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Had mine in bits a couple of times. Funny enough the last time was indeed a faulty snap port. Managed to repair it, but it's a pretty cheaply made component to begin with. One word if advice is go easy with the grease upon reassembly, as too much causes further problems.

Your mount is on the small side for that scope.

Yes, it's possible. With careful balance, I've done 600s guided subs with that combination and a MILC/DSLR. YMMV

I think I'll stick to guiding my SA for now. Thanks

If it ever materialises, it might be too big to be called a grab and go tracker. Also seems overkill for my needs. Happy to be corrected, though.

Large PE with a harmonic drive? That doesn't sound good. How is that possible with the way the gears engage?

Is there anything mount-wise on the market good for unguided imaging in the 300-400mm focal length range? My Star Adventurer can only reliably image at that focal length with guiding. But If I want to guide, i have a proper GEM for that, (which takes too long to set up). I do love the unguided dithering feature of the Star Adventurer too, but I don't see another tracker that supports this. The Astrotrac and Fornax Lightrack II seem perfect for my needs, but the deal-breaker is they can only image for 2 hours at a time, so useless for any meaningful unattended sessions (i would love to know if some genius in the astro community has modified one to run all night, just like the Star Adventurer can). I also like the look of the new RST-135, but not at that price!

I failed to say, I already own a 130pds and 0.9x SWCC. My M43 sensor seems to do ok, I've yet to use my APS-C, and I don't currently own any FF. I guess there's no point considering one now. Thanks for the info!

Are there any owner's who know if the OTA will cover a full frame sensor without vignetting, coma and the like? Thanks

Yes, a large part is due to processing. The latest iteration of Startools has ways of addressing this. Also, not all emission nebula targets exhibit prominent Oiii lines.

Thanks, Louise I recorded a PEC run the other night, with my usual ASCOM setup. Didn't see any substantial improvement in guiding so, as you say, I'm not sure it's worth bothering with in the future.

Hi I've just started looking at running my mount handset's internal PEC routine, but I'm confused about actually going about it. I image with a scope and finder guider connected to my laptop via USB, then my mount handset connected to the laptop via ASCOM. All the guides I see mention ST4 connection from guider to mount but is this necessary? I can't see the point of running NB the PEC routine via ST4 then having to reconnect with ASCOM? Is ASCOM ok for PEC? If so, what is the exact procedure? I get I need to calibrate the guider in phd2, but then do I just select PEC and press record in the handset? I don't understand all the talk about looking at curves and finding indexes. Any help appreciated!

Yes, there is a HDR stacking algorithm in DSS. You can group your different sub lengths in separately, too. Will it will produce results you are satisfied with? Try it and see.

That's exactly the one I use, but I've completely removed the pan/tilt head and bolted the SW latitude base directly to the legs at the top, then run 3/8" studding the full length of the central tube to a 5kg counterweight at the base. It is now incredibly sturdy.

https://www.eastmidlandsstargazers.org.uk/topic/12353-my-eq-platform-project/

To add to all of the above, you can buy the Dob, build yourself an eq platform (which will track well enough for visual), buy a used camera tracker, used dslr and adapt an old M42 lens (all for widefield imaging) all in for roughly the price of the Flex tube. That is exactly the way I did it and have no regrets.

If you eventually want to take the imaging route, you can forget the flex tube for anything serious. Field rotation.

Hmm. I wonder why the SA equivalent is still in beta download only? No official release in months, now.

M57 - Olympus m43, 710mm mak lens + Unguided Star Adventurer

I'm surprised nobody has tried this yet, but you can squeeze in 2x CR2025 batteries (instead of a single CR2032)- that doubles the voltage and will make the illuminator much brighter. Used batteries would be best, to minimize the new higher voltage. I wouldn't leave them in long-term, though. Just long enough to get PA, should suffice.

Yes, as best you can.

SWSA, Canon 1100D, MTO-11CA + homemade 0.7x focal reducer

Yes thanks for that, but I already have a full tube for which I used earlier in the thread. Barely used any, so plenty left for further work. I'll see how it performs when opportunity arises.

Well today i had a bit of free time, so I only went ahead and stripped down the Dec assembly, as outlined in several readily available online guides. Cut a long story short, the entire internals were smothered all over in grease - no wonder the Dec was so stiff. Bear in mind I removed most of it before I took these photos. Plenty of fine metal particles between the gears too, so a good soak and clean in solvent got everything sparking again. There were three alarming fragments of swarf sandwiched between a pair of mating UHMW "bearings". Left undiscovered, I've no doubt they would eventually cause serious damage to the washers, possibly shredding them to bits, seeing as they are only plastic. Obviously, not great quality control at initial assembly then. Also probably explains why i felt the Dec felt graunchy, in certain positions. I also fine grit wet-and-dried a conspicuous rough spot on the worm-wheel body (not on the actual teeth). I don't think it has any affect on performance, but i did it anyway. Dried off then sparingly re-greased all the mating surfaces with the ever popular Loctite Super Lube. Re-assembled everything, adjusting worm and spur gears. Powered up, and re-adjusted the anti-backlash settings in the handset. Job done. Dec axis is still stiffer than RA (it always will be, as there's no proper bearing), but to my eyes it is an improvement on before, and no more "graunching". Got an impressive total RMS of 0.48" before the Dec stripdown (over a 2h+ run) a few days prior just by cleaning, re-greasing and adjusting out the backlash on the RA and Dec spur gears. Hopefully guiding will be at least as good again with this full Dec axis service. Kev