alan potts

2 minutes ago, Rainer said:

Hi Alan,

I would not put a 12" cher on a CEM 60 ... My guts tell me that is not going to work as expected but OK

JMHO 🤔

I am not even sure i want to take it off its fork, even that is harder than first appears. You have to either force the forks apart or crack the joint of the fork, not putting it back correct affects the pointing, which is pretty good normally.

On the surface weight should not be an issue at 18kg, I believe the CEM60 can carry 27kg. I ordered some extra counter/weights too as I have many scopes and for sure even at the top I would feel 9,5kg is way too much for some of them, so I got 2x2.5's as well.

Alan

Wow that's different almost 3D, great shot there.

Alan

6 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

You always have the option of of a shorter CW arm and larger CW on any mount. Is there really much difference in space consumption between a bigger mount and a smaller? I haven't measured up but I'm surprised.

Olly

Maybe you right Olly, then can I draw your attention to the closing statement re the knives😎.  I am still mulling it over but I am never going to be so good to results I would like from the SC 12 inch, as you told me don't go there, maybe I should sell it and put a stop to it. I could always try the 180Mak even though it is slow with enough subs I would get something. It may even work with the meade F6.3 reducer.

Alan

9 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

I don't. I have hosted (and still host) several 10 Microns and I also host three Mesus. My own pair of mounts are both Mesus. Draw your own conclusion. If 'returns to factory' were a penalty shoot-out staged here it would be a 4-nil victory for Mesu. (Or maybe 5-nil. One was a bit ambiguous.) Just for information, I sometimes hear rumours that I have some kind of commercial relationship with Lucas Mesu. I don't. Indeed I never have had, since both my mounts were bought second hand, the first from Yves Van den Broek and the second from Bart Delsaert. How's that for transparency.

Olly

Olly, I was just dragging a name from thin air with 10 micron, I feel in truth all of these mounts are a little bit too big for my observatory. I have just fitted it up with a little work area and nice screen, 28 inch one, and I like to sit and use my binos on the sky whilst I check things out. As it is with the AZ EQ 6 I have a nice amount of room, even if the counter-weight is sometimes up my nose. I feel any of the larger mount would throw a spanner in the works here. It is surprising how many of these top line mounts have problems reading what you and others have said, Mesu though do seem very good but again rather larger than I have space for and for a CEM 60 the wife will not need to sharpen the knives.

Alan 

Some stunning pictures there and I wouldn't want that lot dropping on my foot from the piers. I was just grabbing words from the air talking about the 12 inch SC and mount without any really knowledge, seem the CEM 120 handles that focal length very well indeed and even the most expensive model about half the price of some of the ones I was looking at.

I feel with the way I work and that really means in the obsey with the scope and relaxing room will be the cancelling factor for the CEM 120 and in this case I would come down on the side of the 60 model. I have a few problems with my Bank at the moment which is actually stopping me access to see the online account. In short they have put in a 4th line of security used our phones and sending a text number. Bulgaria has a 3 digits in its code and they can't send a text to that at the moment, Holland is the same because they only have one digit. security so tight even I can't get into my account.

So it looks like the CEM 60 which I am sure is a bit smaller and more AZ EQ 6 size, Thanks for the pictures.

Alan

Goran,

How do you do RGB with a different camera, resize the image in some way. A superb shot of a region I photographed a month or so back with the Canon from you which is the norm, very red and brown in and around that area. Looking at your reminds me of the old girls around her always setting fire to piles of leaves and making masses of smoke.

Alan

Everything I have read about them smacks of quality, I would say in your hands it will deliver and then some.

Alan

That's very nice, the first thing I photographed with my 12 inch at full focal length wasn't too bad after 50% of the 15 sec subs were binned, but not as good as this.

Alan

I actually got a 12 Meade Sc first off and about 2 years later a 115mm APO. The Meade was great but not wide enough field of view even with the biggest eyepieces, this is why I said maybe an 8 inch will do the job.

Alan

6 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Alan,

Yes I know what you mean it saves an awful lot of heartache to weed these bad frames out right at the start.

I use Blink in PixInsight but of course it is not worth the cost just to flick quickly through your images.

Can you not do this in APT using the image tab? They will not be in color I am guessing but you will be able to see elongated stars, sat trails, etc and then move that fram somewhere elso or delete it. APT will automatically stretch the image when selected and display it on the main screen so should be quite easy to flip through them all.

I.E :-

 

Steve

Not really sure Steve, I can look at these in APT as I take em but I don't know how to bring them back up. Even though I now have a 28 inch screen in the obsey, it isn't always obvious, There must be a photo type program that can open FITS to look at, I only have Canon based ones and PS. You really need to see them at 100% and a bit to get a really good picture. I will have a look deeper.

Alan

Your header states how I started out One scope for everything, I have 7 now so it didn't work for me. I do feel though something like an 8 inch SC comes close, with the right eyepieces can give a decent wide field view, with shorter ones will give you nice planetary views and big enough to have some light grasp.

Alan

Nice shot but I agree with Demon, a bit too blue for my taste.

Alan

1 hour ago, Kevstew said:

In deep sky stacker you need to go into fits settings, then there’s a box near the top of the page you tick ( mono chrome something, I can’t remember ) this allows you to select debayer rggb. Then you stack as normal, save as tiff so you can then work on it in photoshop. Hope this helps. 

Is there anything that can see the files prior to loading DSS as there here is clearly a bit of bad guiding on at least one of the 6 subs, and at the moment I have no way of weeding them out. I use to do this in a Canon program for the DSLR but of course these files don't show an image of any sort, colour would not matter.

