Merlin66

Cloud90, Keep it simple, keep it affordable until you gain some practise and experience in how the eyepiece(s) works for you. I've seen too many novices rush, or be persuaded to buy top of the line wide field fully corrected eyepieces without really knowing what they will add to his/her viewing pleasure. I've been observing since 1960 and for the first few years (!!!) only had a 25mm and 12.5mm Kellner (pretty basic) eyepieces. They allow you train your eye, to look for the detail...practise, practise. When you gain a better understanding of how a "good" eyepiece may change your ability to "see detail", then and only then should you consider parting with your hard earned cash to upgrade. You DON'T need a stack of eyepieces. Three will do 90% of the work, a higher power (lower mm) is handy for those moments (and targets) under steady perfect seeing...very infrequent hence it gets little use. You just have to look at the for sale section to see how many of the "hot shot" eyepieces are being sold "Hardly used....used once...etc "

Stellarium ( and CdC) can connect to your mount without EQMod.....but you do still need to install the ASCOM drivers for your mount.

NV, That makes sense.... 1/16 (fps) = 62.5ms, any exposure longer than that will take precedence over the frame rate......

The front glass cover plate on the camera...use a air blower on the front surface... see if that moves them.

Try this: https://www.ccdware.com/resources/dust.cfm They look big enough to come from the filters...the calculator will confirm.

NV, Thanks for the information. Not familiar with that camera, need to investigate it's capabilities.

Yeah, remove the coma corrector. This was only needed for the 250pds. A UV-IR depending on the RGB filters being used might help. Having no dedicated Lum filter means significant re-focusing between the RGB and Lum ......

NV, which scope? which camera? fast computer with USB3 and SSD drive?

I assume you're using the ASI 178MM for solar imaging.....an AVI of 800 - 1000 frames should get you good results.

Roger, Well done, a good start! A little "over cooked" - Have you tried processing in AS3! and then tweaking - not too much in ImPPG???

I think you need to take a few flats to confirm....certainly looks like dust in the camera. I find with my solar imaging it's good to test the camera separate from the usual filters etc. Just set up a scope, cover the objective with a clear plastic bag and fit a Barlow/ PM etc to get as high an f ratio as possible (higher f ratios shows more dust/ motes especially on the sensor surface) I get good (well bad - if you know what I mean!) results at around f19 on my ED80 - seems to show up the smallest dust mote!!! I clean the sensor and the cover plate with IPA and KimiWipes. Well worth doing, then at least you know the camera is 100% clean - any subsequent "dust bunnies" must originate in the front filters etc etc.

I assume you're using the ATik 383L. Doughnuts like that would indicate dust on the front cover plate of the camera.... I find with my solar imaging it's good to test the camera separate from the usual filters etc. Just set up a scope, cover the objective with a clear plastic bag and fit a Barlow/ PM etc to get as high an f ratio as possible (higher f ratios shows more dust/ motes especially on the sensor surface) I get good (well bad - if you know what I mean!) results at around f19 on my ED80 - seems to show up the smallest dust mote!!! I clean the sensor and the cover plate with IPA and KimiWipes. Well worth doing, then at least you know the camera is 100% clean - any subsequent "dust bunnies" must originate in the front filters etc etc.

+1 for Cartes du Ciel.

See my reply above.....

I'm using both PHD2 and EQMod in Oz...no issues with Long/ lat (38 south, 144 East) and if the Aux setting is used in PHD2 ( set to EQmod ASCom Heq5/6) then this is where it gets the info from the mount. Just check that RA reverse is not ticked in EQMod

Good idea... I'm sure there must be a 3D printed equivalent out there by now. I used a Vegemite lid on my C9.25 and C11..............

Onwards and Upwards!! Well done, keep the good work coming.

Isn’t that the definition of a Rich field telescope????

Luc, Very nice result - well done! Have you considered using Florent Losse's double star program?? Reduc V5.36 http://www.astrosurf.com/hfosaf/

With the 51mm backfocus, the normal DSLR and T2 adaptor won't fit (needs 55mm), but there's a very narrow T thread to Canon adaptor available (only 1.5mm thick) which should work. I think I got mine from Bern at Modern Astronomy.

Thanks guys, appreciate the feedback. Ken

Loise, Yes. The Vixen is usually configured to allow the straight through path for imaging/ viewing and when the mirror is dropped the beam is sent to the "guide port" or secondary port of the flip mirror. Sorry for any confusion.

Louise, I assume you're looking for a "flip mirror" type set-up to allow the injection of a reference lamp beam into the spectrograph?? The Vixen flip mirror which has T thread connections on the body could be used reversed to allow the reference lamp to be fitted to the guide port and the spectrograph to the inlet port..... (Fitting the lamp to the spectrograph body and a small internal "flip" mirror would be the real solution)

Guys, The jury is still out on the effects of NIR beyond 1200nm. The EU protection standards only address the UV-VIS-NIR up to 1400nm.....no recommendations for >1400nm. More of a note of caution rather that a definitive risk.

Good question! I think it's due to our lack of knowledge and limited time in visual observing.