knobby

Maybe, I'm probably cheating a bit as the Heart image is narrowband which may hide the blue fringing ?

Ha Oiii Sii

Ah, shouldn't post so quickly ... Just realised what Billy might have meant ! It is fairly hard to get enough inwards focus travel with the Skywatcher reducer hence my use of the William optics reducer.

1 hour ago, billyharris72 said:

It struggles badly with RGB filters on a mono camera (below about 420nm it just doesn't focus)

ED72 / William optics 0.8 reducer / ZWO 1600 mono / ZWO filter wheel ...

My vote is a 3rd screw 👍

No expert but guide speed is at 0.1 X maybe try 0.5 also Dec is common to have excessive backlash, maybe try longer calibration steps ...

Also run the guiding assistant for about 3 minutes and see what it recommends.

Ouch

Pleiades is looking good 👍

Could be wobble, I'd check your balance and polar alignment. I used to get around 2 minutes at 24 mm with rough polar align but at 105 mm or 300 has to get spot on to go above 1 minute on mine.

I'd say check polar alignment as you're at 300mm. The bottom one looks like the result you get if you  were to polar align using the darv method when poorly aligned.

Differential flexure is where the guide camera / guide scope moves independently from the imaging scope / camera.

The focuser movement is a good place to start. Everything needs to be solid !

Edit

Just watched the video of focuser ... That's shocking ! Need to find a way of stopping that. The weight of the camera as it flips across meridian will surely cause movement .

It guides my reduced 72ED ok, about 335 mm

I'm a Suv 😅 so don't know Chester but try a dark sky app on your phone ... Screenshot of your area attached

I wouldn't put the 200 on an EQ5 for imaging, I'd go for a 130pds

As James said, I've seen that suggested before somewhere, it apparently stops the air movement inside the tube ...

Worth a bash I guess.

Poor quality phone shots but here's both ends of mine.

Saturation boosted to try showing cable colours 

It does need the hand controller 😟 you can connect a cable to the hand controller but not direct to mount.

Best bet is hopefully one of the Kent guys will see thread and offer to lend you one ... Some of us have spares as the Starsense accessory has its own handset.

Hi Vlaiv, I love mine. It easily holds my SW72ED / reducer / filter wheel / zwo 1600M / finder guider approx 4.5 kg. I use the Star adventurer wedge on a manfrotto tripod with the Star adventurer counterweight (and M12 to M8 adaptor) I could really use another counterweight as the 1 doesn't quite balance.

Never used it in AZ mode, just for imaging. I've used the wifi connection and recently gone to a Lynx cable ( use ascom or synscam mobile app) so I can use the laptops wifi to Teamviewer from the warm house !

I agree about the 'quality control' if you get a good one it's a cracking little mount.

The alignment has similar options to the other synscan mounts, 1 star / 2 star / solar system etc, you can even point your phone at something and it follows it. (I plate solve with APT)

So far I've imaged up to 5 mins guided with fairly round stars.

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Lynx cable - https://www.firstlightoptics.com/lynx-astro-cables/lynx-astro-ftdi-eqdir-usb-adapter-for-sky-watcher-az-gti-mounts.html

Windows sysnscan app - https://skywatcher.com/download/software/synscan-app/

Ascom driver - https://skywatcher.com/download/software/ascom-driver/

EQ custom firmware - http://skywatcher.com/download/software/motor-control-firmware/

1 hour ago, Alan White said:

Politics? Tssk, Tssk!
But I do get what you mean knobby.

Mmmm I have strayed into the 'P' word, but I don't do it often 😄

Good news and bad news rolled into one ! maybe now there is evidence that light pollution WILL change or lives someone will start taking it seriously.

Silly idea, but if Mr Johnson or Corbyn are listening perhaps they could introduce an after hours light pollution tax 🙂

I'd vote for them 

15 hours ago, jimjam11 said:

Have you ever tried much shorter guide exposures? With a small guidescope seeing effect is minimised and mounts like the star adventurer (mine at least) guide way better with exposures of 1-0.5s. 

I'll give that a try if the clouds ever leave the UK 😄

32 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

Got any pics? Despite my recent revisions and approach to my gear, I might be scaling down in the new year (temporarily) to just a DSLR and 71mm triplet so was eyeing up the Star Adventurer. But if the GTi in EQ mode is a viable option then I'm very interested. Can you add a counterweight?

Star adventurer counterweight kit with a M8 to M12 thread adaptor (if I remember correctly)

1 minute ago, jimjam11 said:

Thanks,

What lens/OTA was that? What kind of guide rms are you getting from it?

SW 72ED 0.8 reducer / flattener, guide graph posted above now

Guiding is a bit iffy but probably can be tweaked in settings I guess

I used to have the star adventurer mini (no guiding) and never really got on with it. Bought the Az-Gti and love it , it has a bit of backlash and is by no means perfect ( fairly iffy quality control) but the ability to plate solve and guide fairly well has increased my effectiveness massively.

I'd get one !

Taken with Az-Gti on Manfrotto tripod/ star adventurer wedge / EQ firmware / ZWO 1600 pro / finder guider.

Done