SteveNickolls

What a cracking little mount the Star Adventurer (SA) is.

I bought mine from FLO back in April (the astronomy bundle) and despite the weather have managed a few nights out under the stars. I found the mount well made but haven’t got on with the wedge preferring instead to have the SA on top of an old Celestron heavy duty alt-az tripod (set at 53 degrees for Nottingham) which makes polar alignment very quick and accurate using the manual adjustment controls. I found the wedge RA and DEC knobs very stiff to operate out the box and they needed silicone to smooth their working. I also obtained a right angled accessory to put on the eye end of the polar scope to make the alignment process a lot easier on the knees. The illuminated polar accessory is a fiddly beast to operate in the dark but I’m getting there. Also found that the SA/wedge will fit nicely on top of an old CG-5 tripod.

I began taking exposures with my Canon 600D DSLR/35mm lens combination controlling through BYEOS and have been able to get 5 minute exposures with no star trailing. When I have left the cursor over a star when taking successive 5 minute exposures hardly any movement is seen after 10 minutes.

Really looking forward to using the SA with longer FL lenses and counterweight in the new imaging season and on holiday.

Cheers,
Steve

54 minutes ago, scitmon said:

I think I will seriously look into getting Pixinsight

Thanks for the link to the discussion on the D80 Ds-Pro, it sounds very useful.

Have you tried StarTools for your image processing? You can try it for free though you can't save images unless you later decide to purchase. Ivo is a very helpful person and you can read more here-http://forum.startools.org/viewforum.php?f=3 and there's a long video in The Astro Imaging Channel you could watch-http://forum.startools.org/viewforum.php?f=3

Cheers,
Steve

13 hours ago, scitmon said:

I'm not sure why some targets seem to have less trailing than others

Hi, and thanks for posting. You might want to get a copy of, 'Astro-photography on the Go-Using Short Exposures with Light Mounts' by Joseph Ashley, available from the SGL's sponsors. A very worthwhile read on the whole subject. As The Admiral pointed out you are witnessing the effects of field rotation and some mount movement, the book has a field rotation table identifying the maximum exposures of objects at different positions in the night sky, basically longer for objects in the East and West and at lower altitudes.

I'm interested too at the performance of your telescope, do you find there's light aberration, particularly blue fringing (certainly not judging by your image)? The D80 Ds-Pro sounds excellent value at £349.

Cheers,
Steve

Hi Fabien, Thanks for your reply. No that's fine thanks, just me being idle I guess :-)

I'm hoping to do more in the future with camera and lens and seeing the outcome of images at say 200mm FL is very helpful and inspirational.

Cheers,
Steve

Hi Fabien,

Thanks for posting your latest image, well done there :-) Can I enquire as to the equipment used, settings etc. and any filters employed? I'd like to have an attempt at imaging that area of sky before it is totally out of my view but that's down to the weather which isn't co-operating at all this year.

Good luck too with further imaging.

Cheers,
Steve

As regards which ISO to use if you experiment using different ISO settings when imaging you will come to some workable conclusion to best fit your own equipment and imaging location. The link Uranium235 gives is most interesting. I've also found www.sensorgen.info useful too. During my short stint astro-imaging so far under bad suburban skies I have gone from using ISO 1600 to 800 and to now 400 with my Canon 600D, the last drop albeit when using EQ tracking as I can get longer exposures than when using my Alt-Az mount and in combination with fast lenses (can be down to f/2) really hoover up those photons and when having more dynamic range left available is important. With my Canon 600D Sensorgen indicates that by coming down from ISO 1600 to 400 the pixel well saturation point increases from 2001e- to 7578e- while dynamic range increases from 9.4 to 10.7   Using a higher ISO setting you are really just making the image brighter, there's no more detail and will sacrifice the dynamic range when later processing the image. Good luck experimenting, it's very much part of the fun.

Cheers,
Steve

6 hours ago, rotatux said:

Pleased with the result and the new lens,

Yes well done. Interesting to know what objects will look like at various FL's.

