ollypenrice

I would certainly want to try it to find out. It sounds like a great and imaginative facility. Olly

Agreed. That looks fine to me. Once you get the right calibration routine sorted out you should get clean output. I use AstroArt for stacking and, although my Kodak chips have far more innate noise than my Sony, the end result is excellent. AA gives you the option to correct hot pixels and repair columns. Just mouse over the column to see it's y-axis co-ordinate and plug that into the last page of the pre-processing menu. The old Kodak chips are not as sensitive but have a fantastic track record for producing great real world results. Olly

For years I used something very similar, a Mk1 'Pearl River' Genesis but with a 35mm Panoptic. It was the widefield observer's dream - Stock 2 framed with the Double Cluster, the Rosette, the entire Veil.... I made it a small box which, with diagonal removed, allowed it to travel as airline carry-on as well. My first view of the Rosette was had that way, in Spain before I moved to France to live. I can see it from here, too, but never managed it in the UK. The nearest I have currently is a Pronto which is quite nice but lacks light by comparison. Olly

For historical accuracy the mount you're calling Mk1 isn't Mk 1 at all! Originally (I think) the mount we know was the Mesu Mk2, so called because the Mk1 was an interesting roller-drive flipless design along the lines of a fork but with one central supporting arm. The Mk2 was an equatorial familiar to us all and this was renamed the Mesu 200. I have two of these and they use Stellarcat drives and an ArgoNavis handsets. They have no connection with SiTech but are mechanically very like that version. The casings holding the driven wheels are one piece, leaving us all wondering how Lucas got the mechanism inside in the first place! It's a bit of a 'ship in a a bottle' scenario. 😁 While I love the Mesu-Stellarcat-ArgoNavis version and have two of them, the problem was that, not having a park position, it was not suitable for remote or semi-remote operation. I live on site so this is of no importance to me. I do think it's a shame that the mount is no longer available in this version because it has a number of advantages, viz: - It is dead easy to use. Steve Richards' setup guide simplified the SiTech setup but there is no denying that there are lots of threads from people finding it difficult. I am seriously useless with IT products so I like the handsets! - It is 100% internet-free. Try as they might, Microsoft will be unable to get you and sabotage your system. - It is 100% PC-free as well. - The design and build quality of the ArgoNavis handset is stunning, better than AP and 10 Micron, and they are inexpensive. All you do to get going is point the powered-off rig at a bright star, power it up, synch on the star in the handset and then centre it and re-synch. This is slower than the SiTech... except when something has gone wrong with the IT... 🤣 👹 Well, it suits me and I can't help thinking there may be other steam powered dinosaurs like me who would prefer the ArgoNavis option. Reliability: running these two Mesus commercially for years I have had precisely no problems with them whatever. I had a mysterious issue with a cable but it turned out to be just the cable and not the mount. (I tested this cable by trying it on my other Mesu and it worked for a while.) Hey-ho, these things happen. I also host three SiTech Mesus and these, too, are mighty reliable. One of them had a SiTech issue where it would come to life in the day and run to the end of its travel but the owner sorted that out eventually. I'm now considering a conversion to SiTech so as to be able to spend more time in bed but, knowing me and IT stuff, I think I might end up getting less sleep... One final thing: many people think I have a commercial connection with Lucas Mesu. I don't, in any shape or form. Indeed both my mounts were bought second hand and I had no hand in the acquisition of the three based here. I simply admire the product very much and wish to see it succeed. I did help Lucas contact some English retailers when he was looking for a UK dealer but that was just as a favour to help with the use of English. Olly

As Malc says above, that's what I'd do (and have done.) Your black bar is indeed a dovetail, in this case a Vixen one which I'd call a Vixen rail. The part of the mount which holds it in place is called the saddle plate. There is another common dovetail standard called the Losmandy, which is wider and better for large setups. I assume you don't have 'Go To' on this mount? If you do you can just point at a bright star, take a snap, centre the bright star by trial end error and then synch the mount on that. Olly

He must be a young 'un!!! 🤣 Olly

Nik has been writing a series called Masterclass in Astronomy Now for quite a few years. I don't know if they've been collected together at any stage but it would be a good idea. Olly

What I do is avoid messing about with the big stars and just let them be. Once the image is fully stretched I make a copy layer and then the following, which I call reverse-processing: Top layer. Take a well feathered eraser large enough to remove, fully, the star and its bloated halo. (This doesn't show because the bottom layer is what you now see.) Bottom Layer. Curves. Pin the curve at the level of the background sky just outside the halo. (Place cursor and ALt Click.) Add a fixing point below the background sky point. Now pull down the curve above the background sky point, experimenting with a shape that gives you a smaller but still natural star. You can see the effect in real time and look for artificial-looking transitions. The same technique will work for stars set against a nebulous background. Olly

They are internal reflections but from where, I wouldn't like to say. To be honest, the sheer length of 'stuff' after the end of the drawtube really is a fundamental problem in this setup. As well as the internal reflections you have extreme and asymmetrical vignetting (top left in the image posted). When the leverage against the focuser is as long as this you have little hope of keeping the chip square on to the light path. I'm sure it isn't what you want to hear but I see this setup as fundamentally flawed. If I'm wrong, and others have made such a system work, I'll stand corrected. Olly

