neil phillips

2 hours ago, Yawning Angel said:

Thanks Neil. The ED puts the colours together quite well, but there has been some worth removing some fine green and magenta fringes.

 Well your Fine tuning has worked well. looks close to reflector balance to me. Better than my 70mm F12.8 Achro for sure

Very nice. The ED colour correction is spot on. As is your colour balance. 

1 hour ago, Tommohawk said:

I seem to remember you did some cracking planetary images with your Orion so will be interesting to see if you can squeeze even more out of it with your 1/30 PV secondary - watch this space as they say! Interesting to know that your primary is 1/10 wave, must make all the difference

I reckon a quality 300mm F5 in a purpose built truss frame would suit me well, but I don't have my own workshop so have to use a bit of ingenuity and adapt stuff. The flextube idea worked well because it allowed me to coarse tune the scope length, but its a heavy scope and I couldn't do the same with a 300mm. 

One thing i know for sure. Regardless what people say about figures  of mirrors. A good set of optics will betray themselves over a period of time, purely imaging. In the end the best optics are more consistent. And do show in consistently good images, with good collimation and cool down of course. Seeing is a different matter

Theres good and bad mirrors and everything in between Despite pv claims

7 hours ago, Tommohawk said:

Thanks for that - somehow I studied the atlas for ages, and then about 5 mins after posting I figured it out. I used to work with low mag to start with just to plan what I was going to view/photograph and then switch to high mag. With the current setup that isnt practical - I have to start with high mag so getting oriented is problematic and a lot of the landmarks are washed out with full moon. 

Thanks Neil.

The scope is a bit of an experiment - the idea was to use a fast mirror just to keep the scope length down to minimise momentum etc, and then use the powermate to give the higher EFL. (F20, 5000m EFL) Mounting the powermate/camera assembly  on the secondary spider means there's less central obstruction - the Omegon OSC Velox 385 camera assembly is only 43mm diameter. It's based on a Flextube 250 housing a faster Quattro F4 mirror - see pic below. Long term I wanted to do the same thing but as a truss design so I could disassemble and travel with it easily.

In general it works very well, is really easy to collimate and holds collimation very well too. The big issue is focussing - I've built in a helical focuser which works well, but it really isn't possible to focus on surface detail because theres just too much image movement - I prefocus with a Bahtinov which does the job nicely.

I used this rig extensively with Mars last year, and TBH I don't think this gives quite the resoluton I was hoping for. My conclusion is that (cheap) fast mirrors suffer from aberrations such that any marginal gain from the reduced CO is lost. It would be interesting to repeat this with either a better mirror or maybe say an F5, although an F5 250mm would be about 1.5m long including the camera assy. and would probably need a bigger mount. Currently my HEQ5 just manages this with a stack of extra weights!

 

Very interesting Tom. F5 might be the way to go. A good performing primary is everything. So a quality F5 Mirror might give you what you want. I got good results with a bog standard F5 300mm SW. The NEQ6 Pleaded for mercy though. It worked better at IR and red wave lengths. The better the primary mirror the better the blue and green will likely fare though.  (red too )  But as you say its a budget and physical balance thats right for you. Just getting a Antares 1/ 30 pv secondary fitted for my Orion

1/10th wave 245mm F6.3 scope.  So thats where i am going. But if you make any changes i will certianly be watching. Would love a zambuto mirror  the wait is very long, though i think he may still be making them. John Nichol is also a craftsmen.

Interesting setup. Scope sounds quite fast. But that is a excellent shot 

2 hours ago, Tommohawk said:

Looks great, nice colour range and nice detail especially at the limb. Which scope was this I wonder?

Cheers guys. A 15 year old Celestron power seeker. The secondary has been hiliuxed the primary has pin holes in the coating. may get it hiluxed at some point 

Finally got the result i knew this little 4.5 F8 Newt could produce. Been improving collimation. No wind. Seeing wasnt too bad.

Was struggling with the EQ2 and the economy motor drive though. slop in the mount makes the drifting even worse. A quick process (3 or 4 hours)

Will do a more careful process later.  The QHY 462C camera is pretty good in my opinion. Very sensitive red and IR for a single shot colour camera

The texture looks almost sandy. But with no noise. stacking about 900 frames each per the 13 panes used out of around 4000 being captured. 

75%

100%

Crisp shots. 

