GyCx

Hi I don't have any answers but I am new to mono imaging and in my first attempt of imaging the fireworks galaxy i have the similar issue of I cannot get a good colour from my combination of RGB. There was a flip after the LUM & red channels were captured and then the Blue, Green & Ha were captured after the flip. I will test by ensuring my next target does not require a flip. and post the result. by any chance did you get anywhere with this issue?

Yes this has been done, last night it would not begin looping with timeout errors in PHD2 after 3 re-boots and changing USB ports a couple of times it finally started looping and then was fine for 3 hours of imaging. I dont get any issues with this camera using any other software its just phd2. So i dont think its a cable or hardware issue i think its how PHD2 interacts with the camera driver on my new laptops USB infrastructure. It was much more reliable on my older laptop which was USB2 only and a different chipset.

Sorry to gatecrash the thread but I have these same issues with a QHY5l-ii mono and PHD2, the connection keeps timing out, its on its own USB cable and uses the Ascom QHY5L-ii driver after a disconnect. I can open sharpcap connect to the camera and everything is fine. The other behaviors i experience is if i connect it to my ZWO usb2 hub on the asi071mc pro it works ok if I connect to my altair hypercam usb2 hub it does not want to know. It can work for a couple of hours, sometimes more but often less. it could be USB traffic management which would explain the intermittent nature of the issue but I think the drivers are not that great. The problem is you cannot rely on it and have to constantly check if its still working. I use mine on a Highspec HP USB3 laptop I think it was more reliable on my old USB2 laptop. What I find sometimes works for me is boot laptop, complete the sharpcap polar alignment procedure with the QHY5l-ii and then re-boot, open PHD2, connect mount and camera then open your image sequence software like NINA, APT etc this can sometimes give me a reliable connection for a while.

Sorry to gatecrash! does anyone one know the motor shaft diameter?

Hi Jamie. The collimation is out, the point of light should be dead center. I have turned the secondary mirror when cleaning my C11 and it always needs collimating I would try that first. Collimating is like balancing a saucer on 3 fingers and trying to get it perfectly level : ). This is worth a read too telescope - What are the aberrations of an SCT? And how can they be eliminated? - Astronomy Stack Exchange Your 80ED will have a wider FOV and will be much more forgiving, the optic configurations are different too. But for a big SCT on a NEQ6 those stars aint so bad I think your scope needs collimating but thats probably all it needs. Also check your backfocus using a Focal reducer on my C11 its 105mm FR/C to Sensor For me it has to be a hell of a night to get 'nice round stars' using a C11 XLT on EQ6 Belt modded mount but use it for what is good at, getting nice resolution on small galaxies and great planetary/lunar scopes. The Edge versions are really the imaging scopes we're pushing this kit really to do something it aint that great at. I stumbled into using mine for deepsky as I started with planetary imaging, I use pixinsight to process out most of the defects in my images im getting really good at it : )

Hi All. I have a ZWO asi071mc pro and will be using it on a C11 with a 6.3 focal reducer I have been advised that i will need 85mm BF from the back lens of the reducer, the issue is if I use the 85 mm measurement the vignetting is massively pronounced compared to a shorter BF length. Can someone point me in the right direction to a formula that I could use to work out the BF myself. Thanks.