Alien 13

Its not my fault but have to admit I dont like the dark, too many monsters about so keep the lights burning inside my house 24/7 but never outside... I do like satellites though.

Alan

Have to admit I always used to clean my mirror this way back in the day as you could feel the slightest imperfection/stuck on dust particle, never trusted cotton wool after looking at some with a microscope.

Alan

The SW PDS range are designed for AP so have the primary mirror pushed a bit further up the tube which in turn requires a slightly larger secondary, they also have uprated 2 inch focussers.

Alan

5 hours ago, skyhog said:

"Anchored to the ground".... What else is going to be anchored to🤔

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately very few scope mounts are anchored to the ground ie with bolts etc, even concrete mounted piers often miss out by having threaded adjustment rods that effectively decouple the mount from the scope.

Alan 

13 minutes ago, Budgie1 said:

Looking at it, you can't see the tilt artefacts in the completed image due to the size reduction.

I did another process of the image and took these two close ups:

This is the left hand side of the image where you can see a blue hue on the top right of the stars. I think this is tilt because they all point in the same direction, no matter whether the stars are at the bottom or top of the left hand side. If it were back spacing then it would point towards or away from the centre (as I understand it).

This is the right hand side of the image with nice round stars:

I'm using the ZWO Canon EF to T2 adaptor and there's a little movement in the connection between the adaptor and lens so I think that may be the cause. I did think about getting the Astro Essentials adaptor which replaces the Canon mounting on the lens, but I still want the option of using the EOS camera occasionally.

 

Have you seen this thread...

It should be useful in determining where the tilt originates and could be used on the whole camera plus adapters in the imaging train.

Alan

Its a difficult question, I like my ZS71 but wish it had a much shorter focal length so I could get single figure magnifications but get round that by having my DSLR attached and do all my viewing with the flippy live view screen....the 56x5 gun scope I have also gives great views.

Alan

8 hours ago, NickWhittle said:

Is Affinity better than photoshop?

Yep....but I only have PS CS6 to compare it with. I however still use PS when destining my smart watch faces as its easier.

Alan

I did have similar issues with a camera set-up on a normal tripod, adding a small alloy bracket to clamp the DSLR can help but I went the whole hog as described in this topic..

Alan

The most used option for a DSLR plus lens is a decent ball head mounted on a dovetail with a 3/8 inch screw, there are DSLR friendly dovetails around too that have a flat surface like this. 

Alan

I just hope they have a backup, its often just as cheap to make more than one..

Alan

Oddly enough I still use my laptop screen for photo editing, it is severely limited with its colour gamut but once calibrated with a "Spyder 5" that sets black/white point and greyscale its fine and compatible over any web sites etc but do need a bigger monitor so watching with interest.

Alan

P.S. The calibrated laptop screen is more than good enough for me to spot any image posts that have got their background black level wrong or are using an un calibrated monitor in their workflow.

You could argue why choose any scope over the naked eye, there will always be far less total light entering your pupil.. For me I cant abide any magnification over X7 so has to be a refractor.

Alan

As the comments above. The only thing to consider if its not Canon or a Nikon mount is if it has enough back focus especially if it was designed for any of the mirrorless cameras.

Alan

Thats impressive, not yet tried my phone on the night sky but would be happy to get anything like that.

Alan

Looks good to me and certainly usable at F/2 especially if you are shooting on a static tripod and want foreground included, worth trying the lens correction data too.

Alan

If the very faintest small stars are visible then its in focus, in fact in my view this is the only way to confirm and far better than the guess work when using a bat mask.

Alan

21 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Is that in effect a ball head with limited range?

Olly

Sort of, its based on the tripods that have a bowl rather than a flat plate. The low profile and large bowl (around 70mm on mine) gives far more stability than a ball head but yes the range is limited.. For photography these are a far better method of leveling the tripod head than fiddling with the tripod legs, especially if the tripod is fully loaded with the camera etc.

Alan

Though I would mention tripod "bowl" heads as an option, the large diameter of the cup and ball ensures a strong clamping action... I have one for my tripod to ensure its level for pano shots.

The downside is that the cheap ones are only rated at 15 Kg and tend to have a 1/4 camera thread on the top rather than 3/8..

Alan

2 minutes ago, Ags said:

I was considering the EQ5 as well. I have seen nice results with the EQ3, but I suppose there are some lucky good ones.

Not lucky but good matching, a reduced 70 ish mm refractor will have a focal length of about 330 mm which would be my upper limit for an EQ3 allowing 1 min subs, of course when you go to lower focal lengths the sub length can go up even to four mins of more for the nifty fifty or similar.

Alan

18 minutes ago, bendiddley said:

I've been reading some more reviews about this lens and some people report fish-eye type distortion and vignetting, is there a lens that doesn't have these problems or are all 14mm in this price range like this?

Most wide angle lenses suffer from this type of distortion but is easily corrected for either "in camera" if its a Canon lens or by most of the image processing packages available if the lens is listed (most are).

Alan

Strange one but guess it could be tilt at 90 degrees to the "OK" axis which would mean one corner is a bit close and the opposite a bit too far, the diagram showing star shapes is alright as a rough guide but would not rely on it too much.

Moving the camera through 90 degrees will show if its scope or camera..

Alan

18 hours ago, Pixies said:

That's the internal reflection within the baffle tube.  I imaging the 'diamond ring' will test any scope's internal reflections!

Some black 3.0 will fix that 😋

Alan

12 hours ago, PEMS said:

Have met the EQ5 with the Dual Motor upgrade. I would say it is fair, not sure any more then that. Unsure of 3 minute exposures, would feel happier if you were thinking of 2 minute and less.

You need the hand box or whatever it is termed. It doesn't move the mount overly fast. The motors are DC and 6v  - NOT 12 Volts. So if you give it 12v in error that will be the end and you will need a new controller box, not sure if the motors would survive. Being DC motors the rate is controlled by the supplied voltage. In my opinion this limits the rotational accuracy. Hence the idea that exposure times needs to be on the lower side rather then the higher side. Simply they are not as well defined as stepper motors. Start low and increase the time until the captured image becomes too poor. And that depends on the scope focal length and weight.

My thoughts are they are more for the convenience of tracking rather then more full blown AP. Don't expect the final accuracy that the goto with steppers supplies. Keep the expectations realistic.

Better repeat - be careful of the voltage you supply. You will only get it wrong once.

Its difficult to find much technical information on these motor sets and indeed the single axis version that I am using but I am pretty sure they are stepper motors and mine certainly pulses when in use, the control box also contains a Xtal oscillator which would also support these findings... The warning about voltages is very true as there is no over voltage or reverse polarity protection in the control box but because of that these motors will happily run from a 5.2V mobile power bank.

Alan

I can only think that the focus was off, it is more difficult getting focus with a modded camera especially with lenses or a refractor..

Alan

2 minutes ago, Astro Noodles said:

Is that the C90 ?

Yes and admit I do love mine.

Alan