Notty

Hi Richard, apologies for taking so long to reply to this. It works better than I had hoped, there is (on my example of the lens anyway) more than enough back focus past infinity that the autofocus works like a dream through the ASIair. I'm really happy with it.

insanely beautiful...

For completeness, here it is now with Ivo's fantastic trick for de-purpling the stars, with extra Ha data & OIII from last night. Much happier with the colours now. Total integration time therefore 15hrs: Ha: 4h SII 4h OIII 7h. Calling it done. See you all in another year when time/weather align. Thanks for looking and clear skies all.

I’m with you and I miss my reflector for that reason only, but I didn’t know you could add diff spikes that’s awesome! Mind telling me how you do it?

Thanks for the feedback Ivo! I’m going to try that trick when I’m home on a couple of days, I definitely prefer my stars less purple. Startools continues to amaze me with its capabilities- so thanks again. andy

Due busy life I don't produce much, and when I do it's rarely that great. I know this is still noisy as hell but it's the first time I've persevered over multiple nights trying to acquire proper data, and for the first time I've come up with something I really like, and the crop of the core is the nearest I think I've come to a "proper" astro image . I'm definitely needing more OIII as that seemed to be the weakest of my 3 channels, and some more Ha as L might help the noise some. Lots of data thrown away and ended up with 2.5h Ha, 4.5 OIII 4.5 SII. Processed in Startools. Hopefully a combination of vastly reduced working (not good!) and ASIair (v.good!) is going to give me more opportunity going forward. Comments and criticism very welcome. Thanks for looking ASI1600mm+Samyang 135mm

Thanks for that, it looks nice especially the mounting arrangement. I went for this setup; astrojolo supplied mounting rings and guidescope mount plus a toothed pulley/belt arrangement inspired by another user on here. I haven’t connected it all up to try it yet, I fear autofocus won’t work as I’m told there won’t be enough back focus behind infinity to automate it but at least I should be able to control the motor focuser through asiair without touching it, which should still be more precise.

Ah ok, thank for that. I already have that setup but want to automate it. I'll be doing lrbg+narrowband and want to make it as precise as possible.

Hello, thanks but I can’t search this on eBay - thinks I’m looking for a userid?

Hello. As title, has anyone had any luck setting up the above? I have a Samsung 135mm which I’ll be using with my 1600mm and controlled by ASIair. If anyone’s found an off the shelf transmision/belt drive solution or gone through the pain of assembling one would you mind sharing the details at all? Thank you in advance. andrew

and here comes a possible trade war with China, so Sept/Oct might be optimistic!

Wow, that chap knows what he's doing, and has same camera as me too. definitely worth a look, thank you and everyone else who's chipped in.

Thanks all. I hadn't heard of Raig or Harpers, but they're quite significantly more expensive than everywhere else I've checked, and its the same story, they can't make them fast enough for demand!

Yes, really I want a bigger step up from my ED80 for galaxy resolution - if I could afford the 150 triplet I would! but thank you

Thanks, but they don't I checked yesterday. In fact while I was on the phone confirming they had the last EQ6R-pro in the country in stock, someone bought it. It's that mad at the moment

After 8y or so building up my ED80/HEQ5 based imaging rig I have just sold it in order to go "big bang" on upgrading it, (scope, mount, ASIair) hopefully with one good enough that I will always be the limiting factor for the rest of my AP days. I'd done my research and had decided the Esprit 120ED on an EQ6R-pro would suit my purposes with my ASI1600MM, but what I hadn't appreciated was quite how little of anything there was in the UK and how it's literally drip feeding in from China. The wait for the Esprit is October! Now I don't mind waiting and missing out all summer for the right kit but it's given me pause to just run this by to see if there might not be a better choice of scope for a similar price range. I'd love a Tak but that's always going to be out of my league, or perhaps someone's heard of something gorgeous just around the corner? Thanks for any input.

Thanks, yes indeed, I was just thrown by where the 77mm came from, or if perhaps quoted F ratios were rounded up or some such. Really glad I found this thread still, thanks all.

I was looking for max aperture size on the Samyang tech pages but didn't see anything, they mention 77mm as "filter size" but would that not make its focal ratio 1.75?

Thank you - aperture being presumably exactly 135/2 for F2

So glad I found this thread, sorry to hijack and jump in, but for a 135mm F2 camera lens, do I need to find an equivalent F2 telescope (do they even exist)? Or am I missing something?

That is stunning. Such a shame I can't get this target where I am this time of year, otherwise this would have inspired me to have a try myself.

That is gorgeous.

2 hours of Luminance, 40 mins each of RGB, dithered in PHD best 95% stacked with darks, flats and dark flats, ASI1600m ED80-DS processed in Star Tools. Now the thing with this is I started my guiding and it was just awful, although to be fair it warned me calibration was too far off the CE to be reliable but I did it anyway just to start harvesting. I was getting about 1.1rms, so I wondered if I binned everything 2x2 it would help, though I'm still trying to get my hear around the science. I wonder sas this is a valid approach under crappy guiding/seeeing? I think it means I end up with a effectively very expensive DSLR haha! I'm quite pleased with the image for my standards anyway. I put the slightly cropped one up as well. Thanks for looking.

Why thank you everybody for the tips and info I’d not thought so much in terms of arc seconds/pixel. I’ll have a look at the Altair 102 as well.

I shall have a look at that, thank you.