CraigT82

Very nice images Neil, definitely a keeper that CC. Would be tempted myself had I not just bought a mount (beans on toast for the rest of the year for me!) Looking at your image and doing the calcs it looks like you were operating at F/31 ish, so your barlow power was around 2.6x Purely for info here is the capture image (0.09" PP) and the downsized images together (downsized to 0.22" PP or F/13.6 - not saying this is the correct sampling, just a comparison 😄)

Just to close of this thread, I redesigned the base and removed the 6 tabs, I will use small metal angle brackets to attach the base to the scope - brackets will attach to base with bolts/nuts and I'll decide placement once the base is offered up to the scope. Have ordered the base on craft cloud to be printed in ABS with 40% infill. Cost was £13. Cheers

The skytee II might just about handle it but would want a better saddle clamp and a burly tripod, and probably a motorised focuser too. I doubt it would be any smoother than the dob mount though so not really and upgrade at all. Spending more you could look at the Rowan AZ100 which should handle the 10” beautifully. Neve used on myself but by all accounts they are wonderfully made and very sturdy. I use an AZ-EQ 6 in alt az mode to mount my 12” newt…Works fine but I do have a motorised focuser which, along with the motorised tracking means that I don’t have to touch the scope at all so the only wobbles comes from wind gusts.

Certainly looks like it could be, though I’m not sure if the light from the nova should be the same redshift as it’s galaxy?

Exactly, legitimate but a little cheeky as people will glance at that and think it means the USA

Their pricing looks pretty good, looking at their ACF SCT OTAs which are cheaper than the equivalent sized Celestron Edges. OTA Weights seem on par now too which is good. Made in Mexico I think… if they could have used the words “Made in the USA” they most certainly would have done!

If the image is dancing around then you’ve certainly got an issue which could be atmospheric in nature or something to do with the tube currents in the scope. Looking at a an out of focus star can help with diagnosing tube currents, so if that’s ruled out then it’s probably awful seeing. If it is tube currents then yes insulating the scope may help, could think about how the scope is stored and sited too, but if it’s permanently mounted in a dome then not much you can do about that.

I too attract biting insects like nothing else… whilst my wife is never normally touched by them. This stuff really works for me for preventing bites, smells nice too: https://avon.uk.com/products/skin-so-soft-original-dry-oil-spray?variant=35062152200237&istCompanyId=76bae047-59d6-4b73-a1d9-de6de4f94e5b&istFeedId=e4b47740-35da-48bf-ba60-101fe116f54f&istItemId=iaxlpmqip&istBid=t&gclid=CjwKCAjw5s6WBhA4EiwACGncZX2rgTqXMPqFAXRNifpwB3I0CuNRlekwNJY9uBnGj_7IWPoUKTbYVxoCtjMQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

No worries glad to be some help, good luck for your session tonight and hope to get some good seeing 👍🏼

There should be two screws on the focuser between the knobs, one will adjust the pressure of the of the focuser wheel shaft on the focus drawtube, and the other one with lock the focus drawtube in place. Tigthen the first one until the focus knobs make the drawtube move nicely. It should say in the manual which screw is which.

I’d be tempted to try black paint with a curved edge… that straight edge of the tape is going to give you a whopping diff spike I think

You can deselect the frames using the space bar in AS3, or if there is too many to manually sift through then you can run the video through PIPP and use the object detection function to get rid of the bad frames

Very nice, I do love this target.

Lingering high haze and thin cloud can indicate good seeing (but poor transparency) as it shows that wind speeds are low up there in the atmosphere, so would be a good time to try some lunar and planetary observing. Yesterday evening noticed that jet contrails in the sky were hanging around for a long time and taking ages to diffuse, this is another good sign that the atmosphere is stable and seeing will be good. Didn’t get a chance to get the scope out though!

Thanks mate, no it was an old lens from the 60s I think, something like this… https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/194953092236?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=eqi-iQs2SYu&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=snTR321rTmm&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY You’d need an M42 - canon adaptor for it to be able to use it, there’s no auto focus or aperture adjustment got to do it the old fashion way and twist the barrel, which doesn’t really matter for Astro, but not much use for daytime photography unless you like doing it the old way. It’s just a cheap way of getting a optically decent lens really. In terms of the camera the megapixel count is pretty much irrelevant. The camera a sensitivity and how the camera behaves at high ISOs is more important really, those with larger pixels (I.e less total pixels) can do really well as they gather more light. Canons are well used and there are a few vendors who mod them if you didn’t want to do that yourself. I’ve only used a 700D and I really liked it, the flip out and twist screen is a god send!

You can get some pretty decent old M42 scew mount lenses (need an adaptor) online that work well for Astro. This is one of my first deep sky Astro photos, made using a 700d, star adventurer and an old 135mm Takumar SMC I got on eBay for £20. 12x120secs if I remember correctly.

If you have a bad back £1000 for a lot less weight is a good deal!

Yeah to be brutally honest the combination of that scope and mount is going to make any kind of astrophotography very frustrating. You may be able to get some results out of it that you’re happy with it’ll be hard work and you won’t be happy for long. A couple of popular options for astrophotographers starting out are the Heq5 mount with either and ED80 refractor or the 130pds reflector. Most folk start there with their existing DSLRs and then upgrade the camera when funds allow or they find the limits of the DSLR. An EQ5 mount with tracking would be just about passable with small scopes but is more suited to camera lenses actually. Saying that another option for starting out is a DSLR and lenses and a star tracker, there is a ton of targets to image with that kind of setup and is probably the cheapest way into the hobby whilst you learn all th e fundamentals of it.

The skywatcher 130mm should be the best of those two scopes you have, but which one is it? I.e what is the focal length? If it is the 130mm/650mm f/5 version then it should have some potential, especially if it has a 2” Focuser fitted (if not then no biggie as a proper Focuser can be bought and fitted). See this thread for what the Skywatcher 130mm /650mm PDS can do: Skywatcher also do a 130mm/ 900mm f/7 which although a decent scope to start out with for visual observing isn’t so great for astrophotographers due to it’s longer focal length. What mount do you have?

Yeah I do have a pack of those brass wood inserts which I could use, however I don't have the luxury of test printing (don't have a printer - going to get it done on Craftcloud) so hole size needs to be right first time. I think simplest for this piece is to use nut & bolt with the nut captive.

Have put in some 'turrets' on the back side of the top plate to capture nuts. The focuser will mount to the top. Not sure if the 6 tabs to mount the base to the tube will be strong enough, they're only 2mm thick

Jupiter’s ring anyone?!

White screen might suggest the exposure is way too high? In daytime conditions you’ll need sub- millisecond exposures i think

Ok I'm probably going to redesign the part slightly to allow me to use a nut and washer on the back face. I can avoid any kind of tapping or inserts then. Don't know why I didn't think of that first actually. Thanks for the input everyone!

Thanks, are these dimensions specific to PLA?