CraigT82

Yeah a wixey is the usual tool for measuring the altitude, Ideal for steel tubed dobs with their magnetic base. Calibrated to zero by placing tube horizontal using a sprit level, though some errors can occur if optical axis isn't exactly parallel with the tube axis (ie. scope not accurately collimated) You could calibrate the azimuth readout by viewing an object with reticle eyepiece at the precise moment it crosses the northern meridian? Time predicted by skysafafri or similar?

I love that the first test images were of a Romanesco broccoli!

The 17mm eyepiece with the 2.5x barlow will give you 183x magnification which is a really nice place to be for planetary viewing. Is the scope collimated? And is it allowed to cool down before observing (if taken out from indoors)? Sometimes you're first views can be underwhelming but that could just be poor seeing (assuming scope is collimated and cooled), once you get a night of good seeing you'll really see what the scope can do and the image will be beautifully sharp and steady... got to get out there often enough to catch that good seeing!

Nice image and well presented. Yes checking the collimation is a must! Focusing can be a real challenge, especially when the seeing is naff. I'd recommend shooting red or IR first, as they will be sharpest and easiest to focus, and when you change to the other filters you will be almost there, just a dab one way or the other, or if you've good good filters they may be exactly parfocal?

Have you tried the rgb balance function in registax?

Very nice Mike👍

Lovely! Yes definitely some Orographic clouds over Arsia Mons. Nice work

Thats great, thanks for sharing!

Stellarvue 60mm finder... a small telescope in it's own right! I can see me taking this on holidays with nice wide angle EPs on a lightweight photo tripod. Along with new goto functionality on my EQ6 this should hopefully help me in locating the ice giants which have eluded me so far. Lack of visible stars in central Bristol makes starhopping with a rigel quickfinder rather difficult.

I ise the lynx astro 5A supply which is plenty for my eq6. Though I don't run any dew straps or other things off of it, just the mount. The lynx astro unit is a Mean Well and can be had elsewhere online for around £26 I think.

Amazing scope, but how on Earth do you look through that eyepiece?!

Thanks mate, yeah I'm using the Baader L filter (IR/UV block). You should get some nice results with the 385c. I sometimes shoot IR on mars but I don't usually add it to the RGB as it throws off the colour balance I feel, and the extra contrast it gives on the dark albedo features can look a bit unnatural, but that's just my own personal taste.

That's great loads of clear detail there. The double edge is a common problem (mars edge rind effect)... nothing you did wrong!

Beautiful!

Thats a beaut! Nicely done. Great image scale too, were you barlowed or have you resized? I think you've captured Olympus Mons and the Tharsis volcanoes.

Nice one, loads of detail!

Incredible! Never seen M27 look like that

This could be advantageous, so that the reading isn't dancing all over the place? I think the absolute current value isn't important, just the value of one way relative to rhe value of the other way

This is how I did mine, made a little video for YouTube. The balance after doing this does seem better than just doing it by feel. This method obviously useless for battery powered mounts

Very nice set of images, nicely done. My preference is for the top left image as that seems to be least affected by the edge rind effect, which i think is worst on the IR and is being introduced by that into the IRRGB images. You could try combining the IR with the RGB but masking the limb so that it brings through the detail of the IR on the disc but not the edge effect?

I think that DSLRs can suffer from shutter slap causing vibrations and soft images. I've always found that I got better lunar images using a phone taking pics through the eyepice than using DSLR attached directly to scope.

That's fantastic! I love the texture round teh SPC and the morning mists on the limb you've captured. Very well done! 👏

You want the smallest available details to occupy more than one pixel to actually be visible in the image, hence the why its often quoted that you should aim for sampling at around 1/3 the dawes limit, so that those tiny details occupy 3 or more pixels. The Dawes limit itself is based on separating point sources of light, and in planetary and lunar imaging its common to resolve extended features well below the Dawes limit (the rille in the Alpine Valley, and the Encke gap in Saturn's rings are two examples) because they are linear features rather than point sources. You are right in that once you get to a certain point you are actually better off just enlarging the image in post processing rather than adding power by using a barlow, especially when seeing is variable to poor. Perhaps you could experiment with and without a barlow and see what you get.

This is the map I most often use to identify feaures (credit to Damian Peach)

That's Hellas basin, its usually a light orange colour but colour can change probably due to the mists and possibly dust too