Alien 13

2 minutes ago, maw lod qan said:

Wow!!👍👍

Cant wait to sample those Martian potatoes! Wait, that was something else, wasnt it! 😁

Well done mate on getting there, I had a meal of new potatoes and ketchup especially for this mission.

Alan

Touchdown yay, Elvis has left the building..

Alan

Parachute deployed..

Alan

5 mins to go.

Alan

Have been watching since it went live , fascinating stuff..shame I haven't got my boarding pass for this one although I am on the next.

Alan

48 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

I like your step ring as it is not a tower of rings generating possible reflections, though i am assuming you ordered direct and waited some weeks for it to arrive.

Looking at your image on the desktop that's a lot of dust have assumed your camera is modified too.

I have had plenty of these large step rings from Amazon so I can use my 77mm ND filters etc with all my camera lenses.

Alan

For polar alignment you could go this route...

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/astro-essentials-right-angled-eyepiece-for-polar-scopes.html

Alan

I use power banks to power my EQ3-2, dew heaters plus other DSLR gadgets and like Chefgage use seperate supplies.

I would advise you get one of these to check actual power consumption for each unit.

Alan

What camera are you using? I noticed that you mentioned a Nikon lens in your post, if you are using a Nikon camera then all the vintage M42 type lenses and most others wont focus at infinity.

Alan

Just had a look in my camera setting and found the option to use the shutter button to start/stop video as follows.

Make sure camera is in video mode----->menu (red section with camera icon)------>page 5 then button function.

This allows you to assign various functions to the shutter button or indeed a remote connected to the jack socket.

I am sure your camera menus will be different but hope this helps.

Alan

P.S. my camera was already set this way but had forgotten about it as I use the Canon Camera Connect app most of the time for video.

No one set up can do it all so decide your priority remembering that the shorter the focal length the easier it gets.

Alan

Dont forget the "rocket blower" to remove any large particulates first.

Alan

Fascinating.. I am strangely glued to it.

Alan

4 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

You can but it’s tight with 44mm back spacing to the lens collar.  Taking 17.5mm back focus for the average camera leaves 26.5mm to fit filter wheel and adapters.  Atik EFW is 22mm so this just leaves 4.5mm for adapters.  Off the shelf Canon-M48 adapters measure 10mm.  This means you end up too far away and can’t reach focus at infinity.  I have made up a custom M54-Nikon lens adapter that has a length of about 7mm.  This works because the Nikon lens back focus is 46.5mm.  I think that you could use a EFW with this lens but it wound require a thin EFW (I think QHY make one at 17mm) and a custom adapter.

I think the 400mm Canon has a built in filter drawer for 52mm filters, not sure if the astro ones would fit but it could be a neat solution..

Alan

I do this all the time, I have a Canon 80D connected to my PC using EOS utilities over wi fi and can control all aspects of the camera and even microfocus the lens while watching the remote live view screen...

I plan to get a Skywatcher AZ GTI mount soon so I can the pan around the sky too all remotely of course.

Alan

I find Polaris quite difficult to pick out when its dark and looking through the polarscope, however its much easier during twilight/daylight or with the polarscope illumination turned up so that the dimmer stars get swamped.

Alan

2 minutes ago, Daf1983 said:

I'm glad you approve! Seemed like a decent and cheap option compared to buying a dew strip + controller for more than twice the price

The main reason I bought mine was that I needed portability, will run off a mobile phone power bank for ages..

Alan

6 minutes ago, Daf1983 said:

Dew heater for my evostar 80ed. Just need the telescope to arrive now😂

There are quite a few of us now using Coowoo dew heaters, great bit of kit..

Alan

Now that AP has dedicated astro photography features I can see it growing to surpass even the best out there..

Alan 

1 hour ago, Mick J said:

This is worth a look even if your computer cannot implement,

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/photo/desktop/video/501733619/

Thanks Mick, have implemented the hardware acceleration..

Alan

4 hours ago, Nik271 said:

We need to find a lucky person who owns both the RASA 8 and the Canon 400 f2.8 and ask nicely for comparison shoot out 

The main reason the Canon is so expensive is the extra electronics and lens elements for autofocus and image stabilization. I just checked it up: 17 lens elements inside. Wow!

 

If you looked at a top end 140mm refractor it would have 5 or 6 elements minimum and that would only get you to f/7 ish so 17 is reasonable I think.

Alan

1 minute ago, festoon said:

Sorry had to post this picture from the gallery 

 

You beat me to it, its very impressive and not cheap...

Alan

2 minutes ago, festoon said:

Thanks @Alien 13...I have never heard of the dragonfly project...what was that?

Its this one...https://www.dragonflytelescope.org/

Alan

I think the Canon lens would be quite happy wide open and be sharper than the RASA after all it was used in the "dragonfly" telescope project.

Alan

There is another thread on this topic that has info on tutorials etc..

Alan