CraigT82

Just been googling around and it seems there is no set standard dimensions for 'losmandy' or 'vixen' dovetails. Manufacturers of dovetails seem to make them to roughly the right size to fit into either category but saddles usually have a wide opening range so no need for exact dimensions standards - which makes sense I suppose. Actual Losmandy manufactured dovetails seem to have the dimensions below, not yet been able to find CGE dimensions other than the diagram listed on FLO.

I think that's the overall width of the bar not the dovetail bit that goes into the clamp... that width isn't on the diagram strangely.

This pic is of my ADM losmandy plate in a neq6 saddle. The bolts are just engaged with the threads. From this point I need to turn each bolt 4 full turns to lock This dovetail is 74.7mm wide

I wonder if your CGE bar is slightly wider than a losmandy one? Can you measure it?

Yes it's all quite complex... I try not to worry about it too much though, if it looks ok on the capture screen it'll probably look of in the final image!

There must be something amiss with your saddle?? My neq6 saddle has m8x1.25mm bolts which are 45mm long from tip to shoulder and works fine with a losmandy dovetail. Are your bolts shorter than this?

https://www.stark-labs.com/help/blog/files/GainAndOffset.php

Have you tried the RGB align feature in registax? Can help with the colour fringing.

Nice image. I love the area around Mare Vaporum. I'd just say to experiment... autostakkert let's you create several stacks with different number of frames so you could try that out . Generally I capture 5000 frames and start off stacking 100, 250, 500, 750 and see what they look like.

Thanks Nick, by smoothing do you mean noise reduction? It's tricky to process when the seeing is poor... I usually end up overcooking it to compensate

Nice work. Great exposure and some very subtle colours coming through too. I've always fancied ome of the ES comet hunters as a do-it-all scope, dont see many up for sale used though. That shutter mechanism is very clever !

Nice work Victor! Maybe head over to the planetary imaging section to see if anyone made any captures last night that you can compare your sketch with?

Superb! Have you tried msice for the mosaic stitching? So easy to use and all automated. Think of gain as ISO, increases sensitivity but with more noise

Very nice effort, well done! Yes tracking helps enormously especially when you want to experiment with gain, exposure, focus etc. I dont think you need the CLS filter though, I'd ditch it next time. Red or IR filters are used a lot with lunar to help counter bad seeing. Orange or even green filters can be used in good/excellent seeing. The idea is to narrow the bandwidth of light captured (the moon is so bright you dont need the whole spectrum) which helps sharpen the image.

Poor seeing last night. Very wobbly image on the capture screen. As usual though AS3! And Imppg have done their stuff and made it worthwhile in the end. 8.75" fullerscope with APM 2.7x Barlow and Altair Astro gpcam3 290m with IR filter (baader 685nm). 5000 frames captured and 500 stacked. Cheers 20200307_085644.mp4

Nice work! The colour images just have more life in them dont they

Fair point, but I said basically the same... I didn't mean exactly the same. I meant they are built around the same sensors and generally have the same capabilities. Are you implying that they Touptek built cameras are inferior to the ZWO ones? Genuine question... not trying to argue! Must be a reason you stopped stocking them?

Yeah I'd say the same, that's a really nice image I'd be proud of that!

Very nice, tons of detail. Whst was the thinking behind the moon and skyglow filter? Cheers

It's exactly the same scope, the N just means newtonian. You often see it described as such on European websites (Telescope Express, Astropshop.eu etc...)

Excellent! Eaily one of the best mosaics I've seen... well done!

Can't wait to see the finished article!

The image on the right is soooooo much better!! The drizzle will have helped as you are undersampled but I didnt think it would help that much! Did you sharpen the two images identically?

Very nice! Great composition

That is an absolute stonker of an image! 53 panes must have taken you ages... how many frames did you capture/stack for each pane? I prefer the first one as the second one looks a bit overdone on the sharpening when you zoom in (but looks great at overall)