CraigT82

Don’t forget the bears!

Wow this is impressive skies. Last night at home I thought it seemed pretty dark for here and so I sought out the faintest star I could see with averted vision That was Wasat in Gemini (mag 3.5!).

Quick look at Jupiter and Mars but seeings was very poor. Took a tour round some beautiful open clusters (my new favourite things!) instead: Ms 36 (Pinwheel), 37 & 38 (Starfish) all in Auriga M35 in Gemini M34 in Perseus Double cluster in Perseus M45 (Pleiades) in Taurus Quick look at M42 finally M44 (Beehive) in Cancer All lovely looking through a 4” frac with a Stella Lyra 30mm UFF and followed up with an 18mm BCO.

Nice work 👍🏼Looking forward to the first images from the new pier. I’d also say go for the EAF or whatever motor focuser… you can the just automate it all, set an imaging run going and just go to bed!

So what’s the consensus then? Is it a hunk of junk?! 0.7” rms does seem pretty underwhelming

That’s normal according to 10 micron specs…see below. But I suppose what you’re paying for is being able to guide 100kg of payload at that accuracy. Also I guess there’s a lower limit on guiding accuracy imposed by your seeing blur. No point guiding at 0.3” RMS when your seeing is 1.5”?? That’s my thoughts anyway… Will be interesting to hear comments from mount experts.

Looks suspiciously like daylight there Vroobel 😉 I love that mount, you have some serious skills!

That’s surprising considering the front wheel configuration 😉 Nice work though, making me look at welders on machine mart

As above, Most likely dust specs on the eyepiece lenses. If the dark areas are dynamic (constantly move around in the image) then you’re probably just looking through poor seeing.

I reckon I could handle those, dealt with some pretty big hedgehogs in my garden 💪

I meant me not you… I can make a nice cup o tea for the crew in exchange for somewhere to set my scope up 😂

Sounds like they’ll need a tea boy 😆

This sounds incredible…. Can I come and live with you please?! 🙏

That’s a superb first attempt, really well done 👏🏻. Looking forward to seeing what you produce after a bit of practice!

I’ve fitted my AZ4 mount head (same M10 fitting as EQ5) to my EQ6 tripod using one of these… https://boltworld.co.uk/collections/thread-rod-reducer-zinc-plated/products/m12-to-m10-thread-rod-reducer-free-cutting-steel-zinc-plated-metric-thread/ You also need a handful of washers to go over the M12 rod beneath the tripod top to pack out the extra space as it doesn’t screw as far into the mount (see pic). I only had spring washers big enough to go on there so I stacked them like that on the rod, bit messy looking but works nicely. Could also use a couple of large nuts instead which would look tidier.

Just found a free iPhone app called Astroshader, seems to offer long exposures, manual focus, live stacking and saving of 16bit tiffs, and image editing. Some screenshots of the UI and the FAQ below.

Yes in Taunton now (Wife’s hometown), though don’t think I’ll ever be a true Somerset boy as I can’t stand cider 😂. IIRC you’re in Crewkerne aren’t you… meet up would be great 👍🏼

If you chopped the tube down the lens is still an F/10 and the eyepieces will still come to focus 800mm beyond the lens. You can’t change the focal length… you’d need to regrind the lenses!

Went downhill for me after dark. When the sky was still blue I could make out more detail in the belts and polar hoods than I’ve seen in a long time.

Jupiter is looking fabulous right now. GRS dead centre. Seeing good here in Somerset

On my old EQ6 I used sheet PTFE 1mm thick (Amazon, about £8 I think for a 200mm square sheet). I cut a circle out of it and placed it between mount head and tripod top. Made polar aligning much easier - mount head, scope and counterweights totaled about 70kg so a lot of friction was present!

Keep at it! See if you can get that ‘dot in the donut’. It might help just to stick to using two of the three primary screws rather than using all three? In any case it’s a lot better than what it was last time and also better than what it was in your first post.

How come? Did you run out of travel on the primary screws?

There are two main aspects to beginner collimation to get your head around, secondary and primary. Secondary is (as the name suggests) adjusting the position of the secondary mirror so that the entire primary mirror can be seen in the secondary mirror as you look through the cap. Secondary collimation isn't that important for a beginner to master, the consequences of getting it wrong is mainly uneven field illumination, it wont have much effect on the sharpness of the image. Primary collimation is adjusting the tilt of the primary mirror so that its optical axis is exactly aligned with your eye. This is the important one to get right as the sharpness of the views can suffer if it's way off because of something called coma. Looking through a collimation cap or cheshire, you're trying to place the dot in the centre of the donut and this is done mainly by adjusting the three screws on the bottom of the scope behind the primary mirror, In the last images you posted the dot and donut are quite far apart. which is bad... I've annotated it below. Try to sort this out first and you can worry about your secondary later.

My wife also gets suspicious if I’m smiling in her presence 😂