Cheers,
Steve

16 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Just as there is another imaging challenge we can do

Yes, and a lot of Alt-Az work can be done at 30 second exposures too. Good luck anyone though having a try.

Cheers,
Steve

2 hours ago, Nigel G said:

Now the moon is getting bright so that's another 10 days of no DSO's  

Yes, the season is about ending for me, chalk it mostly down to experience with such poor weather of late. I'm hoping come the autumn we will get much more favorable weather conditions.

Good luck anyone trying to image into May-June.

Cheers,
Steve

On 4/24/2017 at 16:58, Victor Boesen said:

You should give it a go! I captured it with my 50mm lens with only 75 6sec lights.

It is in the top right corner.

And don't forget you also captured M101!

Cheers,

Steve

On 4/19/2017 at 16:22, Nigel G said:

The colours were quite bad so I went for B&W.

There's something special about a monochrome image and galaxies that ticks lots of boxes. Well done :-)

Cheers,
Steve

On 4/8/2017 at 21:40, jimbo747 said:

Seething. Raging even. 

Last night I decided to properly sort my scope out, focused the mak with barlow and 224mc ready for some jupiter shots, attached the IR and UV cut to my 1100d, perfect focus at 10-12 degrees, spot on alightment, set scope to park, connected via my remote intel nuc in my mini observatory ready for tonight.

 

Moon looks good, jupiter now above houses, will see orion, lovely calm night, best one this year. Turn on mount, get laptop and a glass of wine and boot up teamviewer... no connection. Try another laptop and same...

 

Just read as of 10 minutes ago teamviewer down for 8 hours of maintenance!!! Just my nonefamilyfriendlyword-ing luck!!!

Remote desktop not setup. None of the software setup on my laptop and I'd have to do another alignment which is a pain to do without line of sight (took an hour last night). I just wanted to use the 224mc and modified dslr for the first time, and the Gods are laughing at me. 

 

If something happens tomorrow night, theres a free keter max storage box, raspberry pi with linear actuator, SLT mount, 127 mak, 1100d, asi 224mc, intel NUC and a load of filters, web cameras and storage cases available for collection from derbyshire FOC.

Ahh, the more down the techhie slope you venture the more susceptable to outages you become.

Seriously I hope you have better luck next time out.

Cheers,
Steve

You are in the right location happy-kat, the green object is M97 I would say going by the nearby stars patterns and the spindle shaped object is a likely M108 (Surfboard galaxy). Stellarium shows Tuttle to be nearby but perhaps just out of frame. Don't know the time of your imaging. Well done anyway. Can I ask the details of the imaging?

Cheers,
Steve

5 minutes ago, Filroden said:

The only annoyance was how it whined as it slewed at its top speed. I was always concerned it would wake the neighbours.

Thanks for confirming the capability of the mount Ken for alt-az work. I know what you mean about loud slewing and being outside at night time. 

Good luck with the AVX by the way.

Cheers,
Steve

Thanks so much for your account of the mount's tracking over an imaging period Ken, it's such a difficult point to establish without user feedback and the little foibles that can creep in now and again. I'm interested in what you've said about the battery performance issue you experienced as being battery powered was a plus point for the mount, adding to its potential for portability. I'm pleased you think a recharge between sessions would be ok for it, that's good news. I've got similar issues with balancing with the SkyWatcher Synscan alt-az mount and my telescope set up is quite back heavy but as this season I've been mostly imaging with just with a camera and lens (no telescope) that has not been an issue to resolve immediately. I ought to get a longer dovetail for when I do go back to using the telescope. Can I ask what exposure lengths you have managed to get with your Evo set up Ken? I find my SkyWatcher Synscan is ok to around 60 seconds for favorably positioned objects and returns very high percentages of frames acceptable to use in DSS. At 70 seconds the mount's design starts to let it down and the percentage of stackable frames plummets.

Cheers,
Steve

Hi Ken,

Without going back deep into the thread can you tell me how long you were able to sustain tracking with the EVO mount on your imaging sessions? 