Nice work. Naturally sharp Mike

Thats a great result, I  tended to try to avoid any whiteout on my images, But lately have been pushing the white levels

It can make the images more dynamic. But of course like anything its a trade off. You dont get something for nothing with either approach

Lovely sharpness 

8 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

This is outstanding Neil 👍 is this a mosaic or could you get the whole thing on the chip?  To be honest I've seen worse results from 11" SCTs! 

Thanks Craig. No not a single shot. I added 11 panes. The difficult thing is capturing with a EQ2 With no polar scope. And no hand controller. Just a single economy RA motor. The speed goes up and down like a yo yo. All the moving and placing of the image on the screen has to be done by hand by physically pulling the telescope around.

With the amount of drift im getting i am losing a lot of frames, And my pane times have to be quite short. That will change when i get my Old EQ3 some dual drives. Better will be coming for sure. I am surprised at the result with all the problems mentioned and the wind. Getting a 90mm F10 Frac tomorrow. So will be fun seeing what that can do. 

Hey congrats and nice shot

Not sure if its any better  certainly smoother? But a more careful process. Celestron 114 Newt. EQ2 Mount with single economy drive. QHY 462C IR850

Was windy but used the pause start method

7 minutes ago, WestCoastCannuck said:

My own dream cam is the ASI290MM in a 1 inch version.   The sensitivity of the 290MM in IR is stupendous...  vastly superior to my ASI183MM which is a demon in green.

Yes i liked my ASI 290MM Wonder, what the QHY Version is like ? Will compare. Altair cameras are good i tested some. But not a mono

1 minute ago, WestCoastCannuck said:

I REALLY like your colour work here.   I slightly prefer the more muted and natural looking first image, but the much stronger colour of the second is also appealing.

 

Clear skies!

 

Mike

Hi Mike. Me too regarding the more muted colour. I really need a mono camera. Especialy when i get the 10" running again Got this camera as a general work horse but for lunar mono is better. Why oh why cant they do a mono version of this camera. at 4.5 " i was shooting 1/250 secs exposure IR850 And wait for it about 35% Gain. Very very sensitive

Celestron 114 powerseeker F8 prime focus. EQ2 mount. single economy RA drive. QHY 462C Camera IR UV Filter

The bottom shot is with a 2x omni barlow

The 20th Feb same gear but with 850 nm IR Filter, Also quite windy, with a EQ2 Its fun blowing around 

With a better mount could likely do better. But its fun with cheaper equipment you have to work for the results. These images are for my daughter as its her scope. 

Cheers John

11 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Very nice 👍.  Difficult to get sharp images at this phase I find.

I have the 850nm filter bit have only used it on Venus, must give it a go on the moon it looks like it works well

Conditions were not great. Scope not cooled. A rush job. Another good thing capturing with a brighter sky. The IR makes the sky jet black.

On a side note. A Antares 1/30th secondary is now on its way from the states. Trying to rebuild my old 245mm Orion Newt. Cleaning the primary soon.

Btw checked out your Mars shots. great work.

shooting in daylight fairly low. IR850 Celestron 114. QHY462C.

Secondary shadow still looks offset after re collimating. Havent figured out why yet. Mirror clips were too tight. But now are set correctly.

30 minutes ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Very nice and crisp results

Thanks Michael. I suspect the primary clips might be a touch overtight. If so it should improve over this first light attempt. I am amazed how these scopes perform on low power  moonmosaics. Who said Celestron 4.5 " powerseekers are not really big enough for starter scopes. For the moon at prime focus i think they are great.

reprocessed this slightly sharper and more carefully. Not as natural but tighter maybe.

Cheers guys building mosaics on a EQ2 With a simple RA Drive is quite difficult i am finding. 

9 hours ago, wouterdhoye said:

Very nice!

Thanks

9 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Wow what a capable little scope. Very nice images! That's interesting that the 426c is sensitive enough at NIR even for an 850nm filter. 

wasnt sure exactly how much signal strength i would get at 850nm with 114mm optics. But surprisingly i had loads of headroom. Backing up the claim this camera sets new levels for IR Sensitivity. 

I can do better with this scope i reckon. Bit worried the clips holding  the primary are too tight. Might have to check.

Cheers Craig.

A 15 year old and recently restored Celestron powerseeker 114  F8

QHY462 C IR 850 filter EQ2 Simple RA Drive. 31st Jan. It was windy blowing the little scope around. Still first light after many years of neglect.

Nice Vlaiv. looks good. lovely balance