clear night does not seem so bad. Always a balance been accessibility to services/civilisation and being able to do astronomy. Regardless of Bortle class, give me some clear skies. I'd happily swap a drop in Bortle and have more clear skies.

With my side-by-side bar, my obs roof just clears - by an inch or so - the top scope (my TEC140). I have to be careful, at 3 in the morning, rolling the roof back so as not to whack the TEC. I would have made my peer a tad lower if I built again. Still an option to angle grind two inches off the top but I'd rather not if I can help it.