Cheers,
Steve

5 hours ago, Filroden said:

You can blame @FLO and their "January" discounts, but I pressed buy on a new Celestron AVX mount during the night.

I too will miss your posts and contributions Ken and wish you every success in the future with the EQ mount. You have certainly learnt a lot with your 'umble alt-az mount and left a legacy for others yet to come on the thread.

Best regards,
Steve

I do feel for your plight happy-kat, this weather is making imaging nigh on impossible right now but we've got to stick at it and be ready for when the clear nights do materialise.

Cheers,

Steve

22 hours ago, Filroden said:

Isn't it funny how routine makes you forget the basics.

Hi Ken,

I'd add to the list with lack of clear night skies and age. I'm sure you will surmount this hurdle. Good luck.

Best regards,
Steve

6 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Thank you Steve and Nige, this image might make you laugh it is the view I had Monday whilst imaging MGC2244 currently taking bias files with a bag over the lens. Behind me are 3 more leds one 15 feet away!  I am suspecting my lens shield was not long enough for the direction the camera was pointing. 

Blimy, you need ARP Warden Hodges from 'Dads Army' to, "put that light out". Keeping on the military theme you deserve a medal putting up with that streetlight!

Good luck imaging.

Steve

Hi happy-kat,

Well done for even getting outside and having a stab at imaging. The weather since the end of September last year has been the poorest since I started records in 2012. I keep hoping the balance will return soon so we can all get out and image.

Your mention of gradient and light pollution in your image of NGC 2244 struck a chord and of course when we image using our Alt-Az equipment we are limited to the altitude we can image to meaning we get the brunt of the light pollution. While I couldn't see any clear sky a few night's ago I took a photo of how the mist made the the light pollution spilling of the local church below us visible, this is half a second at ISO 400-

They can't even seem to illuminate the spire accurately! Some nights the church looks as if it is on fire. The top of the spire is around 180 feet high and the light shaft goes up quite a long way above that. The church is due East.

I took another photo of the southern sky on the 13th February, two second image at ISO 400 and where Orion ought to be-

Once again good for you having a go imaging in the present conditions!

Cheers,
Steve

2 hours ago, DarkD said:

teve, unfortunately no ? Just an urban sky with to much light pollution. I will say M=4 to the naked eye at best. I have to move at least one hour from home to find a suitable dark sky... when imaging home I use the IDAS LPS filter... it helps but above 20s at 2000 iso and FD/4 the image is totally white ?

Sorry to hear that, it is around the same here, I can usually see to Mag 4.3. My only occasions for observing/imaging at darker sites are on family holidays when it's a pleasure to get to see the Milky Way. Good luck with your 16"-er and do keep posting!

Cheers,
Steve

13 hours ago, DarkD said:

Interesting topic indeed !

Here is my contribution to the No EQ challenge

All images made with a SkyVision 16" Newton Alt-az with Stellarcat and skycommander .

No auto-guiding, no field rotator in action (althouh I have the Optec Pyxis LE), and 10" subs at 2000 ISO with Sony A7S (Astrodon inside)

Just the job shows what a large objective can do; do you have a good, dark sky?

Cheers,
Steve

20 hours ago, Nigel G said:

Now my wife has agreed to let me build a summerhouse (observatory) at the bottom of our garden 100ft from the bungalow, which gives me 360 degree imaging field and be able to leave the mount set up.

Project for the coming months.

You lucky, lucky thing. All the very best with the build.

Cheers,
Steve

13 hours ago, Filroden said:

Id love an observatory but it wouldn't give me much other than somewhere to store stuff. Though being able to align and hibernate the mount does sound good. 

I wouldn't underestimate the value of somewhere permanent to have your equipment set up and ready at relatively short notice to take advantage of weather breaks etc. Ken. It would lead naturally on to EQ imaging especially as you can initially spend time getting accurate polar alignment with the gear in the observatory to save repeated set up's from afresh each session.

Good luck with the mini pc too.

Best regards,
Steve