RobertI

I'm going to change my answer on the basis that vlaiv and jimjam111 know what they're talking about. Also I can see more detail now I'm looking on my monitor instead of an iphone.

Hi Matt, an interesting challenge, hard to choose - not being an imager I’m going to make a fool of myself and say the first one is itelescope?

What a great night! You covered a lot of ground, you must have been very satisfied at the end of the session. The noctilucent clouds look wonderful.

Good catch John, wish I’d read this before, I would have had a stab last night when I was out.

My skies are Bortle 4 on a good night. Overhead can be really dark on a nice transparent night, which are not that frequent. Darkness also depends on which neighbour happens to be going to the lavatory.

I should have mentioned, this is for visual! Apologies.

Informative thread. 🙂 I have a question and hope it’s ok to put it here rather than starting a new thread. I am looking to get an OIII filter, primarily for the Veil, but also any other nebs which may benefit from OIII. I had settled on the Astronomik OIII. I’m now wondering if the Astronomik UHC might be a better bet, not quite so good on Veil but possibly a better all rounder. I’d be using it with a C8 (+0.63 reducer), 150PL and possibly 130P. The lowest power eyepiece I have a present is the Hyperion 21mm. What do folks think - Astronomik OIII or Astronomik UHC? Thanks. 👍

Great vid as always Chris.

Well if you can afford it, you can’t do much better than hyperstar - F2 is super quick which is what you want with the less sensitive colour cameras. I would definitely go this way if had the time and money. Good luck and keep us updated. Perhaps start your own thread letting us know how you are doing? 🙂 As Mick H said, @noah4x4 has a wireless Fastar setup with the same scope, so will be able to advise.

Hi Barry, Welcome to the wonderful world of EAA! You have chosen a really nice scope. Have you managed to use your scope outside to view any objects yet? That might be a good idea while the weather is still warm, so you can familiarise with the scope and understand what it’s capable of and where any problems lie. As you say, you are going at this pretty quickly, so I personally think it would be a good idea to try and get some results as cheaply as possible before splashing out any more. For example, do you have a DSLR camera? If so you could start with some imaging of the moon and then move on to some brighter star clusters so you can understand the challenges of locating, focussing, tracking, stacking, processing, etc. When you’ve got the hang of it and decided it’s definitely for you, then a dedicated camera and a reducer is required. Ideally a focal reduction to F5 or less is what you need for fainter deep sky objects. The more focal reduction you use, the more ‘coma’ like effects you get at the edges, hence a camera with a very small chip is desirable to minimise these effects. I use a Lodestar mono CCD (mono cameras are more sensitive than colour) which I have been very happy with, but people are increasingly using colour CMOS cameras with excellent results. I am not that up to date with latest cameras so will leave it to someone else to recommend something! I use an old Meade 0.33 reducer (no longer made) - some people manage to use them at 0.33 without coma, but the best I have managed is 0.4 which is still reasonably fast. You could also try a 0.5 or 0.63 reducer and set the spacing to get as low as possible before coma appears. HTH Rob

That long? 😂

A nice addition to the range, I love my H130, so I'm sure this will sell really well. Being so light the OTA should sit nicely on smaller goto mounts like AZ-GTI too. Shame the OTA doesn't have similar decoration to the 130P, which I rather like as it makes it a little bit different. Unfortunately stray light does get into the focuser tube on the H130P if you're line of sight is towards an illuminated window or streetlight, so I imagine its the same for the H150. I've not worked out whether the stray light comes in via the front of the OTA or around the light shield, probably both. Not a huge problem if you are in a dark spot though or viewing bright objects like moon and planets. I have a simple homemade shroud and dew shield which has solved the stray light problem.

Great vid Chris, nice demo of the imaging capabilities of a budget setup. Nice guitar playing too - you're hired!

Glad you got the main problem fixed. Very nice image of the Eagle, focus and tracking look very good.

Lovely result Matt.

Sounds like you have a great setup there and a good location! Nice M51. EAA can be very liberating in so many ways. I got into EAA when I found myself living in the centre of a small light polluted town with no hope of visual observing from my back yard. I had already dabbled with astrophotography and had a very sensitive Lodestar guide cam. I read about some software (Lodestar Live) which allowed people to use the camera view objects in near real time on a laptop, so I downloaded it and set up. Although there were three very bright street lights within 100 feet I was amazed at the results. So simple and so effective. Not only was I observing from my heavily light polluted yard, but I could see REALLY faint stuff and keep a record for good measure. I now have reaonably dark garden and have been doing more visual observing lately so EAA has taken a back seat, but I will return to it in due course and it's reassuring to know I have it available if one of my neighbours decides to install a 1000 Watt security light and destroys my dark sky!!

Just did some UK/US price comparisons, and interestingly in the US, Maks are more expensive than their SCT equivalents, in the UK the reverse seems to be true. Not quite sure what conclusions to draw (it's late!). Celestron C8 - £1067 in UK, $999 in US SW MAK 180 - £805 in UK, $1200 in US Celestron C6 - £649 in UK, $599 in US SW MAK 150 - £485 in UK, $750 in US

I love that video. Steve Buscemi takes his telescope to be sawn in half by Chris Squire (bassist from Yes). Surreal but entertaining.

Nice first light report Matt, sorry I missed that (now four years ago 😲). Hope you're getting out under the stars.

Nice history Matt. Shame I never got to properly try the 250px when you lent it to me 🙁 Interesting to hear about how good the Mewlon is visually. How does it compare to the 250px?

Azure blue sky + Venus + Luna + earthshine = nature at its most beautiful (even with a lampost in the way )

Should be a really nice scope for EAA.

Thanks for sharing, looks very promising, should look spectacular when focus sorted. What camera and scope are you using?

Does the app allow you to view the image in black and white? If so you might find the coloured noise less noticeable - that has certainly been my experience with my EAA camera, although very different setup. For galaxies it you don’t lose much by viewing in black and white imo.

Very useful table thanks. It’s interesting to note how the difference between the resolving powers is quite large for smaller apertures, but the difference is quite small for larger apertures, surprisingly the 150mm and 200mm are quite close, although I imagine there are some effects of rounding up and down of numbers.