CraigT82

That's a very good point.

You point the scope (has to be a short FL scope for necessary FoV) at the NCP or close to. Latest sharpcap version will work within 7 degrees of NCP. Sharpcap then platesolves the image the scope is seeing, needs about 5 stars minimum to do the solve. The you rotate the mount in RA about 90 degrees and platesolve another image there. Sharpcap then knows where the mount is aligned to, relative to the NCP, and then highlights a random star on screen and gives you an arrow and a target on the screen. You need to move the highlighted star along the arrow to the target using the altaz adjusters.

Sharpcap for me, which is excellent. I modified and old 8x50 finder to use for it which is mounted onto main scope.... Didn't spend anything at all on that. I have 2 Altair cameras and each one came with 1 year free sharpcap pro licence so I dont even have to pay for that for the time being. I have also owned and used a polemaster which is also very good. If I didnt already have the bits lying around to make up and attach a small scope to use with sharpcap (and have a spare camera to use in it) I would have bought another polemaster I think.

There are motor focusers that are battery powered, with batteries in the focuser handset. Hence not needing a laptop or anything. I have two, a skywatcher and a moonlight. They just stay permanently attached to the scopes and I dont do any manual focusing at all, for visual or imaging.

Once you have used a motor focus you will never want to focus manually again!

Really nice work Pete, the blue filter has produced a lively sharp natural looking image. No more venus for me as it's behind next door's 60ft trees by the time I've done the kiddos dinner and bedtime and can get outside, never mind... roll on Mars!

Really nice set of images. Well done!

If you're primarily a lunar observer then would you really need goto? I have a 6" mak that I use on an AZ4 which I find to be a good combo.

Umm.. you might want to look into that

Here you go.... bit dearer than TS though! https://cfftelescopes.eu/product/classic-cassegrain-300-mm

See image... use the dropdown top right, select 150% or 200% or something like that for focusing. This only zooms in on the preview screen, nothing else. Have you stacked and sharpened the video you collected?

Is the 14" a flex tube? Just thinking it could be your body heat entering the tube.

Yeah I'd agree, spend more time on focusing before capturing the video. Zoom in to the preview and look at the fine detail whilst adjusting the focuser. Also, as a secondary point, was the scope collimated before use?

I've no doubt that UV light gets through the corrector. Just a bit less UV light than non corrector scopes. Hence a slight disadvantage... though probably hardly measurable I guess

Great images Pete, plenty of detail there. Yes I think that schmidt corrector plate is a bit of a disadvantage in UV.

Belting images, and great presentation. Really nice work 👍

Right decision to send it back. No idea how that chip would behave in sudden temp changes. Also cant believe how shiny the drawtube is!

Very nice!

My EQ6 did exactly the same, as in you're video. Had to tighten the slotted nut on the worm end shaft. The one under the round black cap on the control board side. But seems like you've already done this so prob not much help, sorry!

The size of the airy disk is dependent on the wavelength of light, with shorter wavelength light producing smaller airy disks... So theoretically you can resolve smaller details by using shorter wavelength filters (orange, green, blue). However the seeing needs to be correspondingly improved in order to use the shorter wavelengths. Usually I try red first and see how steady it looks, then I try orange and if that looks sharp I try green. I'd like to try blue but havent had good enough seeing for that yet.

Very very nice set of images... beautifully sharp with great resolution. Seeing was obviously great, were you not tempted to try shorter wavelength filters?

Thanks for the kind words all! Very much appreciated

Great work Mike. Love the long shadows cast by that crater in the Hortensius domes sketch.

You will need to adjust the exposure setting, should be a slider. In the daytime the exposure will need to be very short, just a few milliseconds. The gain slider should also be set to low as well. Sorry I'm not familiar with sharpcap so dont know where these settings are. If at night you will want to be pointing at the moon as it's hard to miss! Might need 10 or 20 milliseconds on that.

Leave the Barlow off for now, see if you can get it focused without