DaveS

Not sure how much you can see, but my 130 f/7 and Trius 694 getting a test run on the Crescent. HII, 1 hour in 600 sec subs, Astrodon 3nm.

That's looking good, you'll get good encoder guiding with that. I've just got in from doing the PA on my DDM60 after getting it set up again, and after the long delay with the weather. Just need to do the whole sky model now.

IKI were a regular stand at Astrofest, so I'm wondering if FLO will pick it up?

Good to see you're getting somewhere with it, but it will be even better once you have the PA sorted (Is there tech support at e-EyE who can tweak the PA?) and can start using the MLPT abandoning guiding altogether. I've seen encoder guiding over 2 hours get down to <0.2"PP and 0.1" RMS

I find the acquisition fairly boring and mechanical. Once the object is centred and the subs are coming in I pretty well leave it to get on with it, while I grab a pair of bins and do a bit of visual. It's been some years since I had to set up each night, and would not go back. I have read comments about "the thrill of the chase", but for me the thrill comes later, when I have the data callibrated and stacked on the computer and I'm chasing down the faint details burried in the shadows. Although I did a bit of simple AP on slide film, the passion only really took off with digital photography and the ability to stack and manipulate the data.

And that's the difference between amateur level and pro level equipment, Even iTelescope's T30 can't compete with that.

Damn. I wasn't going to comment further as I don't like some of the atmosphere in this thread, too much religiosity about imaging. However.... If you've booked and paid for time on a remote telescope, as the OP has done, how is that different to what professional astronomers do when they use their research budgets to book time on a major telescope? Is their work any less "theirs" because they didn't set up the equipment themselves, and it isn't in their own back garden? I think not, so I take my lead from what the pros do. There is, however a difference between booking exclusive time on a telescope, as the OP has done, and which I've considered, and pooling data, eg on DSW. I also note, that the images that Goran and Wim processed from LT data during summer, are on the LT Flicker page, with shared copyright.

*sigh* And *that* is why we've missed your imaging postings Gina

Blooming from over-filled wells. Amateur (And some Pro) CCDs have a "leak" called an Anti-Blooming Gate to ensure the wells don't overflow.

For schools in the UK there's the National Schools' Observatory which gets access to the 2m Liverpool Telescope on La Palma. Your observations are private for a while then they are open for others to access. I think iTelescope is different to eg Deep Sky West, where data is shared among a group of subscribers. @MrsGnomus might know. Thinking ahead (A long way ahead I hope), should I have to go into sheltered accomodation or a care home, then the occasional remote image acquisition might be all that I could manage. Assuming I still had enough marbles left (Not a joke).

Expanding on my previous post, I see a difference between being able to request your own imaging time, as I think iTelescope does, and those set-ups where you have to share a session. For me, the 'scope is just a tool to acquire data, fussing over it may be necessary at times, but I'd rather be imaging. Remote imaging can also get you data on objects that just aren't visible from here, so I see no reason not to use remote imaging.

The nearest I've got to remote imaging is requesting time on the Liverpool Telescope, but would use it if I could afford it. I think of the professional astronomers who might be on a different continent to the telescope they're using.

In my conversations with Rupert it appears they have quite a DDM "farm" there. Just a pity that I can't afford the rent.

Hi Good to see that you've got your mount, still waiting for Rupert to contact me, also waiting on house sale completion to have a financial buffer (Can afford it now, but don't want to deplete my funds). Yes, agree with your comments Re: weight, even my "little" DDM60 is a bit of a lump, but at least the 85 breaks down into two parts, and the ASA forum is very slow. @Waldemar has a DDM 85, so he may be able to give more mount-specific advice. Agree also that getting all the software talking to each other can be a bit of a faff at first, but it *does* all come together in the end. I have Autoslew, Cartes du Ciel, Maxim DL and Sequence open over two monitors, and even then things get crowded. Noting that you have the "Basic" (Basic, yeah, right) with similar PA adjustment to the 60, it took me several iterations to get the PA spot on, but I think that was due to axis conflict due to not having a dead level pier to start with. Will follow your adventures with interest, stay tuned for my saga!

Zombie Thread Alert! You do realise this was started 10 years ago ?

WO Megrez 90, alas no longer made, but it's an ED doublet 90mm f/6.9. With the flattener the colour correction is pretty good.

No flexing that I've noticed.

Here's a photo of my set up. Looks to be about 65mm, but YMMV.

I have one between my Megrez 90 (F/6.9) and ASI1600 camera. currently it's set at 55mm, but I may need to push it out another mm or so.

Oh, I'm not decrying the CEM120, just saying that the DDM mounts would probably be stopped from hitting those limits. For what it's worth, if I hadn't bought the DDM mounts then the CEM would be at the top of my short-list. Mind you, having grown used to the utter silence with which the DDM slews, hearing gears whirring is a bit novel.

I'm not sure the ASA software would allow you to do that, but in any case there are no gears, wheels, belts etc to break.

Ouch James that sounds painful all ways, hope your leg isn't badly hurt and gets better soon. A bit surprised that Baader doesn't have the likely most popular size in stock, but will be very interested to see how the [OIII] in particular copes with astro twilight, as that's the one most usually affected.

Just checked @FLO site. The 1.25" is the only size showing red "unavailable", the other sizes show orange 7-10 days.

Just looked at the price of Astrodons, and they're gone from stupidly expensive to some kind of stratospheric insanity. My 3nm set cost £385 each when I bought them back in 2015, now they're £570 , the others, even the 5nm have gone through the roof too. I will though, I think, add a set of Baader Ultranarrow to the cart when I buy my 16200 camera.

Also available from our favourite supplier Baader [OIII[ Ultra Narrow. It's very new so not all sizes are available yet.