jambouk

Close PA is also “OK” for imaging if taking short subs and/or using a short focal length. There is accurate and there is accurate. If your polar scope is well aligned to the R.A. axis of the mount, then a polar scope alignment is generally good enough for 30 second subs with a scope or lens under 1000mm in my experience, unless you are going for astrophotographer of the year. James

Definitely check the output of the power supply with a voltmeter make sure both power supplies are not delivering 20v before using them on the mount. If they are both saying 12v or thereabouts then there is no reason the mount should be stepping up the voltage if it is a standard mount with standard wiring etc. There was a handset firmware update several years ago which resolved an incorrect voltage reading, but I don't think the error was this great, but maybe worth updating the handset firmware.

For unguided subs, 30 seconds doesn’t sound awful. It would be good to see some images. Is this scope coma free?

GB.

I just use bog standard ones; you are not going to be shooting rapid bursts of stills, so I don't think the write speed will be important. Mine are 80MB/second, 64GB ones. Mixture of makes, I favour ScanDisk but any of them can fail eventually.

If you want GOTO and are going to be putting a 200 on it, I would say an NEQ6; others do use an HEQ5 but if you can afford it, I would go for the 6.

Just get any apo and a field flattener and if you don’t like it, sell it on, with minimal financial loss. Put a wanted advert on astrobuyselluk if you can’t find what you are after.

To be honest, I’m very lazy and I’m not good at processing, so these are just basic level images for the 6D. You could always buy a second hand 6D; the stock lens you get with new cameras can be purchased very cheaply, and you’d soon want a zoom lens and a wider field of view one too.

Some of my images with an unmodified Canon 6D:

The book by Covington on astrophotography with a digital SLR is excellent and I can’t recommend enough reading it from cover to cover. The first edition is a bit dated but if that is all you can afford then it will still be an amazing introduction for you. I’ve not seen the second edition but expect it is even more excellent than the first.

If you want the best possible images, as Carole says, you need a dedicated astrophotography camera. If you are just happy with nice images which will still impress you and your non-astronomy friends and family, then a DSLR is an excellent place to start. Both cameras look fine; the cheaper one has less megapixels, but the same size sensor, so each pixel must be bigger, so I would go for that one. Depending on your scope you need to work out about focus and you’ll need a T adapter and nose piece, which can generally be picked up on eBay from a China for about £10 (but may take 4 weeks to come). If your telescope focussed takes 2” then I would bogey a 2” nose piece. It’s good fun. Enjoy. James

The HEQ5 doesn’t have the encoders which get upset by not starting in the home position, so I can’t see any reason why to turn it off, putting it in the home position, and then turning on again. James

A static tripod will only really allow you to do star trails and image noctilucent clouds and aurora, and landscape images of sun, Moon and clouds; basic lunar too. The scope you describe is fine for planetary observation and imaging, and even DSO imaging of smaller targets (planetary nebula, galaxies, globular clusters etc). The mount is key. If it is alt-az then that is fine for solar system imaging, and you can image DSOs with multiple short subs, say 20 seconds, and stack them. If the mount is equatorial then this is much better for imaging DSOs and still excellent for solar system imaging. A DSLR is good as it has a large sensor and doesn’t need to be connected to a laptop. However, when using in video mode, the video is compressed so the quality of planetary images won’t be as good as if using a dedicated fast frame rate planetary camera. A DSLR is a good camera for an introduction to imaging DSOs, but again not perfect as you ideally want the longest possible exposures, and a DSLR suffers with not being cooled and you get issues such as amp glow etc. But unless you are guiding you probably won’t get to 5 minute subs especially at such a long focal length with the 8” SCT. But even so, if you set the DSLR to take sub after sub of 20 seconds, the sensor will still get hot and you’ll get issues, which in part you can mitigate with darks, a type of calibration frame... There is so much to learn. Have fun. James

B&Q sell it in the car section.

Second hand goto mount; EQ would be best but likely cost more than an AZ, problem with an AZ is your budget will likely only stretch to a single arm mount and your long scope won’t be able to see the region around the zenith. Other option may be to sell what you have and buy something else, either new or second hand. Or get an upgrade kit to add GOTO to current mount, but still £300 new or so! James

I managed to image this rare event on the morning of the 30th May with my Celestron C11 and a Canon 6D at prime focus. Had the photometry data extracted from my images by a friend, and have submitted the results to the BAA Variable Star Section who are very appreciative as there are relatively few observations. I'm aiming to capture more images / photometry data in the next week or two. The outburst is currently about magnitude 11 and indicated on the image below by the overly large yellow arrow; the FoV is about 45x30 arcminutes, and is a 15 second exposure at ISO 800.

If you can achieve balance, it will be fine, you don't have any motors to burn out. Getting balance may be the problem and you may need to do some DIY counterbalance work. But yes, just get the scope.

HEQ5 and a Skywatcher ED80. What camera are you going to use? If no camera, I’d get a second hand Canon 600D or the similar. How are you going to power the mount? It is a money pit.

Can you show us what you mean with a photograph? Is this a new mount, second hand, previously used? Exposed to rain or damp recently? Rusty? James

You could set up a very long focal scope with a camera, and use something like an hydrogen alpha filter if you have one to avoid over exposing the image, then knock the polar alignment off by say 10 degrees in azimuth (either east or west), and then leave the mount of sidereal rate and take a long exposure, say an hour, else 6 x 10 minute subs with a 60 second cool down gap between each sub if using a non-cooled camera. the resultant image (or unaligned stacked image if 6 images) will have a fixed drift as the PA is off, but also ideally a sinuous wobble from the PE. There may be other ways too. James

It doesn't seem overly unbalanced in either direction; if this was my set up I'd use it like this. If you are encountering problems then re-assess, but it isn't repeatedly overly front heavy, or rear heavy. James

What is the scope, what is the mount? Can you attach a video or a picture to show the problem?

Does it do this without any kit on the mount? If not, make sure your balance is good in all directions, AND make sure your power supply is adequate. James

Thanks. If it is a feature of all versions, I may stump up the money to get Stellarium for iPhone then. James

I have the free version of Sky Safari (or at least I wouldn't have paid more than 99p for it as I'm a cheap skate) on my iPhone, and if I jump forward in time, it invariably jumps back to "now" and I'm sure a lot of the time it isn't my fat fingers hitting "now". Do others find this and does it appear in the more expensive versions for iPhones? It is infuriating - probably the worst thing in my life right now, other than the consequences of a global pandemic. James