CraigT82

Thanks Stu, no worries about sharing 👍

Forecast for last night was good with jetstream speeds of less than 10mph showing on Windy.com, but I don't think that quite materialised as the seeing here in Bristol was pretty poor with both high frequency blur and low frequency shimmer seen on the capture screen (hot day didn't help either). This made it difficult to focus and I think I was way off on critical focus for this shot, never mid though it's my first Jupiter image for three years! Fullerscope with Altair GPCAM3 224c and APM 2.7x barlow I captured 12x1min videos and kept only 7 of them to derotate (used best 40% of those 7 videos in the stacks). Also captured some standalone IR685nm data which I'm processing now and will add to this topic later. Cheers

The zero position is when the two levers are together and can be anywhere within the zone where the two lever slots overlap.

Fantastic image.... just goes to show that when you know what you're doing even the littlest of scopes can really perform!

Superb detail from a 100mm scope! How would darks and flats improve the image?

Nice shots, well done! Clear detail visible in all three

Robbins timber in Bristol are a quality supplier, founded in 1881 incredibly. I'm not sure if they deliver nationwide though.

Really nice set there Mike. Didn't have much time to grab them!

Sorry to hear this, hope you @vlaiv and your wife get well soon... all the best from Bristol.

Lovely... what a small but perfectly formed Mars! Nice shadow transit too.

Ha no chance! I'm actually thinking about buying the synscan goto upgrade kit for mine. I've recently stripped and relubricated the mount and the internals are in surprisingly good condition so worth a bit of investment. My aim is to get firecapture to automatically guide the mount when planetary imaging.

I have one of the old black EQ6s, the syntrek non goto version with the 4 button hand controller, dating from approx 2002. It's still going strong and I use it for planetary and lunar imaging. It will do nicely for carrying a 200p I think. Mechanically they are near identical to the more modern versions, apart from the motors which are the cheaper versions (max slew speed is only x16). You can buy the goto upgrade kit which adds better stepper motors and the synscan handset but this costs around £300. To do your long exposure images you will need to accurately polar align, so make sure its got a polar scope fitted. You will need to manually locate your object and frame it in the FoV of course. I paid £200 for mine as it's cosmetically very tatty with lots of the black paint falling off. For £400 I would expect one in excellent condition, You will need two of the 5kg counterweight to balance the 200p so make sure it comes with those.

If this is the case perhaps a manual mount without electronics would be best. Cheap and cheerful goto mounts are some of the most frustrating things in astronony

With many thanks to @markse68 who very generously 3D printed some radius blocks for me FoC, this request is now fulfilled 😀.

fantastically detailed images, well done!

For what it's worth, Damian Peach uses the ZWO ADC in his personal scope for imaging (250 Mewlon), he says he has tried all the commercially available ones but sees no benefit over the humble ZWO (for his own requirements)

You might find that you don't have enough inward focus travel if not using a barlow with the newt (common issue). Perhaps a barlow cell screwed directly onto the nose of the ADC and giving 1.5x ish may push the focus point out just enough and not amplify too much?

It doesn't have to be if the scope has a long native FL ,but generally much better to be ahead of the ADC. Lots of good info on this in Martin Lewis' ADC part 2 Web page that I linked to earlier.

Thats three nice images but the Mars one really stands out... it's a corker. Looking forward to seeing some stunning Mars images from you later in the year!

Very nice, lots of detail and good contrast in the IR. I'm really regretting not getting up early on the 20th!

This is s very good camera for the money... https://www.altairastro.com/altair-gpcam2-224c-colour-guide--imaging--eaa-camera-34-p.asp Its USB 2 rather than USB 3 so frame rates won't be as high but its a fantastic sensor for planetary imaging.

Not a bad result at all, especially from just 4 mins capture.

Just had a thought... if you haven't done so yet, it's worth checking if your ADC is a righty or lefty (I.e. which way the prisms are stacked) as this will dictate whether you have the null point pointing left or right. Nice and easy test for this here... https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/525563-for-users-of-the-new-zwo-adc-important/

It's not as hard as it sounds... it's not an exact science... twiddle till you can't see any red or blue fringes! Be sure to have the levers adjusted equally either side of null point. With the planets so low and using big scope/long FL, you may not have enough correction even at max setting. In that case if you increase distance between eyepiece and ADC you'll gain more correction. A good tip is each time you use the ADC make a note of the target altitide and the ADC lever position. Soon you'll have a library of what position you need to set it to by just looking up the target altitude (for that particular set up).

You will need a dovetail to attach to the tube rings which will then be clamped onto the mount. Losmandy type dovetail will be best for this size of scope. Have you got a camera? Planetary and deep sky photography are very different beasts and require different approaches. You can just about do both with a DSLR but having a dedicated astro camera will produce best results