CraigT82

Good news. That is interesting about the price fixing lawsuit Orion filed against Chinese manufactures in 2019. Wonder if that is part of the reason Celestron prices jumped up a couple of years ago

It generally refers to the drawtube diameter. A 3" focuser like the one below requires a thread on adaptor to step it down to 2", and then an additional adaptor to step down from 2" to 1.25". You can see the included adaptors in the smal image on the right.

Allow me to make your dreams come true... https://www.firstlightoptics.com/optical-tube-assemblies/celestron-rowe-ackermann-schmidt-astrograph-telescope.html

Yeah that is how the ZWO ones work at least, there are holes in the carousel and an IR sensor. I think the more expensive brands use mechancal indexing to positon the carousel accurately.

Sounds like a plan. It's not just the motor though, you need a sensor to detect the exact position of the wheel and make the filters stop at the same position every time, else you will have issues with flats not correcting properly (ZWO efws are known for this issue)

On the focuser the thumbscrew you loosened is the tensioner screw, this is meant to be nipped up tight as it presses the focus wheel shaft against the drawtube and you use it to adjust the amount of tension to suit the weight of your diagonal/EPs. The slop you're referring to is completely normal for a crayford if you remove all tension. I believe you can set the minimum tension (so if the thumbscrew is backed off the drawtube isn't completely loose) using two small grub screws beneath the thumbscrew, but you'd have to download and check the manual as I'm not too sure on that.

Do you have another power supply you can try? These mounts are well known for misbehaving if the power supply is insufficient.

You can't think of planetary impacts in the same way as throwing pebbles into a sand pit, the physics is very different. Impact craters are formed not by the impactor itself, rather they are excavated by the shock waves that propagate spherically through the surface. If an impactor is small and hence relatively low energy, and they hit at a low angle, they can leave oval craters behind... http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/posts/698 Edit:Just though of an analogy, when you throw a stone into a pond at a low angle, the ripples still spread out from the impact point in a circular fashion. This is similar to the shockwaves from the lunar impactor, which has anough energy to make the lunar crust behave like a liquid, and are what form the circular craters. 2nd Edit: Just doing a little reading around crater formation, it seems that an asymmetrical ejecta ray pattern can give away low angle impactors - even though the impactor leaves a circular crater. Crater Proclus is one such example (though strictly speaking Proclus is polygonal, not circular).

I think, because sky View lite uses the phones camera rather than the inbuilt compass.

Might be a good idea to post up some examples of your lights/flats?

Ah so a hobby that actually earns you money... that'll never catch on 😆

Almost a mile of silk... What on earth is she making?!

Firecapture is a good one, some decent videos on their website that walk you through the capture features and settings

This is an Alt-Az mount isn’t it? So will be limited for astrophotography as the field of view will rotate as it tracks across rhe sky. Not impossible though if using short exposures and lots of them. There is a thread on here somewhere about "No EQ DSO" images which should show you the kind of image you might expect. Edit: this is the thread, lots of images taken with Alt-Az mounts

Nice one @Chris!

Are you using the guiding feature in firecapture? The one that uses contrast detection to monitor the position of the planet in the FoV and sends commands to the mount to keep it centred? Theoretically that should work with the dob? As long as you can get forecapture talking to it, can you connect the dob to the laptop via eqascom?

I've seen some excellent IFN images from the 135mm Samyang camera lens shooting at f/2 ish... cheap way to get going.

Personally I have no qualms about buying kit from 'non-establishment' brands, and I've had nothing but good results from my Altair (Touptek) cameras. However buying that kind of kit through UK retailers is one thing and buying it from Ali Express is a whole other thing entirely. If there's an issue with it when it arrives, or fails somehow after 3 months, what are your options? It's a gamble which could end up costing much more than the initial saving.

Very nice results! Love the poar bear. You've inspired me to have a go at EAA with my 12" newt and QHY462c. Cheers👍

Congratulations on your purchases... I'm sure you're gonna have a blast with that kit when it all arrives, hopefully without clouds!

Have you spoken to Astroshop about the problem? I think that as they advised you to buy the adaptor it should have been the correct one. Looking on their website I think the adaptor they advised you to get is for attaching the Omegon focuser to skywatcher tubes, so they shouldn't have advised you to purchase it for your Omegon tube, unless they expected you to drill new holes? If they can't help and you really don't want to drill holes then the only other thing I can think of is to get a custom adaptor 3D printed.

Nice choice. I used to have a Sphinx SXW and I really enjoyed using it. Verywell built with a clever design to minimise counterweights needed, and the Starbook was excellent, I think the Starbook 10 has a detailed moon map and you can command it to GoTo certain lunar features?

You might want to consider just getting a tracking mount to start off with, and using your T3i and camera lenses to get widefield shots. What lenses do you have already? I made this Andromeda image using a DSLR and a vintage 135mm takumar lens (£25 off ebay) on a lightweight tracking mount (Skywatcher Star Adventurer). Just to give you a flavour. There's plenty to image with that kind of kit and it's a great way to learn the basics of data acquisition and processing, and guiding isn't really essential at these focal lengths but if you wanted to learn guiding it's much easier to get going with it with short focal lengths. If the bug bites then you can start thinking about buying a scope and generally getting a bit more serious. In terms of a mount, there's the ultra portable star trackers like these, which can be packed up and driven out to dark skies easily.... https://www.firstlightoptics.com/star-tracker-astronomy-mounts/skywatcher-star-adventurer-astronomy-bundle.html https://www.firstlightoptics.com/star-tracker-astronomy-mounts/ioptron-skyguider-pro-camera-mount-full-package.html Or there's the meatier mounts which are less portable but more capable when it comes to putting bigger scopes on it... https://www.firstlightoptics.com/computerised-goto-astronomy-mounts/skywatcher-eq5-pro-synscan-goto.html

Nice, surprising amount of detail for a 120mm. Are you using an ADC for these Neil?

It is not really a case of can the scope handle it.... it more of a question of can the user handle it! Pretty much any scope can be used for DSO photography and the sheer variety of astronomical objects out there, of varying sizes and brightness', means that whilst that no one scope is the best for every object there are good scopes for some objects and good scopes for other objects. For example, a little 80mm f/5 refractor with it's short focal length is good for large objects like the Andromeda galaxy and the Orion nebula, but not so good for small objects like small galaxies or planetary nebula. A big SCT like the C9.25 has a decent aperture and a long focal length, this makes it good for imaging distant, small galaxies and planetary nebula, but also for getting up close and personal to details in the larger dust and cloud complexes. The kicker is that generally speaking, the longer the focal length the more precise the tracking has to be. This means that it is much more difficult to get good* images with the long FL SCT than with the short FL refractor. Also the design of the SCT can make it difficult as it has a moving mirror focusing system which can cause problems with guiding, and also it requires collimation. So basically what I'm saying is yes you can get amazing deep sky images from a C9.25, but you really have to know what you're doing. Here is an image made by someone using a C9.25 on a CGEM mount, this person knows what they are doing though and probably has a lot of imaging time under their belt, so don't expect to get images like this right off the bat... https://www.astrobin.com/37198/?nc=user *of course the definition of a 'good' image is purely subjective and differs greatly from person to person.