Selborne

If it is a dew'y night then yes the dew shield needs to be all the way out, in fact I also have dew heaters to stay on top of the issue. thanks Jamie

Hi Paul, based on my experience with the HEQ6 I have the scope performs impeccably, I have modded the mount to belt drive, so to be honest if you are going to go the skywatcher route, I would recommend the NEQ6 Pro, as it has the belt drive as standard. I find that I can keep tp less than 1" arc second using my HEQ^ modded drive using PHD guiding, so you should be able to achieve the same or better with the HEQ6 Pro (but of course you polar alighment has to be nearly perfect), I use QHY PoleMaster with teh HEQ6 adapter, it get me onto the pole star perfectly. Hope this helps, thanks Jamie

I recently purchased a cooled astro camera the ZWO ASI294C one-shot colour camera and the new ASIAIR all in one astro-photography telescope top computer (Rasberry Pie), and the first object I attempted was the Pleiades M45, I have to say my first impressions are that it is just awesome, there is next to no noise what so ever. In the case of this image, I took 20 x 240s shots, no darks, no lights and no bias, as it was just a test, however with this result, I think I will not be worrying too much in the future with all the additional preparation shots. I processed the image using AstroPi

I was surprised how much out of collimation the scope was, like you stated yours was. but now all is well. and thanks for the comment ? regards, Jamie

Hi Guys, I thought I would share with you my first DSO taken with my new Orion 8" Ritchey Chretien F8 Telescope. The frame is made up of 12 x 4min shots, no light or dark frames, using my Sony A7Rii camera. The camera had the long exposure noise reduction switched on, which does help to reduce the total number of stars captured by the camera, as the Sony A7Rii does tend to overdo the number of stars captured. The telescope was mounted on my trusty skywatcher NEQ6 mount and the guiding was via PHD 'of course' via my skywatcher ED50 guide scope. The shots were taken from my b

Hi Steve, I purchased mine from 365 Astronomy, Zoran there is very helpful, he calculated the tube length from the field flattener and put together a set of adapters which allow me to have a native sony mount adapter through to the M48 connection to the field flattener, it was not cheap the whole setup was about £60, but it is the right tool for the right job. regards Jamie

Hi Souls, Your first statement is correct, you cannot mount filters inside the adapter, Interesting that the new box is smaller ! many thanks Jamie

Congratulations Nikolas, now you journey begins ! did you order the field flattener as well ?

Lets us see the results once you captured it, would be interesting to compare you equipment set and results ?

Hi Ragnar, thanks for your quote, yes it is a lot of equipment to take, I manage to get everything into 3 peli cases, so there is good protection for travelling. I have a small Mercedes Citan Van which allows for easy travel, plus it has three leisure batteries connected together feeding an inverter, which gives silent power all night if needed, around 2.5kWh, more than enough for the scope, computer, dew heaters etc. With regard to Photoshop, I pay monthly for the Adobe Photographer pack, Lightroon CC and Photoshop CC software, £7 per month, very good value, with the latest s

Hi Guys, I thought I would share with you the spoils of last nights observing, it was a very clear and calm night here in Suffolk and I took the opportunity to travel a few miles out from Stowmarket, to and old second world war airfield, were there is next to no light pollution, as a result I thought I would try to capture the Bubble Nebula. This Deep Sky Object has always been a difficult one for me, never really managed to pull it off, however with the aid of my Skywatcher 100 ED Pro Esprit Telescope complete with my Sony A7Rii Camera, atop my Skywatcher NEQ6 mount, using my Skywa

Thank you for a detailed reply, very much appriciated, I will take a look at the 294 as you have suggested, Cheers Jamie

Hi Vlaiv, any reason for your suggestion ? Why do you think the 294 is the preferred option ? Interested to know your thoughts, Thanks Jamie

Hi Guys, I am looking for a little bit of advice, I have finally reached that point in most amateur astronomers lives, where we think it is time to move from DSLRs to dedicated astro cameras. Having done a fair bit of research and read far to many forum posts, I think I have brought my choice down to one of two cameras:- either the ZWO ASI 284 Pro Colour or the ZWO ASI 183 Pro Colour Cameras, I know that the real serious of your guys will tell me to go mono, as the results are considerably better, but I am not ready for that yet (that is likely to be the next step). The t