bendiddley

1 hour ago, bomberbaz said:

Just so you know, I have a 183MC pro and I use it to good effect with the 72ED.

Thanks

Thanks Guys, will look into those options. Just to add I also own a Skywatcher evostar 72ED which I hope to use the camera with. And yes @bomberbaz looking for cooled.

I own a starlight xpress SXVF M25C. Had it some years but want to upgrade to a modern CMOS camera. looking at the ZWO options  but I’m not sure what to go for. I want to use it for deep sky and am only interested in a colour camera, mono is a bit beyond me at the moment. I have a budget of £600 and looking at the second hand market. Any recommendations?

20 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

IDAS D2 filters are useful for LED lights.

Great thanks

58 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

For the noise you need to expose longer, a lot longer. Your camera (from what i could find) has read noise in the range of 7e- to 12e- and your 300s subs are definitely not long enough to account for that. The exact length of exposure that is enough to cover that depends on your sky conditions, but i would guess you need to go at least 10 minutes to get significantly less noisy results. The same applies for your calibration frames, the more you stack them the less you add noise in from them. 25 is not that much, you would do well to at least double that number.

Thanks for that. I will definitely try stacking more calibration frames next time, maybe give the lights more time too.

42 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

I would say that perhaps your stars are a tiny bit out of focus, just. Which may give the appearance of bloating. Then again, does the 72ED use FPL51 glass? Regarding the offset halos, did you use a filter? I get this type of halo on my Redcat if I use a filter.

Thanks. No filter used. Not sure what the glass is, the retailer I purchased it from doesn't specify it, or do other places it seems. Maybe there is a focus issue however the central spike on the bahtinov was right in the middle.

Went out last night and got first light on my new Skywatcher 72ED. Great to be out as its been a while.  Managed to get some data which I processed today. As you can see there are a few issues going on and wondering what might be the causes. Things I notice are the stars are bloated, the large stars have halo/discs around them, the detail is a bit fuzzy even though I made sure the focus and PA were spot on, it's also become quite noisy. Here's a full list of the set-up...

Scope: Skywatcher 72ED with .85x focal reducer
Mount: NEQ6
Camera: Starlight XPress SXVF-M25C colour CCD
Data: Lights 22 x 300sec, Bias x 25, darks x 25, flats x 25
Stacked with DSS, processed in photoshop

Many thanks!

Now that most street lights are LED, I'm wondering if light pollution filters are still needed as I was under the assumption that they only filter out the old orange sodium lights?

Thanks guys

Curious. What do people call this? I’ve heard it referred to as a barrel. Some call it a nosepiece. Is there a standard term?

10 hours ago, Simon Pepper said:

I have the Samyang 14mm can recommend there is a little CA when wide open but can stop it down or crop the edges for the price you can’t beat it. Here is one I took the other day think this was 25s stack of 10.

Thanks. Great image!

Ok guys. If I go for this Samyang 14 what tripod would you recommend for it? I currently have a very light and flimsy tripod which has a dodgy leg so needs replacing. I’d say £50 to £100,  happy with second hand if needs be. 

1 hour ago, Alien 13 said:

Most wide angle lenses suffer from this type of distortion but is easily corrected for either "in camera" if its a Canon lens or by most of the image processing packages available if the lens is listed (most are).

Alan

Thanks Alan 

I've been reading some more reviews about this lens and some people report fish-eye type distortion and vignetting, is there a lens that doesn't have these problems or are all 14mm in this price range like this?

Wow thanks for all the info guys! So what's the RF version and why isn't it as good? Also why is the lens rounded? Feeling quite tempted by this!

Thanks. What's the focal ratio on the samyang 14?

Thanks, yes APS-C

Thanks for that. I would love to go for a 1.8 lens, but I think it might be out of my reach budget wise. I've also wondered about f2.8 lenses as many 2nd hand ones of these seem to be in my price range, although you can still get some very expensive 2.8 lenses too.

Looking for a lens to do some Milkyway landscape photography, budget £150-£300 second hand. Any recommendations? I have a canon 600d.

12 minutes ago, Len1257 said:

Just checked one of mine and hour and quarter. Obviously gone for fine finish LOL!

I always take the long view. It takes what it takes, plan ahead and get on with other things. Some of my prints have taken two days +. 

Cool cheers

How long does it take to 3D print something, excluding designing it, the actual print time. For example a simple end cap like the one in the first photo?

13 hours ago, Ohgodwherediditgo said:

If you don't have any joy with Bruce's suggestion, you could download ontopreplica which will overlay any region of the screen you select over any other open window. 

Edit: The direction keys may not function with ontopreplica as it only replicates the view in the region selected. Hadn't thought of that before I posted. 

Great cheers.

On 28/05/2021 at 11:02, Bruce Leeroy said:

Not sure, using Nexremote if you right click the floating handset there is an "Always on top" option, there is a utility AutoHotkey which claims to give you that option on any window but I've never used it.

Many thanks. I'll look that up!

Does anyone know how to get the small ASCOM hand controller window/pallet with the direction keys that allow you to move the mount to float on top of stellarium when stellarium is in full screen mode? I can access the ASCOM window when the stellarium isn't full screen. Just wondering if there is a setting for this. Cheers.