Alan

Thank you for that looked at that box a few time but wasn't sure what to do, last time I ticked a box without instruction I had a pointing problem that foxed the forum for 3 weeks, idle hands.

This is 6 subs, no cooling, no darks, no flats, no dark falts, and no bias, I have to say for that I am fairly pleased with the result, to think I was going to stick it in its box and forget it 2 weeks back. A lot to learn though still, for a kickoff more data, though I picked this as it is an easy target to start with just for finding if nothing else.

A very quick process in PS, which I can do better I am sure.

Alan

Getting nowhere on this one, what do i need to Debayer images from a Zwo 071?

Alan

Well I have had a play and only stopped because of the Moon, just shot 10 images with the 071, 4 of the Pelican and 6 of M13. all 4 minutes and did not bother with cooling or anything else

Now whilst I found out how to stretch the APT image to a nice rendition of both and I was fairly impressed with the detail of M13, sharp and clean with stunning guiding at 0.2RMS all the time and less (mount must be broken)

Can someone give me some pointers as the following.

How do you see an imaging in another programs, Im recording FITS which I can't view, even though Raw is ticked, and everything is B&W, nice though it is. I wish to see RAW and if possible in colour, it is a colour camera after all.

Can someone map out order of work flow for me and in which program, I only have Photoshop CC and Deep Space Stacker, until now this is all I have needed.

Many thanks Alan

17 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

These are fairly standard problems but, alas, not ones which are easy to solve. I'd be confident that the light source is simply from the stars and almost certainly ones out of shot. I'd also put money on it being generated by the distances between internal glass surfaces, not from any damage-related defects. Since many of these distances can't be adjusted the problem is often intractable. This is why I'm very wary of generic reducers. Dedicated ones should have been tested for compatibility but generic ones, however up-market, make simply conflict with certain scopes. One of our guests, for instance, struggled with internal reflections when using a Riccardi reducer-flattener with his TEC140. TEC's own flattener, though, is a peach and actually improves colour correction. (TEC say it doesn't but it does! )

I don't get your round arcs but sometimes, like everyone else, I'll get flares from stars out of shot. The only fix I can think of is to move the scope a little towards the source of the flare (may seem counter- intuitive) and to shoot the flare-affected bit of sky from this new position. This gives me a 'patch' I can use in Photoshop layers. You don't need anything like the same depth of data for this. 

I guess it will be a matter of luck whether small changes in spacing will cure the problem but I'm afraid I wouldn't bank on it.

Olly

Olly,

I took it off a few times to check and put it back on, seems to have stopped now for whatever reason. I also played with the spacing but we are talking maybe .25mm, if that, I noticed the thread reducer in the Canon bayonet was very slightly proud, so I turned it, now it's not. The Riccardi is the one for mine really. but at the time it was 700e, which I thought was a bit steep, this one is priced at 345e but I got it S/H here. Your correct in what you say though.

Taken it off altogether today as I am going to try and get to grips with the Zwo 071, I am not hold my breath as I don't have much idea what I am doing, I can't use the Reducer with this camera as I don't have the spacing. There is no room for a 2 inch filter inside so I need to put it inline with a 6mm spacer I don't have.

Alan

Still not totally sure what caused this issue with internal flare but now it appears to have gone away, camera placed in the exact same places causes nothing. I have an odd feeling it is caused by a small piece of damage on the lens hood of the scope. I turned this round as a way of eliminating it and now have blacked it over.

Alan

That's come out nicely, when I did that albeit without guiding I didn't get any blue colour in the stars at all.

Alan

Julian, I believe a 071 is only colour.

Alan

Your not on you own Ken, I have had mine 3 weeks and I went back to my Canon, much more simple, I didn't get green anywhere though, with me my expectations were much higher for 3 minute exposure. Clearly I am not doing a lot right but I am equally not remotely impressed by this 071, am going to try again tonight.

Alan

29 minutes ago, souls33k3r said:

Seems like you're getting really good results out of our AZ EQ6 mount. Why would you want to move away to a new territory? is it because you're larger FL scope isn't up to the mark?

Mind you, I did look at the AZ EQ6 mount myself but the extra AZ capability of the mount didn't Impress me much. 

So seems like I don't really have much choice left then. Will have to decide. 

@Wiu-Wiu, quick question mate, you using guidescopes with all of your setups or using OAG as well? 

I have the Meade in the back of my mind to try but I don't see that I am serious with this, people have told me don't go there, but that doesn't stop the interest. Most of my scopes 115mm APO, 190mm M/N, 180mm Mak , 77mm Borg, and 70mm ED, are all under about 13KG, maybe a bit less. I just wanted a bit of refinement in the mount. The AZ EQ 6 is decent enough but I feel things could be a bit better. I am not looking for 10Micron quality at 12,000e , well not this week. I feel this is the type of mount that is required to get the best from 3M of F/L though

I would be going for the tripod priced at 499, the other looks a bit over kill for the CEM 60. Ina any case the obsey floor is flat concrete.

Alan

10 hours ago, souls33k3r said:

iOptron Commander is most definitely easier than EQMOD to understand. Everything you need to know and do is just right there. 

Alan, the result you saw on the other thread were from the non-encoder mount. Sorry to burst the bubble mate

I misread this, best go take the guide scope out the bin then. I am beginning to think the CEM 60 is the way to go with the nice tripod they do.

Alan

Firstly that I feel is a very nice image, I am sure either a CCD or CMOS camera will do a better tighter job. I bought a 071 about 3 weeks back now and didn't get on with it from the off, also I didn't have the IR/UV filter which sort of made me want to put it back in its box. I find IT difficult to understand most of the time, even fairly basic things. Many people on here use these cameras and take wonderful captures, so it me agian. I am sure some will offer even better advice than I can.

Alan