I presume you wear a white coat when surrounded by so much of that famous 'hospital green?' A very fine sight in any event. I get a lot of stick for having an FSQ106N in my linen cupboard but there's nothing odd about that. Is there? Olly

If you don't have a very dark site I'd go for 4 inch over 3 inch. There's not much difference in bulk but a big difference in what you can see. (I live at a very dark site and do find a 70mm good visually. Rosette, Veil, etc.) Alt-Az for sure. I use a very old and very second hand TelePod but it's fine. Also good for wildlife, if bulkier than a true spotter scope. Mike JW makes a good point about the Mini Tower, though. Olly

Heh heh, and I thought it was a fraction low (but, like you, good enough for jazz!) Then I looked again and now I don't know. Freddie may have a point but I like the B mask because it is software free! I don't know about anyone else but I always find the bisecting line slightly offset from one side to the other. In this case I see the left as a tad lower than the right. But when it looks as above, just get on with it! Olly

Thoughts: - Are you refocusing regularly? - As you approach the zenith the full weight of the camera/FW is hanging on whatever is locking your drawtube at its present extension. If it's going to slip, the zenith is the place where it will do so. - As you approach the zenith the atmosphere's tendency to induce blue bloat is at its lowest so your problem is contrary to that. - In thinking about this, don't forget that luminance passes blue, so bloat in L and bloat in B can have precisely the same origin. - I'd check for dew on the lens, the filters and, above all, on the chip window. That's where it gets me on the rare occasions when it does get me. Olly

🤣 To be fair I only have one of those and still have articles as well as photos appear regularly... (Even my location isn't foreign. To me!!!) Olly

It is, I know, counter-intuitive to spend more on the mount than on the optics or camera but think what you are asking the mount to do. That's track the apparent rotation of the sky with an average error of less than half an arcsecond. An arcsecond is a sixtieth of an arcminute and an arcminute is a sixtieth of a degree and a degree is one three hundred and sixtieth of a circle. That precision is very, very difficult to achieve... If you don't buy the right mount you will buy twice. You honestly will. HEQ5. Olly

This is consistent with a number of things but certainly with reducer-to-chip distance. The diagram below, from an old SGL thread, suggests your chip is too far from the flattener. Olly

I doubt it matters. You're going to be over-sampled, I guess, either way. Just go for the one with the best S/N ratio. There is no significant Ha signal to be had. Olly

Thanks to all who've replied. I really can't run to £225 because that's about what I paid for the Pronto itself! It looks as if the WO and the Baader might be the same thing re-badged and, since your reports are favourable, that might be favourite. What I need to do first, I realize, is compare the view in my present prism with the same view using a good star diagonal (which I have) to see if my prism is really lowering the quality of the image, as I suspect. I realize the view will be inverted but it's the quality I'm interested in at this stage. (For about ten years I've had a ratty TeleVue Telepod mount which I bought cheaply, very second hand. I finally got round to working out how to adjust it and, although it's still cosmetically ratty, it now works very sweetly and I'd like to have the Pronto-Telepod handy for grab-and-look moments when we have interesting animal visitors outside.) Again, thanks. Olly

I have a Meade-badged erecting prism for terrestrial observing in my elderly Tele-Vue Pronto. It's clean and in decent shape but I feel that the view is just a tiny bit milky or cloudy in places. They are not cheap to replace so I wonder if it's worth it? Has anyone upgraded to a good Amici prism and compared the difference? Or have any recommendations? I only need 11/4 inch. Thanks, Olly

About 20 years ago an already quite old Starfire turned up for sale a couple of times in the UK. I wonder what became of that one? Olly

Ps isn't £30 per month! I use Ps and PI but find PI a nightmare most of the time and only use a few functions in it. However, the few that I do use are very helpful. I just like the layers environment in Ps. Olly

I've seen two in my whole life, both belonging to the same person. One was the interesting Riccardi-Honders astrograph and the other, more up my street, was a magnificent 175 Starfire. However, I have a TEC140 and consider myself very lucky to do so. Olly

I think it's Ps you're under-using. (I don't know GIMP so can't comment on how fully it replaces Ps.) The great thing about post processing in Ps is its Layers function. You can make a copy layer, modify the bottom globally and then erase the top selectively, ether by using one of the many selection tools or by using eye, hand and eraser. You don't have to worry about creating a mask which somehow manages to exclude just what you want excluded. I find it far more intuitive to use layers and eraser than to use masks but if you're getting along with PI then maybe you're happy as you are. I'm new to Lightroom and find it stunningly good for terrestrial photography but I feel that a lot of the manipulations are very normal-photography-specific. They're geared to real-world photographic problems encountered outside the dark art! I may be missing something but I don't see myself using LR much for AP. Olly

Congratulations to Xiga, Gorann and all who took part in this fun event but a big thanks, also, to all the FLO team behind it. In these times of social distancing it's great to share data, ideas and encouragement. Olly

The implications of this are alarming. Does anyone want their camera to last just a year? If it did, I would need five or six weeks per year fully booked just to pay for one camera. Olly